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JAYS  IN  ANCIENT  HISTORY 
AND  ANTIQUITIES. 


THOMAS  DE  QUINCEY. 


BOSTON: 
liOUGIITON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY. 

1881. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1851,  by 

TiCKNOR  AND  FIELDS, 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


Copyright,  1876, 
By  HURD  and  HOUGHTON. 


The  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge : 
Printed  by  H.  O.  Houghton  and  Company* 


(\  OA 

FEOM  THE  AUTHOE,  TO  THE  AMERICAN  EDITOR 
OF  HIS  WORKS.  * 

These  papers  I  am  anxious  to  put  into  the  hands  of  jour 
house,  and,  so  far  as  regards  the  U.  S.,  of  your  house  exclu- 
sively ;  not  with  any  view  to  further  emoiument,  but  as  an 
acknowledgment  of  the  services  which  you  have  already  ren- 
dered me  :  namely,  first,  in  having  brought  together  so  widely 
scattered  a  collection,  —  a  difficulty  which  in  my  own  hands 
by  too  painful  an  experience  I  had  found  from  nervous  de- 
pression to  be  absolutely  insurmountable ;  secondly,  in  hav- 
ing made  me  a  participator  in  the  pecuniary  profits  of  the 
American  edition,  without  solicitation  or  the  shadow  of  any 
expectation  on  my  part,  without  any  legal  claim  that  I  could 
plead,  or  equitable  warrant  in  established  usage,  solely  and 
merely  upon  your  own  spontaneous  motion.    Some  of  these 
new  papers,  I  hope,  will  not  be  without  their  value  in  the 
eyes  of  those  who  have  taken  an  interest  in  the  original 
series.    But  at  all  events,  good  or  bad,  they  are  now^'ten- 
dered  to  the  appropriation  of  your  individual  house,  the 
Messrs.  Ticknor  and  Fields,  according  to  the  amplest 
extent  of  any  power  to  make  such  a  transfer  that  I  may  be 
found  to  possess  by  law  or  custom  in  America. 

I  wish  this  transfer  were  likely  to  be  of  more  value.  But 
the  veriest  trifle,  interpreted  by  the  spirit  in  which  I  offer  it, 
may  express  my  sense  of  the  liberality  manifested  throughout 
this  tr-^nsaction  by  your  honorable  house. 
Ever  believe  me,  my  dear  sir, 

Your  faithful  and  obliged, 

THOMAS  DE  QUmCEY. 

0  stc  rpe  plates  of  De  Qiiincey's  Works 'and  the  right  of 
ion  ]ia  /e  passed,  by  dire-  ':  succession,  from  Ticknor  and 

to  H  )UGH  LMN^  MiFFT  TV       td  COMPANY. 


466941. 


PUBLISHERS'  ADVERTISEMENT. 


The  present  edition  is  a  reissue  of  the  Works  of 
Thomas  De  Quincey.  The  series  is  based  upon  the 
American  Edition  of  De  Quincey's  Works,  pub- 
lished originally  in  twenty-two  volumes.  After 
that  edition  was  issued,  a  complete  English  edition 
was  published  in  Edinburgh  and  was  edited  and 
revised  in  part  by  the  author.  This  edition  con- 
tained changes  and  additions,  and  the  opportunity 
has  been  taken,  in  reissuing  the  American  edition, 
to  incorporate  the  new  material  which  appeared 
in  the  English  edition.  At  the  same  time,  the 
arrangement  of  the  several  productions  is  more 
systematic  and  orderly  than  was  possible  when  the 
collection  was  first  made,  at  different  intervals, 
under  difficulties  which  render  the  work  of  the 
first  editor  especially  praiseworthy.  In  the  final 
volume,  an  introduction  to  the  series  sets  forth  the 
plan  carried  out  in  this  new  arrangement,  and  that 
volume  also  contains  a  very  full  index  to  the  entire 
series.  Throughout  the  series,  the  notes  of  the 
editor  are  distinguished  from  those  of  the  author 
by  being  inclosed  in  brackets .[  ]. 


PEEFAOE. 


[The  following  are  brief  general  notes  with  which 
Mr.  De  Quincey  introduced  "  The  Csesars,"  and  Plato's 

Republic when  revising  the  latest  edition  of  his 
works.] 

"  The  C^sars,"  it  may  be  right  to  niention,  was 
written  in  a  situation  which  denied  me  the  use  of 
books ;  so  that  with  the  exception  of  a  few  penciled 
extracts  in  a  pocket-book  from  the  Augustan  history,  I 
was  obliged  to  depend  upon  my  memory  for  materials, 
in  so  far  as  respected  facts.  These  materials  for  the 
Western  Empire  are  not  more  scanty  than  meagre  ;  and 
in  that  proportion  so  much  the  greater  is  the  tempta- 
tion which  they  offer  to  free  and  skeptical  speculation. 
To  this  temptation  I  have  yielded  intermittingly  ;  but 
from  a  fear  (perhaps  a  cowardly  fear)  of  being  classed 
as  a  dealer  in  licentious  paradox,  I  checked  myself 
exactly  where  the  largest  license  might  have  been 
properly  allowed  to  a  bold  spirit  of  incredulity.  In 
particular,  I  cannot  bring  myself  to  believe,  nor  ought 
therefore  to  have  assumed  the  tone  of  a  believer,  in  the 
inhuman  atrocities  charged  upon  the  earlier  Caesars. 
Guided  by  my  own  instincts  of  truth  and  probability,  I 
shoiild,  for  ^*  -stance,  have  summarily  exploded  the 
most  re\>Hdng  among  the  crimes  imputed  to  Nero. 


ii 


PREFACE. 


But  too  often,  writers  who  have  been  compelled  to 
deal  in  ghastly  hoi'i'ors  form  a  taste  for  such  scenes  ; 
and  sometimes,  as  may  be  seen  exemplified  in  those 
who  record  the  French  "  Reign  of  Terror,"  become 
angrily  credulous,  and  impatient  of  the  slightest  hesita- 
tion in  going  along  with  the  maniacal  excesses  recorded. 
Apparently  Suetonius  suffered  from  that  morbid  appe- 
tite. Else  would  he  have  countenanced  the  hyperboli- 
cal extravagances  current  about  the  murder  of  Agrip- 
pina  ?  What  motive  had  Nero  for  murdering  his 
mother  ?  or,  assuming  the  slightest  motive,  what  diffi- 
culty in  accomplishing  this  murder  by  secret  agencies  ? 
What  need  for  the  elaborate  contrivance  (as  in  some 
costly  pantomime)  of  self-dissolving  ships  ?  But  waiv- 
ing all  this  superfluity  of  useless  mechanism,  which  by 
requiring  many  hands  in  working  it  must  have  multi- 
plied the  accomplices  in  the  crime,  and  have  published 
his  intentions  to  all  Rome,  how  do  these  statements 
tally  with  the  instant  resort  of  the  lady  herself,  upou 
reaching  land,  to  the  affectionate  sympathy  of  her  son  ? 
Upon  this  sympathy  she  counted  :  but  how,  if  all  Rome 
knew  that,  like  a  hunted  hare,  she  was  then  running  on 
the  traces  of  her  last  double  before  receiving  her  death- 
blow ?  Such  a  crime,  so  causeless  as  regarded  provo- 
cation, so  objectless  as  regarded  purpose,  and  so  revolt- 
ing to  the  primal  impulses  of  nature,  would,  unless 
popularly  viewed  as  the  crime  of  a  maniac,  have  alien- 
ated from  Nero  even  his  poor  simple  nurse,  and  other 
dependants,  who  showed  for  many  years  after  his 
death  the  strength  of  their  attachment  by  adorning  his 
grave  with  flowers,  and  by  inflicting  such  vindictive  in- 
sults as  they  could  upon  the  corpse  of  his  antagonist, 
Galba. 


PREFACE.  iii 

Meantime  that  he  might  be  insane,  and  entitled  to 
the  excuse  of  insanity,  is  possible.  If  not,  what  a 
monstrous  part  in  the  drama  is  played  by  the  Roman 
people,  who,  after  this  alleged  crime,  and  believing  it, 
yet  sat  with  tranquillity  to  hear  his  musical  perform- 
ances !  But  a  taint  of  insanity  certainly  did  prevail 
m  the  blood  of  the  earlier  Cassars,  i.  e.,  down  to  Nero- 

Over  and  above  this  taint  of  physical  insanity,  we 
should  do  well  to  allow  for  the  preternatural  tendency 
towards  moral  insanity  generated  and  nursed  by  the 
anomalous  situation  of  the  Tmperator  —  a  situation  un- 
known before  or  since ;  in  which  situation  the  license 
allowed  to  the  individual,  after  the  popular  comitia  had 
virtually  become  extinct,  hid*  too  often  from  his  eye 
this  perilous  fact,  that  in  one  solitary  direction,  viz., 
in  regar.d  to  the  representative  functions  which  he  dis- 
charged as  embodying  the  Koman  majesty,  he,  the 
supreme  of  men  upon- earth,  had  a  narrower  license  or 
discretionary  power  of  action  than  any  slave  upon 
whose  neck  he  trode.  Better  for  him,  for  his  own  com- 
fort in  living,  and  for  his  chance  of  quiet  in  dying,  that 
he  should  violate  the  moral  sense  by  every  act  of 
bloody  violence  or  of  brutal  appetite,  than  that  he 
should  trifle  with  the  heraldic  sanctity  of  his  Impera- 
torial  robe. 

The  readers  of  Plato,  if  such  a  class  anywhere  ex- 
ists, must  be  aware  of  his  profound  failure  in  an  at- 
tempt to  explore  the  etymology  of  a  few  Grecian 
words.  Such  a  failure,  considering  the  etymological 
resources  then  at  the  command  of  Greek  philology,  was 
■nevitable.    It  is  no  subject  for  blame.    But  not  the 


PREFACE. 


less  it  suggests,  as  its  own  direct  consequence,  what  is 
a  subject  for  the  heaviest,  viz.,  the  obstinate  vassalage 
to  purely  verbal  fancies,  which  is  continually  a  fruitful 
source  of  erring  and  misleading  speculation  to  Plato. 
In  the  last  book  of  "  The  Republic  "  we  have  a  lively 
instance  of  this.  Plato  there  argues  two  separate  ques- 
tions :  first,  the  Immortality  of  the  Soul  (more  elabo- 
rately treated  in  the  "  Phaedo  ")  ;  secondly,  the  grounds 
upon  which  he  expelled  the  Poets,  and  Homer  beyond 
all  others,  from  his  immaculate  Commonwealth.  Oi 
this  ideal  Commonwealth  it  is  sufficient  to  say,  that  the 
one  capital  vice  which  has  ruined  Asia,  and  laid  her 
(speaking  generally)  a  contemptible  and  helpless  victim 
at  the  feet  of  Christendom,  viz.,  polygamy  and  sexual 
effeminacy,  carried  to  the  last  conceivable  excesses,  is 
by  Plato  laid  down  deliberately  as  the  basis,  of  his 
social  system.  And,  as  if  this  were  not  enough,  in- 
fanticide is  superadded  as  the  crown  and  glorifying 
aureola  of  the  whole  diabolical  economy.  After  this, 
the  reader  will  feel  some  curiosity  to  learn  what  it  is 
by  which  the  Poets  could  signalize  their  immortality  in 
Plato's  eyes.  The  Platonic  reason  assigned  for  taboo- 
ing the  "  Iliad  "  and  "  Odyssey,"  and  the  whole  of  the 
Tragic  drama,  is  this :  and  it  will  be  seen  that  the  first 
manifestation  of  the  evil  redressed  lies  in  the  scenic 
poets,  but  the  fountain  of  the  offence  lies  in  Homer. 
Tragedy,  says  Plato,  seeks  as  its  main  object  to  extort 
tears  and  groans  from  the  audience  in  sympathy  with 
the  distress  on  the  stage.  Well,  why  not  ?  Because 
there  is  some  obligation  (where  seated,  or  by  whom 
enacted,  Plato  is  careful  to  conceal)  which  makes  such 
sympathy,  or  such  expressions  of  sympathy,  improper 


PREFACE. 


V 


But  in  what  way  improper  ?  The  insinuation  is  —  as 
being  effeminate,  and  such  as  men  rightly  seek  to  hide. 
Here,  then,  we  have,  as  the  main  legislatorial  sanction 
and  rule  of  conduct,  a  sensitive  horror  of  indecorum. 
And  the  supposed  law,  or  rule,  to  which  Plato  appeals 
for  his  justification,  is  a  pure  verbal  chimera,  without 
even  a  plausible  ground.  And  for  such  a  reason  the 
sole  noble  revelation  of  moral  feeling  in  Grecian  poetry 
is  laid  under  an  interdict.  But  why  is  Homer  com- 
promised by  this  interdict?  Simply  on  the  ground  (a 
most  false  one)  that  he  is  originally  answerable  for  the 
dramatic  stories  employed  by  the  scenic  poets.  Now, 
in  order  to  show  the  careless  reading  of  Plato,  it  is 
sufficient  to  remark  briefly,  that  a  large  proportion  of 
the  Greek  tragedies  move  by  terror,  by  horror,  by 
sympathy  with  the  unknown  mysteries  surrounding 
human  nature,  and  are  of  a  nature  to  repel  tears ;  and 
that  for  three  out  cf  four  such  ground-works  of  the 
tragic  poetry  Homer  is  noways  responsible.  It  is  also 
altogether  overlooked  by  Plato  that  in  the  grandeur 
of  the  choral  music,  in  the  mazes  of  the  symbolic 
dances,  and  in  the  awful  magnitude  of  the  spectacle 
(spectacle  and  spectators  taken  as  a  whole),  a  provision 
is  made  for  elevating  the  mind  far  above  the  region  of 
effeminate  sensibilities.  Milton,  with  his  Christian 
standard  of  purity  and  holiness,  found  tho.t  beyond 
measure  noble  which  Plato,  the  organizer  of  polygamy 
and  wholesale  infanticide,  rejects  as  immoral ! 


CONTENTS. 


PA61 

The  C^ars  .9 

Chapter  1   30 

Chapter  II   65 

Chapter  III   86 

Chapter  IV   131 

Chapter  V   179 

Chapter  VI   217 

Cicero   257 

Philosophy  of  Roman  History   313 

Greece  under  the  Romans:  with  a  Reference  to  Mr. 

George  Finlay's  work  upon  that  Subject     .      .  337 

Philosophy  of  Herodotus   377 

Plato's  Republic   431 

Dinner,  Real  and  Reputed   483 

Toilette  of  the  Hebrew  Lady     .      .      .      .      .  525 

The  Sphinx's  Riddle   562 

Aelius  Lamia   579 

S^OTES        .   691 


i 


THE  C^SARS. 


The  majesty  of  the  Roman  Caesar  Semper  Au- 
gustus has  never  yet  been  fully  appreciated ;  nor  has 
any  man  yet  explained  sufficiently  in  what  respects 
this  title  and  this  office  were  absolutely  unique. 
There  was  but  one  Rome :  no  other  city,  as  we  are 
satisfied  by  the  collation  of  many  facts,  has  ever  ri- 
valled this  astonishing  metropolis  in  the  grandeur  of 
magnitude ;  and  not  many  —  perhaps  if  we  except^ 
the  cities  built  under  Grecian  auspices  along  the  line 
of  three  thousand  miles,  from  Western  Capua  or 
Syracuse  to  the  Euphrates  and  oriental  Palmyra, 
none  at  all  —  in  the  grandeur  of  architectural  dis- 
play. Speaking  even  of  London,  we  ought  in  all 
reason  to  say  —  the  Nation  of  London,  and  not  the 
City  of  London  ;  but  of  Rome  in  her  palmy  days, 
nothing  less  could  be  said  in  the  naked  severity  of 
logic.  A  million  and  a  half  of  souls^ —  that  popu- 
lation, apart  from  any  other  distinctions,  is  per  se 
for  London,  a  justifying  ground  for  such  a  classifi- 
i:ation ;  d  fortiori,  then,  will  it  belong  to  a  city  which 
counted  from  one  horn  to  the  other  of  its  mighty 
suburbs  not  less  than  four  millions  of  inhabitants 
at  the  very  least,  as  we  resolutely  maintain  after 
reviewing  all  that  has  been  written  on  that  much 


10 


THE  C^SARS. 


vexed  theme,  and  very  probably  half  as  many  more 
Republican  Rome  had  her  'prerogative  tribe  ;  the  earth 
has  its  prerogative  city  ;  and  that  city  was  Rome. 

As  was  the  city,  such  was  its  prince  —  mysterious, 
solitary,  unique.  Each  was  to  the  other  an  adequate 
counterpart,  each  reciprocally  that  perfect  mirror 
which  reflected  as  it  were  in  alia  materia^  those  in- 
communicable attributes  of  grande^ir,  that  under  the 
same  shape  and  denomination  never  upon  this  earth 
were  destined  to  be  revived.  Rome  has  not  been  re- 
peated ;  neither  has  Caesar.  TJH  Ccesar,  ibi  Roma^ 
was  a  maxim  of  Roman  jurisprudence.  And  the 
same  maxim  may  be  translated  into  a  wider  mean- 
ing ;  in  which  it  becomes  true  also  for  our  historical 
experience.  Caesar  and  Rome  have  flourished  and 
expired  together.  The  illimitable  attributes  of  the 
Roman  prince,  boundless  and  comprehensive  as  the 
universal  air,  —  like  that  also  bright  and  apprehen- 
sible to  the  most  vagrant  eye,  yet  in  parts  (and  those 
not  far  removed)  unfathomable  as  outer  darkness, 
(for  no  chamber  in  a  dungeon  could  shroud  in  more 
impenetrable  concealment  a  deed  of  murder  than  the 
upper  chambers  of  the  air,)  —  these  attributes,  so 
impressive  to  the  imagination,  and  which  all  the 
subtlety  of  the  Roman  ^  wit  could  as  little  fathom  as 
the  fleets  of  Caesar  could  traverse  the  Polar  basin, 
^r  unlock  the  gates  of  the  Pacific,  are  best  sym- 
oolized,  and  find  their  most  appropriate  exponent,  in 


THE  CiESARS. 


11 


the  illimitable  city  itself — that  Rome,  whose  centre, 
the  Capitol,  was  immovable  as  TenerifFe  or  Atlas, 
but  whose  circumference  was  shadowy,  uncertain, 
restless,  and  advancing  as  the  frontiers  of  her  all- 
conquering  empire.  It  is  false  to  say,  that  with 
Caesar  came  the  destruction  of  Roman  greatness. 
Peace,  hollow  rhetoricians !  Until  Caesar  came,  Rome 
was  a  minor  ;  by  him,  she  attained  her  majority,  and 
fulfilled  her  destiny.  Caius  Julius,  you  say,  de- 
flowered the  virgin  purity  of  her  civil  liberties. 
Doubtless,  then,  Rome  had  risen  immaculate  from 
the  arms  of  Sylla  and  of  Marius.  But,  if  it  were 
Caius  Julius  who  deflowered  Rome,  if  under  him  she 
forfeited  her  dowery  of  civic  purity,  if  to  him  she 
first  unloosed  her  maiden  zone,  then  be  it  afiirmed 
boldly  —  that  she  reserved  her  greatest  favors  for 
the  noblest  of  her  wooers,  and  we  may  plead  the 
justification  of  Falconbridge  for  his  mother's  trans- 
gressions with  the  lion-hearted  king  —  such  a  sin  was 
self-ennobled.  Did  Julius  deflower  Rome?  Then,  by 
that  consummation,  he  caused  her  to  fulfil  the  func- 
tions of  her  nature  ;  he  compelled  her  to  exchange  the 
imperfect  and  inchoate  condition  of  a  mere  fcemina  for 
the  perfections  of  a  mulier.  And  metaphor  apart, 
ive  maintain  that  Rome  lost  no  liberties  by  the  mighty 
Julius.  That  which  in  tendency,  and  by  the  spirit  of 
aer  institutions ;  that  which,  by  her  very  corruptions 
and  abuses  co-operating  with  her  laws,  Rome  promised 


12 


THE  C^SAKS, 


and  involved  in  the  germ  ;  even  that,  and  nothing 
less  or  different,  did  Home  unfold  and  accomplish 
under  this  Julian  violence.  The  rape  [if  such  it  were] 
of  Caesiar,  her  final  Romulus,  completed  for  Rome  that 
which  the  rape  under  Romulus,  her  earliest  Csesar, 
had  prosperously  begun.  And  thus  by  one  godlike 
man  was  a  nation-city  matured  ;  and  from  the  ever- 
lasting and  nameless  ^  city  was  a  man  produced  — 
capable  of  taming  her  indomitable  nature,  and  of 
forcing  her  to  immolate  her  wild  virginity  to  the  state 
best  fitted  for  the  destined  '  Mother  of  empires.' 
Peace,  then,  rhetoricians,  false  threnodists  of  false 
liberty  !  hollow  chanters  over  the  ashes  of  a  hollow 
republic  !  Without  Caesar,  we  afErm  a  thousand  times 
that  there  would  have  been  no  perfect  Rome  ;  and, 
but  for  Rome,  there  could  have  been  no  such  man  as 
Caesar. 

Both,  then,  were  immortal ;  each  worthy  of  each, 
and  the  Cui  viget  nihil  simile  aut  secundum  of  the 
poet,  was  as  true  of  one  as  of  the  other.  Fcr,  if  by 
comparison  with  Rome  other  cities  were  but  villages, 
with  even  more  propriety  it  may  be  asserted,  that  after 
the  Roman  Caesars  all  modern  kings,  kesars,  or  empe^ 
rors,  are  mere  phantoms  of  royalty.  The  Caesar  of 
Western  Rome  —  he  only  of  all  earthly  potentates, 
past  or  to  come,  could  be  said  to  reign  as  a  monarchy 
that  is,  as  a  solitary  king.  He  was  not  the  greatest 
rf  princes ,  simply  because  there  was  no  other  but  ^im- 


THE  C^SARS. 


18 


self.  There  were  doubtless  a  few  outlying  rulers,  of 
unknown  names  and  titles  upon  the  margins  of  his 
empire,  there  were  tributary  lieutenants  and  barbarous 
reguli,  the  obscure  vassals  of  his  sceptre,  whose  hom- 
*  age  was  offered  on  the  lowest  step  of  his  throne,  and 
scarcely  known  to  him  but  as  objects  of  disdain.  But 
these  feudatories  could  no  more  break  the  unity  of  his 
empire,  which  embraced  the  whole  oixt^^ist)!  —  the  total 
habitable  world  as  then  known  to  geography,  or  recog- 
nized by  the  muse  of  History  —  than  at  this  day  the 
British  empire  on  the  sea  can  be  brought  into  question 
or  made  conditional,  because  some  chief  of  Owyhee 
or  Tongataboo  should  proclaim  a  momentary  indepen- 
dence of  the  British  trident,  or  should  even  offer  a 
transient  outrage  to  her  sovereign  flag.  Such  a  tern- 
pestas  in  matuld  might  raise  a  brief  uproar  in  his  little 
native  archipelago,  but  too  feeble  to  reach  the  shores 
of  Europe  by  an  echo  —  or  to  ascend  by  so  much  as 
an  infantine  susurrus  to  the  ears  of  the  British  Neptune. 
Parthia,  it  is  true,  might  pretend  to  the  dignity  of  an 
empire.  But  her  sovereigns,  though  sitting  in  the  seat 
of  the  great  king,  (6  ^aaiXBvg,')  were  no  longer  the  rulers 
of  a  vast  and  polished  nation.  They  were  regarded  as 
barbarians  —  potent  only  by  their  standing  army,  not 
upon  the  larger  basis  of  civic  strength ;  and,  even  under 
Chis  limitation,  they  were  supposed  to  owe  more  to  the 
lircumstances  of  their  position  —  their  climate,  their 
"emoteness,  and  their  inaccessibility  except  through 


14 


THE  CiESA^RS. 


arid  and  sultry  deserts  —  than  to  intrinsic  resources, 
such  as  could  be  permanently  relied  on  in  a  serious 
trial  of  strength  between  the  two  powers.  The  kings 
of  Parthia,  therefore,  were  far  enough  from  being 
regarded  in  the  light  of  antagonistic  forces  to  the 
majesty  of  Rome.  And,  these  withdrawn  from  the 
comparison,  who  else  was  there  — -what  prince,  what 
king,  what  potentate  of  any  denomination,  to  break  the 
universal  calm,  that  through  centuries  continued  to 
lave,  as  with  the  quiet  undulations  of  summer  lakes, 
the  sacred  footsteps  of  the  Csesarean  throne  ?  The 
Byzantine  court  which,  merely  as  the  inheritor  of 
some  fragments  from  that  august  throne,  was  drunk 
with  excess  of  pride,  surrounded  itself  with  elaborate 
expressions  of  grandeur  beyond  what  mortal  eyes 
were  supposed  able  to  sustain. 

These  fastidious,  and  sometimes  fantastic  ceremo- 
iues,  originally  devised  as  the  very  extremities  of 
anti- barbarism,  were  often  themselves  but  too  nearly 
allied  in  spirit  to  the  barbaresque  in  taste.  In  reality, 
some  parts  of  the  Byzantine  court  ritual  were  arranged 
in  the  same  spirit  as  that  of  China  or  the  Burman  em- 
pire ;  or  fashioned  by  anticipation,  as  one  might  think, 
on  the  practice  of  that  Oriental  Cham,  who  daily 
proclaims  by  sound  of  trumpet  to  the  kings  in  the 
four  corners  of  the  earth  —  that  they,  having  dutifully 
awaited  the  close  of  his  dinner,  may  now  with  his 
Wyal  license  go  to  their  own. 


THE   C^SARS.  ^  15 

From  such  vestiges  of  derivative  grandeur,  propa- 
gated to  ages  so  remote  from  itself,  and  sustained  by 
manners  so  different  from  the  spirit  of  her  own,  — 
we  may  faintly  measure  the  strength  of  the  original 
impulse  given  to  the  feelings  of  men  by  the  sacred 
majesty  of  the  Roman  throne.  How  potent  must  that 
splendor  have  been,  whose  mere  reflection  shot  rays 
upon  a  distant  crown,  under  another  heaven,  and 
across  the  wilderness  of  fourteen  centuries  !  Splen- 
dor, thus  transmitted,  thus  sustained,  and  thus  imper- 
ishable, argues  a  transcendent  in  the  basis  of  radical 
power.  Broad  and  deep  must  those  foundations  have 
been  laid,  which  could  support  an  '  arch  of  empire ' 
rising  to  that  giddy  altitude  —  an  altitude  which  suf" 
ficed  to  bring  it  within  the  ken  of  posterity  to  the 
sixtieth  generation. 

Power  is  measured  by  resistance.  Upon  such  a 
scale,  if  it  were  applied  with  skill,  the  relations  of 
greatness  in  Rome  to  the  greatest  of  all  that  has  gone 
before  her,  and  has  yet  come  after  her,  would  first  be 
adequately  revealed.  The  youngest  reader  will  know 
that  the  grandest  forms  in  which  the  collective  might 
of  the  human  race  has  manifested  itself,  are  the  four 
mor-archies.  Four  times  have  the  distributive  forces 
of  nations  gathered  themselves,  under  the  strong  com- 
pression of  the  sword,  into  mighty  aggregates  —  de- 
nominated Universal  Empires,  or  Monarchies.  These 
are  noticed  in  the  Holy  Scriptures ;  and  it  is  upon 


16 


THE  C^SARS. 


their  warrant  that  men  have  supposed  no  fifth  mon- 
archy or  universal  empire  possible  in  an  earthly  sense ; 
but  that,  whenever  such  an  empire  arises,  it  will  have 
Christ  for  its  head;  in  other  words,  that  no  fifth 
monarchia  can  take  place  until  Christianity  shall  have 
swallowed  up  all  other  forms  of  religion,  and  shall 
have  gathered  the  whole  family  of  man  into  one  fold 
under  one  all-conquering  Shepherd.  Hence  ^  the  fa- 
natics of  1650,  who  proclaimed  Jesus  for  their  king, 
and  who  did  sincerely  anticipate  his  near  advent  in 
great  power,  and  under  some  personal  manifestation, 
were  usually  styled  Fifth- Monarchists* 

However,  waiving  the  question  (interesting  enough 
in  itself)  —  Whether  upon  earthly  principles  a  fifth 
universal  empire  could  by  possibility  arise  in  the 
present  condition  of  knowledge  for  man  individually, 
and  of  organization  for  man  in  general  —  this  question 
waived,  and  confining  ourselves  to  the  comparison  of 
those  four  monarchies  which  actually  have  existed,  — 
of  the  Assyrian  or  earliest,  we  may  remark,  that  it 
found  men  in  no  state  of  cohesion.  This  cause,  which 
came  in  aid  of  its  first  foundation,  would  probably  con- 
tinue ;  and  would  diminish  the  intensity  of  the  power 
in  the  same  proportion  as  it  promoted  its  extension. 
This  monarchy  would  be  absolute  only  by  the  personal 
presence  of  the  monarch ;  elsewhere,  from  mere  defect 
of  organization,  it  would  and  must  betray  the  total 
imperfections  of  an  elementary  state,  and  of  a  first 


THE  C^SARS. 


17 


experiment.  More  by  the  weakness  inherent  in  such 
a  constitution,  than  by  its  own  strength,  did  the 
Persian  spear  prevail  against  the  Assyrian.  Two 
centuries  revolved,  seven  or  eight  generations,  when 
Alexander  found  himself  in  the  same  position  as  Cyrus 
for  building  a  third  monarchy,  and  aided  by  the  self- 
same vices  of  luxurious  effeminacy  in  his  enemy,  con- 
fronted with  the  self- same  virtues  of  enterprise  and 
hardihood  in  his  compatriot  soldiers.  The  native 
Persians,  in  the  earliest  and  very  limited  import  of  that 
name,  were  a  poor  and  hardy  race  of  mountaineers. 
So  were  the  men  of  Macedon ;  and  neither  one  tribe 
nor  the  other  found  any  adequate  resistance  in  the 
luxurious  occupants  of  Babylonia.  We  may  add  with 
respect  to  these  two  earliest  monarchies,  that  the  As- 
syrian was  undefined  with  regard  to  space,  and  the 
Persian  fugitive  with  regard  to  time.  But  for  the 
third  —  the  Grecian  or  Macedonian  —  we  know  that 
the  arts  of  civility,  and  of  civil  organization,  had  made 
great  progress  before  the  Roman  strength  was  measured 
against  it.  In  Macedon,  in  Achaia,  in  Syria,  in  Asia 
Minor,  in  Egypt,  —  everywhere  the  members  of  this 
Empire  have  begun  to  knit ;  the  cohesion  was  far 
closer,  the  development  of  their  resources  more  com- 
plete ;  the  resistance  therefore  by  many  hundred  de- 
grees more  formidable :  consequently,  by  the  fairest 
inference,  the  power  in  that  proportion  greater  which 

laid  the  foundation  of  this  last  great  monarchy.    It  is 
2 


18 


THE  C^SARS. 


probable,  indeed,  both  d  priori,  and  upon  the  evidence 
of  various  facts  which  have  survived,  that  each  of  the 
four  great  empires  successively  triumphed  over  an 
antagonist,  barbarous  in  comparison  of  itself,  and  each 
by  and  through  that  very  superiority  in  the  arts  and 
policy  of  civilization. 

Rome,  therefore,  which  came  last  in  the  succession, 
and  swallowed  up  the  three  great  powers  that  had 
seriatim  cast  the  human  race  into  one  mould,  and  had 
brought  them  under  the  unity  of  a  single  will,  entered 
by  inheritance  upon  all  that  its  predecessors  in  that 
career  had  appropriated,  but  in  a  condition  of  far 
ampler  development.  Estimated  merely  by  longitude 
and  latitude,  the  territory  of  the  Roman  empire  was 
the  finest  by  much  that  has  ever  fallen  under  a  single 
sceptre.  Amongst  modern  empires,  doubtless,  the 
Spanish  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  the  British 
the  present,  cannot  but  be  admired  as  prodigious 
growths  out  of  so  small  a  stem.  In  that  view  they 
will  be  endless  monuments  in  attestation  of  the  mar- 
vels which  are  lodged  in  civilization.  But  considered 
in  and  for  itself,  and  with  no  reference  to  the  propor- 
tion of  the  creating  forces,  each  of  these  empires  haa 
the  great  defect  of  being  disjointed,  and  even  insus- 
ceptible of  perfect  union.  It  is  in  fact  no  innculum  of 
social  organization  which  held  them  together,  but  the 
ideal  vinculum  of  a  common  fealty,  and  of  submission 
to  the  same  sceptre.    This  is  not  like  the  tie  of  man* 


THE  C-aiSARS, 


19 


ners,  operative  even  where  it  is  not  perceived,  but  like 
the  distinctions  of  geography  —  existing  to-day,  for- 
gotten to-morrow  —  and  abolished  by  a  stroke  of  the 
pen,  or  a  trick  of  diplomacy.  Russia,  again,  a  mighty 
empire  as  respects  the  simple  grandeur  of  magnitude, 
builds  her  power  upon  sterility,  She  has  it  in  her 
power  to  seduce  an  invading  foe  into  vast  circles  of 
starvation,  of  which  the  radii  measure  a  thousand 
leagues.  Frost  and  snow  are  confederates  of  her 
strength.  She  is  strong  by  her  very  weakness.  But 
Rome  laid  a  belt  about  the  Mediterranean  of  a  thou- 
sand miles  in  breadth ;  and  within  that  zone  she  com- 
prehended not  only  all  the  great  cities  of  the  ancient 
world,  but  so  perfectly  did  she  lay  the  garden  of  the 
world  in  every  climate,  and  for  every  mode  of  natural 
wealth,  within  her  own  ring-fence,  that  since  that  era 
no  land,  no  part  and  parcel  of  the  Roman  empire,  has 
ever  risen  into  strength  and  opulence,  except  where 
unusual  artificial  industry  has  availed  to  counteract 
the  tendencies  of  nature.  So  entirely  had  Rome  en- 
grossed whatsoever  was  rich  by  the  mere  bounty  of 
native  endowment. 

Vast,  therefore,  unexampled,  immeasurable,  was  the 
oasis  of  natural  power  upon  which  the  Roman  throne 
reposed.  The  military  force  which  put  Rome  in  pos- 
session of  this  inordinate  power,  was  certainly  in  some 
'espects  artificial;  but  the  power  itself  was  natural, 
and  not  subject  to  the  ebbs  and  flows  which  attend  the 


20 


THE  CJESARS, 


commercial  empires  of  our  days,  (for  all  are  in  part 
commercial.)  The  depression,  the  reverses,  of  Rome, 
were  confined  to  one  shape  —  famine ;  terrific  shape, 
doubtless,  but  one  which  levies  its  penalty  of  suffering 
not  by  elaborate  processes  that  do  not  exhaust  their 
total  cycle  in  less  than  long  periods  of  years.  Fortu- 
nately for  those  who  survive,  no  arrears  of  misery  are 
allowed  by  this  scourge  of  ancient  days  ;  ^  the  total 
penalty  is  paid  down  at  once.  As  respected  the  hand 
of  man,  Rome  slept  for  ages  in  absolute  security.  She 
could  suffer  only  by  the  wrath  of  Providence  ;  and,  so 
long  as  she  continued  to  be  Rome,  for  many  a  genera- 
tion she  only  of  all  the  monarchies  has  feared  no 
mortal  hand,^ 

 *  God  and  his  Son  except. 

Created  thing  naught  valued  she  nor  shunned.' 

That  the  possessor  and  wielder  of  such  enormous 
power — power  alike  admirable  for  its  extent,  for  its 
intensity,  and  for  its  consecration  from  all  counter- 
forces  which  could  restrain  it,  or  endander  it  —  should 
be  regarded  as  sharing  in  the  attributes  of  supernatural 
beings,  is  no  more  than  might  naturally  be  expected. 
All  other  known  power  in  human  hands  has  either 
been  extensive,  but  wanting  in  intensity  —  or  intense, 
but  wanting  in  extent  —  or,  thirdly,  liable  to  perma- 
nent control  and  hazard  from  some  antagonist  power 
commensurate  with  itself.  But  the  Roman  power,  in 
its  centuries  of  grandeur,  involved  every  mode  of 


THE  C^SARS. 


21 


strength,  with  absolute  immunity  from  all  kinds  and 
degrees  of  weakness.  It  ought  not,  therefore,  to  surprise 
us  that  the  emperor,  as  the  depositary  of  this  charmed 
power,  should  have  been  looked  upon  as  a  sacred  per- 
son, and  the  imperial  family  considered  as  a  '  divina 
domus.'  It  is  an  error  to  regard  this  as  excess  of 
adulation,  or  as  built  originally  upon  hypocrisy.  Un- 
doubtedly the  expressions  of  this  feeling  are  sometimes 
gross  and  overcharged,  as  we  find  them  in  the  very 
greatest  of  the  Roman  poets :  for  example,  it  shocks 
us  to  find  a  fine  writer,  in  anticipating  the  future  can- 
onization of  his  patron,  and  his  enstalment  amongst 
the  heavenly  hosts,  begging  him  to  keep  his  distance 
warily  from  this  or  that  constellation,  and  to  be  cau- 
tious of  throwing  his  weight  into  either  hemisphere, 
until  the  scale  of  proportions  were  accurately  adjusted. 
These  doubtless  are  passages  degrading  alike  to  the 
poet  and  his  subject.  But  why  ?  Not  because  they 
ascribe  to  the  emperor  a  sanctity  which  he  had  not  in 
the  minds  of  men  universally,  or  which  even  to  the 
writer's  feeling  was  exaggerated,  but  because  it  was  ex- 
pressed coarsely,  and  as  a  physical  power  :  now,  every- 
thing physical  is  measurable  by  weight,  motion,  and 
resistance  ;  and  is  therefore  definite.  But  the  very  es- 
sence of  whatsoever  is  supernatural  lies  in  the  indefinite. 
That  power,  therefore,  with  which  the  minds  of  men 
mvested  the  emperor,  was  vulgarized  by  this  coarse 
translation  into  the  region  of  physics.    Else  it  is  e^d- 


22 


THE  C^SARS. 


dent,  that  any  power  which,  by  standing  above  all 
human  control,  occupies  the  next  relation  to  superhu- 
man modes  of  authority,  must  be  invested  by  all 
minds  alike  with  some  dim  and  undefined  relation  to 
the  sanctities  of  the  next  world.  Thus,  for  instance, 
the  Pope,  as  the  father  of  Catholic  Christendom,  could 
not  hut  be  viewed  with  awe  by  any  Christian  of  deep 
feeling,  as  standing  in  some  relation  to  the  true  and 
unseen  Father  of  the  spiritual  body.  Nay,  considering 
that  even  false  religions,  as  those  of  Pagan  mythology, 
have  probably  never  been  utterly  stripped  of  all  ves- 
tige of  truth,  but  that  every  such  mode  of  error  has 
perhaps  been  designed  as  a  process,  and  adapted  by 
Providence  to  the  case  of  those  who  were  capable  oi 
admitting  no  more  perfect  shape  of  truth ;  even  the 
heads  of  such  superstitions  (the  Dalai  Lama,  for  in- 
stance) may  not  unregisonably  be  presumed  as  within 
the  cognizance  and  special  protection  of  Heaven. 
Much  more  may  this  be  supposed  of  him  to  whose  care 
was  confided  the  weightier  part  of  the  human  race; 
who  had  it  in  his  power  to  promote  or  to  suspend  the 
progress  of  human  improvement ;  and  of  whom,  and 
the  motions  of  whose  will,  the  very  prophets  of  Judea 
fook  cognizance.  No  nation,  and  no  king,  was  utterly 
divorced  from  the  councils  of  God.  Palestine,  as  a 
central  chamber  of  God's  administration,  stood  in 
some  relation  to  all.  It  has  been  remarked,  as  a  mys- 
terious and  significant  fact,  that  the  founders  of  the 


THE  J^SARS 


23 


great  empires  all  had  some  connection,  more  or  less, 
with  the  temple  of  Jerusalem.  Mel^incthon  even  ob- 
serves it  in  his  Sketch  of  Universal  History,  as  worthy 
of  notice  —  that  Pompey  died,  as  it  were,  within  sight 
of  that  very  temple  which  he  had  polluted.  Let  us 
not  suppose  that  Paganism,  or  Pagan  nations,  were 
therefore  excluded  from  the  concern  and  tender  inter- 
est of  Heaven.  They  also  had  their  place  allowed. 
And  we  may  be  sure  that,  amongst  them,  the  Roman 
emperor,  as  the  great  accountant  for  the  happiness  of 
more  men,  and  men  more  cultivated,  than  ever  before 
were  intrusted  to  the  motions  of  a  single  will,  had  a 
special,  singular,  and  mysterious  relation  to  the  secret 
counsels  of  Heaven. 

Even  we,  therefore,  may  lawfully  attribute  some 
sanctity  to  the  Roman  emperor.  That  the  Romans 
did  so  with  absolute  sincerity  is  certain.  The  altars 
of  the  emperor  had  a  twofold  consecration  ;  to  violate 
them,  was  the  double  crime  of  treason  and  heresy.  In 
his  appearances  of  state  and  ceremony,  the  fire,  the 
sacred  fire  ano^msvs,  was  carried  in  ceremonial  solemnity 
before  him  ;  and  every  other  circumstance  of  divine 
worship  attended  the  emperor  in  his  lifetime.*^ 

To  this  view  of  the  imperial  character  and  relations 
must  be  added  one  single  circumstance,  which  in  some 
measure  altered  the  whole  for  the  individual  who 
happened  to  fill  the  office*  The  emperor  de  facto 
might  be  viewed  under  two  aspects  ;  there  was  the 


24 


THE  C^SARS. 


man,  and  there  was  the  office.  In  his  office  he  was 
immortal  and  sacred  :  but  as  a  question  might  still 
be  raised,  by  means  of  a  mercenary  army,  as  to  the 
claims  of  the  particular  individual  who  at  any  time 
filled  the  office,  the  very  sanctity  and  privilege  of  the 
character  with  which  he  was  clothed  might  actually  be 
turned  against  himself ;  and  here  it  is,  at  this  point, 
that  the  character  of  Roman  emperor  became  truly 
and  mysteriously  awful.  Gibbon  has  taken  notice  of 
the  extraordinary  situation  of  a  subject  in  the  Roman 
empire  who  should  attempt  to  fly  from  the  wrath  of 
the  crown.  Such  was  the  ubiquity  of  the  emperor 
that  this  was  absolutely  hopeless.  Except  amongst 
pathless  deserts  or  barbarous  nomads,  it  was  impossi- 
ble to  find  even  a  transient  sanctuary  from  the  imperial 
pursuit.  If  he  went  down  to  the  sea,  there  he  met  the 
emperor  :  if  he  took  the  wings  of  the  morning,  and 
fled  to  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth,  there  also  was 
the  emperor  or  his  lieutenants.  But  the  same  omni- 
presence of  imperial  anger  and  retribution  which  with- 
ered the  hopes  of  the  poor  humble  prisoner,  met  and 
confounded  the  emperor  himself,  when  hurled  from  his 
giddy  elevation  by  some  fortunate  rival.  All  the  king- 
doms of  the  earth,  to  one  in  that  situation,  became  but 
so  many  wards  of  the  same  infinite  prison.  Flight,  if 
it  were  even  successful  for  the  moment,  did  but  a  little 
retard  his  inevitable  doom.  And  so  evident  was  this, 
*hat  hardly  in  one  instance  did  the  fallen  prince  attempt 


THE   C^SARS.  25 

to  fly,  but  passivel)''  met  tlie  death  whicli  was  inevitable, 
in  the  very  spot  where  ruin  had  overtaken  him.  Nei- 
ther was  it  possible  even  for  a  merciful  conqueror  to 
show  mercy  ;  for,  in  the  presence  of  an  army  so  mer- 
cenary and  factious,  his  own  safety  was  but  too  deeply 
involved  in  the  extermination  of  rival  pretenders  to 
the  crown. 

Such,  amidst  the  sacred  security  and  inviolability  of 
the  office,  w^as  the  hazardous  tenu.re  of  the  individual. 
Nor  did  his  dangers  always  arise  from  persons  in  the 
rank  of  competitors  and  rivals.  Sometimes  it  menaced 
him  in  quarters  which  his  eye  had  never  penetrated, 
and  from  enemies  too  obscure  to  have  reached  his  ear. 
By  way  of  illustration  we  will  cite  a  case  from  the  life 
of  the  Emperor  Commodus,  which  is  wild  enough  to 
have  furnished  the  plot  of  a  romance  —  though  as  well 
authenticated  as  any  other  passage  in  that  reign.  The 
story  is  narrated  by  Herodian,  and  the  circumstances 
are  these  :  —  A  slave  of  noble  qualities,  and  of  mag- 
nificent person,  having  liberated  himself  from  the 
degradations  of  bondage,  determined  to  avenge  his 
own  wrongs  by  inflicting  continual  terror  upon  the 
town  and  neighborhood  which  had  witnessed  his  hu- 
miliation. For  this  purpose  he  resorted  to  the  woody 
recesses  of  the  province,  (somewhere  in  the  modern 
Transylvania,)  and,  attracting  to  his  wild  encampment 
as  many  fugitives  as  he  could,  by  degrees  he  succeeded 
in  forming  and  training  a  very  formidable  troop  of  free- 


26  THE  C^SARS, 

booters.  Partly  from  the  energy  of  his  own  nature, 
Rnd  partly  from  the  neglect  and  remissness  of  the  pro- 
vincial magistrates,  the  robber  captain  rose  from  less  to 
more,  until  he  had  formed  a  little  army,  equal  to  the 
task  of  assaulting  fortified  cities.  In  this  stage  of  his 
adventures,  he  encountered  and  defeated  several  of 
the  imperial  officers  commanding  large  detachments  of 
'  troops  ;  and  at  length  grew  of  consequence  sufficient  to 
draw  upon  himself  the  emperor's  eye,  and  the  honor  of 
his  personal  displeasure.  In  high  wrath  and  disdain  at 
the  insults  offered  to  his  eagles  by  this  fugitive  slave, 
Commodus  fulminated  against  him  such  an  edict  as  left 
him  no  hope  of  much  longer  escaping  with  impunity. 

Public  vengeance  was  now  awakened  ;  the  imperial 
troops  were  marching  from  every  quarter  upon  the 
same  centre  ;  and  the  slave  became  sensible  that  in  a 
very  short  space  of  time  he  must  be  surrounded  and 
destroyed.  In  this  desperate  situation  he  took  a  des- 
perate resolution  :  he  assembled  his  troops,  laid  before 
them  his  plan,  concerted  the  various  steps  for  carrying 
it  into  effect,  and  then  dismissed  them  as  independent 
wanderers.    So  ends  the  first  chapter  of  the  tale. 

The  next  opens  in  the  passes  of  the  Alps,  whither 
by  various  routes,  of  seven  or  eight  hundred  miles  in 
extent,  these  men  had  threaded  their  way  in  manifold 
disguises  through  the  very  midst  of  the  emperor's 
camps.  According  to  this  man's  gigantic  enterprise, 
in  which  the  means  were  as  audacious  as  the  purpose. 


THE  C^SARS. 


27 


the  conspirators  were  to  rendezvous,  and  arst  to  recog- 
nize eacli  other  at  the  gates  of  Eome.  From  the  Danube 
fco  the  Tiber  did  this  band  of  robbers  severally  pursue 
their  perilous  routes  through  all  the  difficulties  of  the 
road  and  the  jealousies  of  the  military  stations,  sus- 
tained by  the  mere  thirst  of  vengeance  —  vengeance 
against  that  mighty  foe  whom  they  knew  only  by  his 
proclamations  against  themselves.  Everything  con- 
tinued to  prosper ;  the  conspirators  met  under  the  walls 
of  Rome  ;  the  final  details  were  arranged  ;  and  those 
also  would  have  prospered  but  for  a  trifling  accident. 
The  season  was  one  of  general  carnival  at  Rome ;  and, 
by  the  help  of  those  disguises  which  the  license  of  this 
festal  time  allowed,  the  murderers  were  to  have  pene- 
trated as  maskers  to  the  emperor's  retirement,  when  a 
casual  word  or  two  awoke  the  suspicions  of  a  sentinel. 
One  of  the  conspirators  was  arrested ;  under  the  terror 
and  uncertainty  of  the  moment  he  made  much  ampler 
discoveries  than  were  expected  of  him ;  the  other 
accomplices  were  secured  :  and  Commodus  was  deliv- 
ered from  the  uplifted  daggers  of  those  who  had  sought 
him  by  months  of  patient  wanderings,  pursued  through 
ftil  the  depths  of  the  Illyrran  forests,  and  the  difficulties 
of  the  Alpine  passes.  It  is  not  easy  to  find  words  com- 
mensurate to  the  energetic  hardihood  of  a  slave  —  who, 
by  way  of  answer  and  reprisal  to  an  edict  which  con- 
signed him  to  persecution  and  death,  determines  to 
^Toss  Europe  in  quest  of  its  author,  though  no  less  a 


28 


THE  C^SARS. 


person  than  the  master  of  the  world  —  to  seek  him  oat 
in  the  inner  recesses  of  his  capital  city  and  his  private 
palace  —  and  there  to  lodge  a  dagger  in  his  heart,  as 
the  adequate  reply  to  the  imperial  sentence  of  proscrip- 
tion against  himself. 

Such,  amidst  his  superhuman  grandeur  and  conse- 
crated powers  of  the  Roman  emperor's  office,  were  the 
extraordinary  perils  which  menaced  the  individual,  and 
the  peculiar  frailties  of  his  condition.  Nor  is  it  possi- 
ble that  these  circumstances  of  violent  opposition  can 
be  better  illustrated  than  in  this  tale  of  Herodian. 
Whilst  the  emperor's  mighty  arms  were  stretched  out 
to  arrest  some  potentate  in  the  heart  of  Asia,  a  poor 
slave  is  silently  and  stealthily  creeping  round  the  base 
of  the  Alps,  with  the  purpose  of  winning  his  way  as  a 
murderer  to  the  imperial  bedchamber ;  Caesar  is  watch- 
ing some  mighty  rebel  of  the  Orient,  at  a  distance  of 
two  thousand  leagues,  and  he  overlooks  the  dagger 
which  is  at  his  own  heart.  In  short,  all  the  heights 
and  the  depths  which  belong  to  man  as  aspirers,  all  the 
contrasts  of  glory  and  meanness,  the  extremities  of 
what  is  highest  and  lowest  in  human  possibility,  —  all  . 
met  in  the  situation  of  the  Roman  Caesars,  and  have 
combined  to  make  them  the  most  interesting  studies  * 
which  history  has  furnished. 

This,  as  a  general  proposition,  will  be  readily  ad- 
mitted. But  meantime,  it  is  remarkable  that  no  field 
has  been  less  trodden  than  the  private  memorials  of 


THE  C^SARS. 


29 


ihosc  very  Caesars ;  whilst  at  the  same  time  it  is  equally 
remarkable,  in  concurrence  with  that  subject  for  won- 
der, that  precisely  with  the  first  of  the  Csesars  com- 
mences the  first  page  of  what  in  modern  times  we 
understand  by  anecdotes.  Suetonius  is  the  earliest 
writer  in  that  department  of  biography  ;  so  far  as  we 
know,  he  may  be  held  first  to  have  devised  it  as  l 
mode  of  history.  The  six  writers,  whose  sketches 
are  collected  under  the  general  title  of  the  Augustan 
History,  followed  in  the  same  track.  Though  full  of 
entertairsment,  and  of  the  most  curious  researches, 
they  are  all  of  them  entirely  unknown,  except  to  a 
few  elaborate  scholars.  We  purpose  to  collect  from 
these  obscure  but  most  interesting  memorialists,  a  few 
sketches  and  biographical  portraits  of  these  great 
princes,  whose  public  life  is  sometimes  known,  but 
very  rarely  any  part  of  their  private  and  personal 
history.  We  must,  of  course,  commence  with  the 
mighty  founder  of  the  Csesars.  In  his  case  we  cannot 
expect  so  much  of  absolute  novelty  as  in  that  of  those 
who  succeed.  But  if,  in  this  first  instance,  we  are 
forced  to  touch  a  little  upon  old  things,  we  shall  con- 
fine ourselves  as  much  as  possible  to  those  which  are 
susceptible  of  new  aspects.  For  the  whole  gallery  of 
those  who  follow,  we  can  undertake  that  the  memorials 
which  we  shall  bring  forward,  may  be  looked  upon  as 
belonging  pretty  much  to  what  has  hitherto  been  a 
Healed  book. 


30 


THE  CJESARS. 


CHAPTER  I. 


The  character  of  the  first  Csesar  has  perhaps  never 
been  worse  appreciated  than  by  him  who  in  one  sense 
described  it  best  —  that  is,  with  most  force  and  elo- 
quence wherever  he  really  did  comprehend  it.  This 
was  Lucan,  who  has  nowhere  exhibited  more  brilliant 
rhetoric,  nor  wandered  more  from  the  truth,  than  in 
the  contrasted  portraits  of  CaBsar  and  Pompey.  The 
famous  line,  '  Nil  actum  reputans  si  quid  superesset 
agendum,^  is  a  fine  feature  of  the  real  character,  finely 
expressed.  But  if  it  had  been  Lucan's  purpose  (as 
possibly,  with  a  view  to  Pompey's  benefit,  in  some 
respects  it  was)  utterly  and  extravagantly  to  falsify 
the  character  of  the'  great  Dictator,  by  no  single  trait 
could  he  more  effectually  have  fulfilled  that  purpose, 
nor  in  fewer  words,  than  by  this  expressive  passage, 
'  Gaudensqiie  viam  fecisse  ruind,^  Such  a  trait  would 
be  almost  extravagant  applied  even  to  Marius,  who 
(though  in  many  respects  a  perfect  model  of  Roman 
grandeur,  massy,  columnar,  imperturbable,  and  more 
perhaps  than  any  one  man  recorded  in  history  capable 
of  justifying  the  bold  illustration  of  that  character  in 
Horace,  '  Sifractns  iliahatur  orbis,  impavidum  ferienl 


THE  C^SARS. 


31 


TuiTKE,)  had,  however,  a  ferocity  in  his  character,  and  a 
touch  of  the  devil  in  him,  very  rarely  united  with  the 
same  tranquil  intrepidity.  But  for  Caesar,  the  all- 
accomplished  statesman,  the  splendid  orator,  the  man 
of  elegant  habits  and  polished  taste,  the  patron  of  the 
fine  arts  in  a  degree  transcending  all  examples  of  his 
own  or  the  previous  age,  and  as  a  man  of  general 
literature  so  much  beyond  his  contemporaries,  except 
Cicero,  that  he  looked  down  even  upon  the  brilliant 
Sylla  as  an  illiterate  person,  —  to  class  such  a  man 
with  the  race  of  furious  destroyers  exulting  in  the 
desolations  they  spread,  is  to  err  not  by  an  individual 
trait,  but  by  the  whole  genus.  The  Attilas  and  the 
Tamerlanes,  who  rejoice  in  avowing  themselves  the 
scourges  of  God,  and  the  special  instruments  of  his 
wrath,  have  no  one  feature  of  affinity  to  the  polished 
and  humane  Caesar,  and  would  as  little  have  compre* 
hended  his  character,  as  he  could  have  respected  theirs. 
Even  Cato,  the  unworthy  hero  of  Lucan,  might  have 
suggested  to  him  a  little  more  truth  in  this  instance, 
by  a  celebrated  remark  which  he  made  on  the  charac- 
teristic distinction  of  Caesar,  in  comparison  with  other 
revolutionary  disturbers ;  for,  whereas  others  had  at- 
tempted the  overthrow  of  the  state  in  a  continued 
paroxysm  of  fury,  and  in  a  state  of  mind  resembling 
the  lunacy  of  intoxication,  that  Csesar,  on  the  contrary, 
among  that  whole  class  of  civil  disturbers,  was  the  only 
^ne  who  had  come  to  the  task  in  a  temper  of  sobriety 


52 


THE  C^SARS. 


and  moderation,  (unurn  accessisse  sohxium  ad  rempuMi* 
cam  delendam.) 

In  reality,  Lucan  did  not  think  as  lie  wrote.  He 
had  a  purpose  to  serve ;  and  in  an  age  when  to  act 
like  a  freeman  was  no  longer  possible,  he  determined 
at  least  to  write  in  that  character.  It  is  probable, 
also,  that  he  wrote  with  a  vindictive  or  malicious  feel- 
ing towards  Nero ;  and,  as  the  single  means  he  had  for 
gratifying  that,  resolved  upon  sacrificing  the  grandeur 
of  Caesar's  character  wherever  it  should  be  found  pos- 
sible. Meantime,  in  spite  of  himself,  Lucan  for  ever 
betrays  his  lurking  consciousness  of  the  truth.  Nor 
are  there  any  testimonies  to  Caesar's  vast  superiority 
more  memorably  pointed,  than  those  which  are  indi- 
rectly and  involuntarily  extorted  from  this  Catonic 
poet,  by  the  course  of  his  narration.  Never,  for  ex- 
ample, was  there  within  the  same  compass  of  words,  a 
more  emphatic  expression  of  Caesar's  essential  and 
inseparable  grandeur  of  thought,  which  could  not  be 
disguised  or  be  laid  aside  for  an  instant,  than  is  found 
in  the  three  casual  words  —  Indocilis  privata  loqui. 
The  very  mould,  it  seems,  by  Lucan's  confession,  of 
his  trivial  conversation  was  regal ;  nor  could  he,  even 
to  serve  a  purpose,  abjure  it  for  so  much  as  a  casual 
purpose.  The  acts  of  Caesar  speak  also  the  same  lan- 
guage ;  and  as  these  are  less  susceptible  of  a  false 
toloring  than  the  features  of  a  general  character,  we 
find  this  poet  of  liberty,  in  the  midst  of  one  continu- 


THE  C-a:SARS. 


33 


ous  effort  to  distort  the  truth,  and  to  dress  up  two 
Bcenical  heroes,  forced  by  the  mere  necessities  of  his- 
tory into  a  reluctant  homage  to  Caesar's  supremacy  of 
moral  grandeur. 

Of  so  great  a  man  it  must  be  interesting  to  know 
all  the  well  attested  opinions  which  bear  upon  topics 
of  universal  interest  to  human  nature :  as  indeed  no 
others  stood  much  chance  of  preservation,  unless  it 
were  from  as  minute  and  curious  a  collector  of  aneC" 
dotage  as  Suetonius.  And,  first,  it  would  be  gratifying 
to  know  the  opinion  of  Caesar,  if  he  had  any  peculiar 
to  himself,  on  the  great  theme  of  Religion.  It  has 
been  held,  indeed,  that  the  constitution  of  his  mind, 
and  the  general  cast  of  his  character,  indisposed  him 
to  religious  thoughts.  Nay,  it  has  been  common  to 
class  him  amongst  deliberate  atheists ;  and  some  well 
known  anecdotes  are  current  in  books,  which  illustrate 
his  contempt  for  the  vulgar  class  of  auguries.  In  this, 
however,  he  went  no  farther  than  Cicero,  and  other 
great  contemporaries,  who  assuredly  were  no  atheists. 
One  mark  perhaps  of  the  wide  interval  which,  in 
Caesar's  age,  had  begun  to  separate  the  Roman  nobility 
from  the  hungry  and  venal  populace  who  were  daily 
put  up  to  sale,  and  bought  by  the  highest  bidder, 
manifested  itself  in  the  increasing  disdain  for  the 
iastes  and  ruling  sympathies  of  the  lowest  vulgar. 
No  mob  could  be  more  abjectly  servile  than  was  that 

of  Rome  to  the  superstition  of  portents,  prodigies,  and 
3 


34 


THE  CESARS. 


omens.  Thus  far,  in  common  with  his  order,  and  in 
this  sense,  Julius  Caesar  was  naturally  a  despisor  of 
superstition.  Mere  strength  of  understanding  would, 
perhaps,  have  made  him  so  in  any  age,  and  apart  from 
the  circumstances  of  his  personal  history.  This  nat- 
ural tendency  in  him  would  doubtless  receive  a 
further  bias  in  the  same  direction  from  the  office  of 
Pontifex  Maximus,  which  he  held  at  an  early  stage  of 
his  public  career.  This  office,  by  letting  him  too  vmch 
behind  the  curtain,  and  exposing  too  entirely  the  base 
machinery  of  ropes  and  pulleys,  w^hich  sustained  the 
miserable  jugglery  played  off  upon  the  popular 
credulity,  impressed  him  perhaps  even  unduly  with 
contempt  for  those  who  could  be  its  dupes.  And  we 
may  add,  that  Caesar  was  constitutionally,  as  well  as 
by  accident  of  position,  too  much  a  man  of  the  world, 
had  too  powerful  a  leaning  to  the  virtues  of  active  life, 
was  governed  by  too  partial  a  sympathy  with  the 
whole  class  of  active  forces  in  human  nature,  as  con- 
tradistinguished from  those  which  tend  to  contem- 
plative purposes,  under  any  circumstances,  to  have 
become  a  profound  believer,  or  a  steadfast  reposer  of 
his  fears  and  anxieties,  in  religious  influences.  A  man 
of  the  world  is  but  another  designation  for  a  man 
indisposed  to  religious  awe  or  contemplative  enthu- 
fiasm.  Still  it  is  a  doctrine  which  we  cherish  —  that 
grandeur  of  mind  in  any  one  department  whatsoever, 
/        supposing  only  that  it  exists  in  excess,  disposes  a  man 


THE  C^SAHS. 


35 


,ko  some  degree  of  sympathy  with  all  other  grandeur, 
however  alien  in  its  quality  or  different  in  its  form. 
And  upon  this  ground  we  presume  the  great  Dictator 
to  have  had  an  interest  in  religious  themes  by  mere 
compulsion  of  his  own  extraordinary  elevation  of 
mind,  after  making  the  fullest  allowance  for  the  spe- 
cial quality  of  that  mind,  which  did  certainly,  to  the 
whole  extent  of  its  characteristics,  tend  entirely  to 
estrange  him  from  such  themes.  We  find,  accord- 
ingly, that  though  sincerely  a  despiser  of  superstition, 
and  with  a.  frankness  which  must  sometimes  have  been 
hazardous  in  that  age,  Caesar  was  himself  also  super- 
stitious. No  man  could  have  been  otherwise  who  lived 
and  conversed  with  that  generation  of  people.  But  if 
superstitious,  he  was  so  after  a  mode  of  his  own.  In 
his  very  infirmities  Caesar  manifested  his  greatness: 
his  very  littlenesses  were  noble. 

*  Nec  licuit  populis  parvum  te,  Nile,  videre.' 
That  he  placed  some  confidence  in  dreams,  for  in- 
stance, is  certain:  because,  had  he  slighted  them 
unreservedly,  he  would  not  have  dwelt  upon  them 
afterwards,  or  have  troubled  himself  to  recall  their 
circumstances.  Here  we  trace  his  human  weakness. 
Yet  again  we  are  reminded  that  it  was  the  weakness  of 
Caesar ;  for  the  dreams  were  noble  in  their  imagery, 
and  Caesarean  (so  to  speak)  in  their  tone  of  moral 
feeling.  Thus,  for  example,  the  night  before  he  was 
assassinated,  he  dreamt  at  intervals  that  he  was  soar- 


36 


THE  Cj45SAI18. 


ing  above  the  clouds  on  wings,  and  that  he  placed  his 
Rand  within  the  right  hand  of  Jove.  It  would  seem 
that  perhaps  some  obscure  and  half-formed  image 
floated  in  his  mind,  of  the  eagle,  as  the  king  of  birds ; 
secondly,  as  the  tutelary  emblem  under  which  his 
conquering  legions  had  so  often  obeyed  his  voice  ;  and, 
thirdly,  as  the  bird  of  Jove.  To  this  triple  relation  of 
the  bird  his  dream  covertly  appears  to  point.  And  a 
singular  coincidence  appears  between  this  dream  and 
a  little  anecdote  brought  down  to  us,  as  having  ac- 
tually occurred  in  Rome  about  twenty-four  hours 
before  his  death.  A  little  bird,  which  by  some  is  rep- 
resented as  a  very  small  kind  of  sparrow,  but  which, 
both  to  the  Greeks  and  the  Romans,  was  known  by  a 
name  implying  a  regal  station  (probably  from  the  am- 
bitious courage  which  at  times  prompted  it  to  attack 
the  eagle),  was  observed  to  direct  its  flight  towards 
the  senate-house,  consecrated  by  Pompey,  whilst  a 
crowd  of  other  birds  were  seen  to  hang  upon  its  flight 
in  close  pursuit.  What  might  be  the  object  of  the 
chase,  whether  the  little  king  himself,  o/  a  sprig  of 
laurel  which  he  bore  in  his  mouth,  could  not  be  deter- 
mined. The  whole  train,  pursuers  and  pursued,  con- 
tinued their  flight  towards  Pompey's  hall.  Flight 
and  pursuit  were  there  alike  arrested  ;  the  little  king 
was  overtaken  by  his  enemies,  who  fell  upon  him 
«s  so  many  conspirators,  and  tore  him  limb  from 
limb. 


THE  CJESARS. 


37 


If  this  anecdote  were  reported  to  Caesar,  which  is 
not  at  all  improbable,  considering  the  earnestness  with 
which  his  friends  labored  to  dissuade  him  from  his 
purpose  of  meeting  the  senate  on  the  approaching 
Ides  of  March,  it  is  very  little  to  be  doubted  that  it 
had  a  considerable  effect  upon  his  feelings,  and  that, 
in  fact,  his  own  dream  grew  out  of  the  impression 
which  it  had  made.  This  way  of  linking  the  two 
anecdotes  as  cause  and  effect,  would  also  bring  a 
third  anecdote  under  the  same  nexus.  We  are  told 
that  Calpurnia,  the  last  wife  of  Csesar,  dreamed  on  the 
same  night,  and  to  the  same  ominous  result.  The 
circumstances  of  her  dream  are  less  striking,  because 
less  figurative  ;  but  on  that  account  its  import  was  less 
open  to  doubt :  she  dreamed,  in  fact,  that  after  the 
roof  of  their  mansion  had  fallen  in,  her  husband  was 
stabbed  in  her  bosom.  Laying  all  these  omens  to- 
gether, Csesar  would  have  been  more  or  less  than 
human  had  he  continued  utterly  undepressed  by  them. 
A.nd  if  so  much  superstition  as  even  this  implies,  must 
be  taken  to  argue  some  little  weakness,  on  the  other 
hand  let  it  not  be  forgotten,  that  this  very  weakness 
does  but  the  more  illustrate  the  unusual  force  of  mind, 
and  the  heroic  will,  which  obstinately  laid  aside  these 
concurring  prefigurations  of  impending  destruction ; 
loncurring,  we  say,  amongst  themselves  —  and  con- 
curring also  with  a  prophecy  of  older  date,  which 
ivas  totally  independent  of  them  all. 


88 


THE  CJESARS. 


There  is  another  and  somewhat  sublime  story  of  the 
same  class,  which  belongs  to  the  most  interesting 
moment  of  Caesar's  life ;  and  those  who  are  disposed 
to  explain  all  such  tales  upon  physiological  principles, 
will  find  an  easy  solution  of  this,  in  particular,  in  the 
exhaustion  of  body,  and  the  intense  anxiety  which 
must  have  debilitated  even  Caesar  under  the  whole 
circumstances  of  the  case.  On  the  ever  memorable 
night,  when  he  had  resolved  to  take  the  first  step  (and 
in  such  a  case  the  first  step,  as  regarded  the  power  of 
retreating,  was  also  the  final  step)  which  placed  him 
in  arms  against  the  state,  it  happened  that  his  head- 
quarters were  at  some  distance  from  the  little  river 
Rubicon,  which  formed  the  boundary  of  his  province. 
With  his  usual  caution,  that  no  news  of  his  motions 
might  run  before  himself,  on  this  night  Caesar  gave  an 
entertainment  to  his  friends,  in  the  midst  of  which  he 
slipped  away  unobserved,  and  with  a  small  retinue 
proceeded  through  the  woods  to  the  point  of  the  river 
at  which  he  designed  to  cross.  The  night  ^  was  stormy, 
and  by  the  violence  of  the  wind  all  the  torches  of  his 
escort  were  blown  out,  so  that  the  whole  party  lost 
their  road,  having  probably  at  first  intentionally  devi- 
ated from  the  main  route,  and  wandered  about  through 
the  whole  night,  until  the  early  dawn  enabled  them  to 
recover  their  true  course.  The  light  was  still  gray  and 
uncertain,  as  Caesar  and  his  retinue  rode  down  upon 
the  banks  of  the  fatal  river  —  to  cross  which  with  arms 


THE  C^SAKS. 


39 


in  his  hands,  since  the  further  bank  lay  within  the  ter- 
ritory of  the  Republic,  ipso  facto ^  proclaimed  any 
Roman  a  rebel  and  a  traitor.  No  man,  the  firmest  or 
the  most  obtuse,  could  be  otherwise  than  deeply  agi- 
tated, when  looking  down  upon  this  little  brook  —  so 
insignificant  in  itself,  but  invested  by  law  with  a  sane* 
tity  so  awful,  and  so  dire  a  consecration.  The  whole 
course  of  future  history,  and  the  fate  of  every  nation, 
would  necessarily  be  determined  by  the  irretrievable 
act  of  the  next  half  hour. 

In  these  moments,  and  with  this  spectacle  before 
him,  and  contemplating  these  immeasurable  conse- 
quences consciously  for  the  last  time  that  could  altfow 
him  a  retreat,  —  impressed  also  by  the  solemnity  and 
deep  tranquillity  of  the  silent  dawn,  whilst  the  exhaus- 
tion of  his  night  wanderings  predisposed  him  to 
nervous  irritation,  —  Caesar,  we  may  be  sure,  was 
profoundly  agitated.  The  whole  elements  of  the 
scene  were  almost  scenically  disposed;  the  law  of 
antagonism  having  perhaps  never  been  employed  with 
so  much  effect:  the  little  quiet  brook  presenting  a 
direct  antithesis  to  its  grand  political  character ;  and 
the  innocent  dawn,  with  its  pure,  untroubled  repose, 
contrasting  potently,  to  a  man  of  any  intellectual  sen- 
sibility, with  the  long  chaos  of  bloodshed,  darkness 
and  anarchy,  which  was  to  take  its  rise  from  the 
apparently  trifling  acts  of  this  one  morning.  So  pre- 
pared, we  need  not  much,  wonder  at  what  followed. 


40 


THE  C^SAllS. 


Caesar  was  yet  lingering  on  the  hither  bank,  when 
suddenly,  at  a  point  not  far  distant  from  himself,  an 
apparition  was  descried  in  a  sitting  posture,  and  hold- 
ing in  its  hand  what  seemed  a  flute.  This  phantom 
was  of  unusual  size,  and  of  beauty  more  than  human, 
BO  far  as  its  lineaments  could  be  traced  in  the  early 
dawn.  What  is  singular,  however,  in  the  story,  on 
any  hypothesis  which  would  explain  it  out  of  Cagsar's 
individual  condition,  is,  that  others  saw  it  as  well  as  he  ; 
both  pastoral  laborers,  (who  were  present,  probably  in 
the  character  of  guides,)  and  some  of  the  sentinels 
stationed  at  the  passage  of  the  river.  These  men 
fancied  even  that  a  strain  of  music  issued  from  this 
aerial  flute.  And  some,  both  of  the  shepherds  and 
the  Roman  soldiers,  who  were  bolder  than  the  rest, 
advanced  towards  the  figure.  Amongst  this  party,  it 
happened  that  there  were  a  few  Roman  trumpeters. 
From  one  of  these,  the  phantom,  rising  as  they  ad- 
vanced nearer,  suddenly  caught  a  trumpet,  and  blow- 
ing through  it  a  blast  of  superhuman  strength,  plunged 
into  the  Rubicon,  passed  to  the  other  bank,  and  disap- 
peared in  the  dusky  twilight  of  the  dawn.  Upon 
which  Csesar  exclaimed  :  —  It  is  finished  —  the  die  is 
Last  —  let  us  follow  whither  the  guiding  portents  from 
Heaven,  and  the  malice  of  our  enemy,  alike  summon 
us  to  go.'  So  saying,  he  crossed  the  river  with  im- 
petuosity ;  and,  in  a  sudden  rapture  of  passionate  and 
vindictive  ambition,  placed  himself  and  his  retinue 


THE  C^SARS. 


41 


upon  the  Italian  soil ;  and,  as  if  by  inspiration  from 
Heaven,  in  one  moment  involved  himself  and  his  fol- 
lowers in  treason,  raised  the  standard  of  revolt,  put 
his  foot  upon  the  neck  of  the  invincible  republic  which 
had  humbled  all  the  kings  of  the  earth,  and  founded 
an  empire  which  was  to  last  for  a  thousand  and  half 
a  thousand  years.  In  what  manner  this  spectral  ap- 
pearance was  managed  —  whether  Caesar  were  its 
author,  or  its  dupe  —  will  remain  unknown  for  ever. 
But  undoubtedly  this  was  the  first  time  that  the 
advanced  guard  of  a  victorious  army  was  headed  by 
an  apparition;  and  we  may  conjecture  that  it  will 
be  the  last.^ 

In  the  mingled  yarn  of  human  life,  tragedy  is  never 
far  asunder  from  farce  ;  and  it  is  amusing  to  retrace  in 
immediate  succession  to  this  incident  of  epic  dignity, 
which  has  its  only  parallel  by  the  way  in  the  case  of 
Vasco  de  Gama,  (according  to  the  narrative*  of  Ca- 
moens,)  when  met  and  confronted  by  a  sea  phantom 
whilst  attempting  to  double  the  Cape  of  Storms, 
(Cape  of  Good  Hope,)  a  ludicrous  passage,  in  which 
one  felicitous  blunder  did  Csesar  a  better  service  than 
all  the  truths  which  Greece  and  Rome  could  have 
furnished.  In  our  own  experience,  we  once  witnessed 
%  blunder  about  as  gross.  The  present  Chancellor,  in 
his  first  electioneering  contest  with  the  Lowthers,  upon 
lome  occasion  where  he  was  recriminating  upon  the 
other  party,  and  complaining  that  stratagems,  which 


12 


THE  CiESARS. 


they  might  practise  with  impunity,  were  demed  to  him 
and  his,  happened  to  point  the  moral  of  his  complaint, 
by  alleging  the  old  adage,  that  one  man  might  steal 
a  horse  with  more  hope  of  indulgence  than  another 
could  look  over  the  hedge.  Whereupon,  by  benefit 
of  the  universal  mis-hearing  in  the  outermost  ring 
of  the  audience,  it  became  generally  reported  that 
Lord  Lowther  had  once  been  engaged  in  an  affair  of 
horse  stealing ;  and  that  he,  Henry  Brougham,  could 
(had  he  pleased)  have  lodged  an  information  agains'; 
him,  seeing  that  he  was  then  looking  over  the  hedge. 
And  this  charge  naturally  won  the  more  credit,  be- 
cause it  was  notorious  and  past  denying  that  his 
lordship  was  a  capital  horseman,  fond  of  horses,  and 
much  connected  with  the  turf.  To  this  hour,  there- 
fore, amongst  some  worthy  shepherds  and  others,  it  is 
a  received  article  of  their  creed,  and  (as  they  justly 
observe  in  northern  pronunciation)  a  sliand\i\  thing 
to  be  told,  that  Lord  Lowther  was  once  a  horse 
stealer,  and  that  he  escaped  lagging  by  reason  of 
Harry  Brougham's  pity  for  his  tender  years  and  hope- 
ful looks.  Not  less  was  the  blunder,  which,  on  the 
banks  of  the  Rubicon,  befriended  Csesar.  Imme- 
diately after  crossing,  he  harangued  the  troops  whom 
he  had  sent  forward,  and  others  who  there  met  him 
from  the  neighboring  garrison  of  Ariminium.  The 
tribunes  of  the  people,  those  great  officers  of  the 
democracy,  corresponding  by  some  of  their  functions 


THE  C^SARS. 


43 


to  our  House  of  Commons,  men  personally,  and  by 
their  position  in  the  state,  entirely  in  his  interest, 
and  who,  for  his  sake,  had  fled  from  home,  there 
and  then  he  produced  to  the  soldiery  ;  thus  identified 
his  cause,  and  that  of  the  soldiers,  with  the  cause  of 
the  people  of  Rome  and  of  Roman  liberty  ;  and  per- 
haps with  needless  rhetoric  attempted  to  conciliate 
those  who  were  by  a  thousand  ties  and  by  claims 
innumerable,  his  own  already  ;  for  never  yet  has  it 
been  found,  that  with  the  soldier,  who,  from  youth 
upwards,  passes  his  life  in  camps,  could  the  duties  or 
the  interests  of  citizens  survive  those  stronger  and 
more  personal  relations  connecting  him  with  his 
military  superior.  In  the  course  of  this  harangue, 
Caesar  often  raised  his  left  hand  with  Demosthenic 
action,  and  once  or  twice  he  drew  off  the  ring,  which 
every  Roman  gentleman  —  simply  as  such  —  wore  as 
the  inseparable  adjunct  and  symbol  of  his  rank.  By 
this  action  he  wished  to  give  -  emphasis  to  the  accom- 
panying words,  in  which  he  protested,  that,  sooner 
than  fail  in  satisfying  and  doing  justice  to  any  the 
least  of  those  who  heard  him  and  folloAved  his  for- 
tunes, he  would  be  content  to  part  with  his  own 
birthright,  and  to  forego  his  dearest  claims.  This 
was  what  he  really  said  ;  but  the  outermost  circles 
of  his  auditors,  w^ho  rather  saw  his  gestures  than 
distinctly  heard  his  words,  carried  off  the  notion, 
(which  they  were    careful    everywhere    to  disperse 


44 


THE  C^^SARS. 


nmongst  the  legions  afterwards  associated  with  thenj 
in  the  same  camps,)  that  Csesar  had  vowed  never  to 
lay  down  his  arms  until  he  had  obtained  for  every 
man,  the  very  meanest  of  those  who  heard  him,  the 
rank,  privileges  and  appointments  of  a  Roman  knight 
Here  was  a  piece  of  sovereign  good  luck.  Had  he 
really  made  such  a  promise,  Csesar  might  have  found 
that  he  had  laid  himself  under  very  embarrassing 
obligations ;  but,  as  the  •  case  stood,  he  had,  through 
all  his  following  campaigns,  the  total  benefit  of  such  a 
promise,  and  yet  could  always  absolve  himself  from 
the  penalties  of  responsibility  which  it  imposed,  by 
appealing  to  the  evidence  of  those  who  happened  to 
stand  in  the  first  ranks  of  his  audience.  The  blunder 
was  gross  and  palpable ;  and  yet,  with  the  unreflecting 
and  dull-witted  soldier,  it  did  him  service  greater  than 
all  the  subtilties  of  all  the  schools  could  have  accom- 
plished, and  a  service  which  subsisted  to  the  end  of 
the  war. 

Great  as  Caesar  was  by  the  benefit  of  his  original 
nature,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  he,  like  others, 
owed  something  to  circumstances  ;  and,  perhaps, 
amongst  those  which  were  most  favorable  to  the  pre- 
mature development  of  great  self-dependence,  we 
must  reckon  the  early  death  of  his  father.  It  is,  or 
it  is  not,  according  to  the  nature  of  men,  an  advan- 
tage to  be  orphaned  at  an  early  age.  Perhaps  utter 
orphanage  is  rarely  or  never  such  :  but  to  lose  a  fathel 


THE  CiESAKS. 


45 


betimes  profits  a  strong  mind  greatly.  To  Caesar  it 
was  a  prodigious  benefit  that  he  lost  his  father  when 
not  much  more  than  fifteen.  Perhaps  it  was  an  ad- 
vantage also  to  his  father  that  he  died  thus  early. 
Had  he  stayed  a  year  longer,  he  would  have  seen 
nimself  despised,  baffled,  and  made  ridiculous.  For 
where,  let  us  ask,  in  any  age,  was  the  father  capable 
of  adequately  sustaining  that  relation  to  the  unique 
Caius  Julius  —  to  him,  in  the  appropriate  language 
of  Shakspeare, 

'  The  foremost  man  of  all  this  world  ? ' 

And,  in  this  fine  and  Caesarean  line,  '  this  world '  is 
to  be  understood  not  of  the  order  of  co-existencea 
merely,  but  also  of  the  order  of  successions  ;  he  was 
the  foremost  man  not  only  of  his  contemporaries,  but 
also  of  men  generally  —  of  all  that  ever  should  come 
after  him,  or  should  sit  on  thrones  under  the  denomi- 
nations of  Czars,  Kesars,  or  Caesars  of  the  Bosphorus 
and  the  Danube ;  of  all  in  every  age  that  should 
inherit  his  supremacy  of  mind,  or  should  subject  to 
themselves  the  generations  of  ordinary  men  by  quali- 
ties analogous  to  his.  Of  this  infinite  superiority 
some  part  must  be  ascribed  to  his  early  emancipation 
from  paternal  control.  There  are  very  many  cases  in 
which,  simply  from  considerations  of  sex,  a  female 
:annot  stand  forward  as  the  head  of  a  family,  or  as  its 
suitable  representative.  If  there  are  even  ladies  para- 
mount, and  in  situations  of  command,  they  are  also 


46 


THE  C^SARS. 


women.  The  staff  of  authority  does  not  annihilata 
their  sex  ;  and  scruples  of  female  delicacy  interfere 
for  ever  to  unnerve  and  emasculate  in  their  hands  the 
sceptre  however  otherwise  potent.  Hence  we  see,  in 
noble  families,  the  merest  boys  put  forward  to  repre- 
sent the  family  dignity,  as  fitter  supporters  of  that 
burden  than  their  mature  mothers.  And  of  Caesar's 
mother,  though  little  is  recorded,  and  that  little  inci- 
dentally, this  much,  at  least,  we  learn  —  that,  if  she 
looked  down  upon  him  with  maternal  pride  and  de- 
light, she  looked  up  to  him  with  female  ambition  as 
the  re-edifier  of  her  husband's  honors,  with  reverence 
as  to  a  column  of  the  Roman  grandeur,  and  with  fear 
and  feminine  anxieties  as  to  one  whose  aspiring  spirit 
carried  him  but  too  prematurely  into  the  fields  of 
adventurous  honor.  One  slight  and  evanescent  sketch 
of  the  relations  which  subsisted  between  Caesar  and 
his  mother,  caught  from  the  wrecks  of  time,  is  pre- 
served both  by  Plutarch  and  Suetonius.  We  see  in 
the  early  dawn  the  young  patrician  standing  upon  the 
steps  of  his  paternal  portico,  his  mother  with  her  arms 
wreathed  about  his  neck,  looking  up  to  his  noble 
countenance,  sometimes  drawing  auguries  of  hope 
from  features  so  fitted  for  command,  sometimes  boding 
an  early  blight  to  promises  so  prematurely  magnifi- 
cent. That  she  had  something  of  her  son's  aspiring 
character,  or  that  he  presumed  so  much  in  a  mother 
of  his,  we  learn  from  the  few  words  which  survive  of 


THE  C^SARS. 


47 


their  conversation.  He  addressed  to  lier  no  language 
that  coukl  tranquillize  her  fears.  On  the  contrary,  to 
any  but  a  Roman  mother  his  valedictory  words,  taken 
in  connection  with  the  known  determination  of  his 
character,  were  of  a  nature  to  consummate  her  de- 
pression, as  they  tended  to  confirm  the  very  worst  of 
her  fears.  He  was  then  going  to  stand  his  chance  in 
a  popular  election  for  an  office  of  dignity,  and  to 
launch  himself  upon  the  storms  of  the  Campus  Mar- 
tins. At  that  period,  besides  other  and  more  ordinary 
dangers,  the  bands  of  gladiators,  kept  in  the  pay  of 
the  more  ambitious  amongst  the  Roman  nobles,  gave 
a  popular  tone  of  ferocity  and  of  personal  risk  to  the 
course  of  such  contests  ;  and  either  to  forestall  the 
victory  of  an  antagonist,  or  to  avenge  their  own  defeat, 
it  was  not  at  all  impossible  that  a  body  of  incensed 
competitors  might  intercept  his  final  triumph  by  assas- 
sination. For  this  danger,  however,  he  had  no  leisure 
in  his  thoughts  of  consolation  ;  the  sole  danger  which 
he  contemplated,  or  supposed  his  mother  to  contem- 
plate, was  the  danger  of  defeat,  and  for  that  he  re- 
served his  consolations.  He  bade  her  fear  nothing  ; 
for  that  without  doubt  he  would  return  with  victory, 
and  with  the  ensigns  of  the  dignity  he  sought,  or 
would  re  turn  a  corpse. 

Early,  indeed,  did  Caesar's  trials  commence  ;  and  it 
IS  probable,  that,  had  not  the  death  of  his  fathei, 
by  throwing*  him  prematurely  upon  his  own  resources, 


48 


THE  C.^:SAIIS, 


prematurely  developed  the  masculine  features  of  his 
character,  forcing  him  whilst  yet  a  boy  under  the 
discipline  of  civil  conflict  and  the  yoke  of  practical  life, 
even  his  enero^ies  would  have  been  insufficient  to 
sustain  them.  His  age  is  not  exactly  ascertained, 
but  it  is  past  a  doubt  that  he  had  not  reached  his 
twentieth  year  when  he  had  the  hardihood  to  engage 
in  a  struggle  with  Sylla,  then  Dictator,  and  exercising 
the  immoderate  powers  of  that  office  with  the  license 
and  the  severity  which  history  has  made  so  memorable. 
He  had  neither  any  distinct  grounds  of  hope,  nor  any 
eminent  example  at  that  time,  to  countenance  him 
in  this  struggle  —  which  yet  he  pushed  on  in  the  most 
uncompromising  style,  and  to  the  utmost  verge  of 
defiance.  The  subject  of  the  contrast  gives  it  a  fur- 
ther interest.  It  was  the  youthful  wife  of  the  youthful 
Caesar  who  stood  under  the  shadow  of  the  great 
Dictator's  displeasure  ;  not  personally,  but  politically, 
on  account  of  her  connections ;  and  her  it  was,  Cor- 
nelia, the  daughter  of  a  man  who  had  been  four  times 
consul,  that  Csesar  was  required  to  divorce  ;  but  he 
spurned  the  haughty  mandate,  and  carried  his  deter* 
mination  to  a  triumphant  issue,  notwithstanding  his 
life  was  at  stake,  and  at  one  time  saved  only  by 
shifting  his  place  of  concealment  every  night ;  and 
this  young  lady  it  was  who  afterwards  became  the 
mother  of  his  only  daughter.  Both  mother  and 
daughter,  it  is  remarkable,  perished  prematurely,  and 


THE  C^SARS. 


49 


at  critical  periods  of  Caesar's  life  ;  for  it  is  probable 
enough  that  these  irreparable  wounds  to  Csesar's  do- 
mestic affections  threw  him  with  more  exclusiveness 
of  devotion  upon  the  fascinations  Of  glory  and  ambition 
than  might  have  happened  under  a  happier  condition 
of  his  private  life.  That  Csesar  should  have  escaped 
destruction  in  this  unequal  contest  with  an  enemy  then 
wielding  the  whole  thunders  of  the  state,  is  somewhat 
surprising  ;  and  historians  have  sought  their  solution 
of  the  mystery  in  the  powerful  intercessions  of  the 
vestal  virgins,  and  several  others  of  high  rank  amongst 
the  connections  of  his  great  house.  These  may  have 
done  something ;  but  it  is  due  to  Sylla,  who  had 
a  sympathy  with  everything  truly  noble,  to  suppose 
him  struck  with  powerful  admiration  for  the  audacity 
of  the  young  patrician,  standing  out  in  such  severe 
solitude  among  so  many  examples  of  timid  concession ; 
and  that  to  this  magnanimous  feeling  in  the  Dictator, 
much  of  his  indulgence  was  due.  In  fact,  according 
to  some  accounts,  it  was  not  Sylla,  but  the  creatures  of 
Sylla  [adjiitores),  who  pursued  Caesar.  We  know, 
at  all  events,  that  Sylla  formed  a  right  estimate  of 
Caesar's  character,  and  that,  from  the  complexion  of 
his  conduct  in  this  one  instance,  he  drew  his  famous 
prophecy  of  his  future  destiny  ;  bidding  his  friends 
beware  of  that  slipshod  boy,  '  for  that  in  him  lay 
couchant  many  a  Marius.'  A  grander  testimony  to 
the  awe  which  Caesar  inspired,  or  from  one  who  knew 
4 


50 


THE  CJESARS. 


better  the  qualities  of  that  man  by  whom  he  measured 
him,  cannot  be  imagined. 

It  is  not  our  intention,  or  consistent  with  our  plan, 
to  pursue  this  great  man  through  the  whole  circum- 
stances of  his  romantic  career ;  though  it  is  certain 
that  many  parts  of  his  life  require  investigation  much 
keener  than  has  ever  been  applied  to  them,  and  that 
many  might  easily  be  placed  in  a  new  light.  Indeed, 
the  whole  of  this  most  momentous  section  of  ancient 
history  ought  to  be  recomposed  with  the  critical  scep- 
ticism of  a  Niehuhr,  and  the  same  comprehensive 
collation  of  authorities.  In  reality  it  is  the  hinge  upon 
which  turned  the  future  destiny  of  the  whole  earth ; 
and  having  therefore  a  common  relation  to  all  modern 
nations  whatsoever,  should  naturally  have  been  culti- 
vated with  the  zeal  which  belongs  to  a  personal  con- 
cern. In  general,  the  anecdotes  which  express  most 
vividly  the  splendid  character  of  the  first  Caesar,  are 
those  which  illustrate  his  defiance  of  danger  in  ex- 
tremity  ;  the  prodigious  energy  and  rapidity  of  his 
decisions  and  motions  in  the  field  ;  the'  skill  with 
which  he  penetrated  the  designs  of  his  enemies,  and 
the  exemplary  speed  with -which  he  provided  a  remedy 
for  disasters  ;  the  extraordinary  presence  of  mind 
which  he  showed  in  turning  adverse  omens  to  his  own 
advantage,  as  when,  upon  stumbling  in  coming  on 
shore,  (which  was  esteemed  a  capital  omen  of  evil,) 
he  transfigured  as  it  were  in  one  instant  its  whole 


THE  CiESAHS. 


51 


meaning  by  exclaiming,  '  Thus  do  I  take  posses- 
sion of  thee,  oh  Africa ! '  in  that  way  giving  to  an 
accident  the  semblance  of  a  symbolic  purpose  ;  the 
grandeur  of  fortitude  with  which  he  faced  the  whole 
extent  of  a  calamity  when  palliation  could  do  no  good, 
'  non  negando,  minuendove,  sed  insuper  amplificando, 
ementiendoque  ; '  as  when,  upon  finding  his  soldiery 
alarmed  at  the  approach  of  Juba,  with  forces  really 
great,  but  exaggerated  by  their  terrors,  he  addressed 
them  in  a  military  harangue  to  the  following  effect : 
'  Know  that  .within  a  few  days  the  king  will  come  up 
with  us,  bringing  with  him  sixty  thousand  legionaries, 
thirty  thousand  cavalry,  one  hundred  thousand  light 
troops,  besides  three  hundred  elephants.  Such  being 
the  case,  let  me  hear  no  more  of  conjectures  and 
opinions,  for  you  have  now  my  warrant  for  the  fact, 
whose  information  is  past  doubting.  Therefore,  be 
satisfied  ;  otherwise,  I  will  put  every  man  of  you  on 
board  some  crazy  old  fleet,  and  whistle  you  down  the 
tide  —  no  matter  under  what  winds,  no  matter  towards 
what  shore.'  P'inally,  we  might  seek  for  the  char- 
acteristic anecdotes  of  Csesar  in  his  unexampled  liber- 
alities and  contempt  of  money.l^ 

Upon  this  last  topic  it  is  the  just  remark  of 
Casaubon,  that  some  instances  of  Caesar's  munificence 
have  been  thought  apocryphal,  or  to  rest  upon  false 
readings,  simply  from  ignorance  of  the  heroic  scale 
vpon  which  the  Roman  splendors  of  that  age  pro- 


52 


THE  C^.SARS. 


Deeded.  A  forum  which  Caesar  built  out  of  the  pro- 
ducts of  his  last  campaign,  by  way  of  a  present  to  the 
Roman  people,  cost  him  —  for  the  ground  merely  on 
which  it  stood  —  nearly  eight  hundred  thousand 
pounds.  To  the  citizens  of  Rome  (perhaps  300,000 
persons)  he  presented,  in  one  congiary,  about  two 
guineas  and  a  half  a  head.  To  his  army,  in  one 
donation^  upon  the  termination  of  the  civil  war,  he 
gave  a  sum  which  allowed  about  two  hundred  pounds 
a  man  to  the  infantry,  and  four  hundred  to  the  cavalry. 
It  is  true  that  the  legionary  troops  were  then  much 
reduced  by  the  sword  of  the  enemy,  and  by  the 
tremendous  hardships  of  their  last  campaigns.  In  this, 
however,  he  did  perhaps  no  more  than  repay  a  debt. 
For  it  is  an  instance  of  military  attachment,  beyond  all 
that  Wallenstein  or  any  commander,  the  most  beloved 
amongst  his  troops,  has  ever  experienced,  that,  on  the 
breaking  out  of  the  civil  war,  not  only  did  the  cen- 
turions of  every  legion  severally  maintain  a  horsr 
soldier,  but  even  the  privates  volunteered  to  serve 
without  pay  —  and  (what  might  seem  impossible)  with- 
out their  daily  rations.  This  was  accomplished  by 
subscriptions  amongst  themselves,  the  more  opulent 
undertaking  for  the  maintenance  of  the  needy.  Their 
disinterested  love  for  Caesar  appeared  in  another  and 
more  difficult  illustration  ;  it  was  a  traditionary  anec- 
dote in  Rome,  that  the  majority  of  those  amongst 
Caesar's  troops,  who  had  the  misfortune  to  fall  into  the 


THE  C^SARS. 


53 


Bneniy's  hands,  refused  to  accept  their  lives  under  the 
condition  of  serving  against  him. 

In  connection  with  this  subject  of  his  extraordinary 
munificence,  there  is  one  aspect  of  Csesar's  life  which 
has  suffered  much  from  the  misrepresentations  of  his- 
torians, and  that  is  —  the  vast  pecuniary  embarrass- 
ments under  which  he  labored,  until  the  profits  of  war 
had  turned  the  scale  even  more  prodigiously  in  his 
favor.  At  one  time  of  his  life,  when  appointed  to  a 
foreign  office,  so  numerous  and  so  clamorous  were  his 
creditors,  that  he  could  not^  have  left  Rome  on  his 
public  duties,  had  not  Crassus  come  forward  with 
assistance  in  money,  or  by  promises,  to  the  amount  of 
nearly  two  hundred  thousand  pounds.  And  at  another, 
he  was  accustomed  to  amuse  himself  with  computing 
how  much  money  it  would  require  to  make  him  worth 
exactly  nothing  {i,  e.  simply  to  clear  him  of  debts)  ; 
this,  by  one  account,  amounted  to  upwards  of  twc 
millions  sterling.  Now  the  error  of  historians  has 
been  —  to  represent  these  debts  as  the  original  ground 
of  his  ambition  and  his  revolutionary  projects,  as  though 
the  desperate  condition  of  his  private  affairs  had  sug- 
gested a  civil  war  to  his  calculations  as  the  best  oi 
only  mode  of  redressing  it.  But,  on  the  contrary,  his 
debts  were  the  product  of  his  ambition,  and  contracted 
from  first  to  last  in  the  service  of  his  political  intrigues, 
for  raising  and  maintaining  a  powerful  body  of  par- 
tisans, both  in  Rome  and  elsewhere.  Whosoever, 


54 


THE  CJESARS. 


indeed,  will  take  tlie  trouble  to  investigate  the  progress 
of  Csesar's  ambition,  from  such  materials  as  even  yet 
remain,  may  satisfy  himself  that  the  scheme  of  rev- 
olutionizing the  Kepublir,  and  placing  himself  at  its 
head,  was  no  growth  of  accident  or  circumstances  ; 
above  all,-  that  it  did  not  arise  upoii  any  so  petty  and 
indirect  an  occasion  as  that  of  his  debts  ;  but  that 
his  debts  were  in  their  very  first  origin  purely  min- 
isterial to  his  ambition  ;  and  that  his  revolutionary 
plans  were  at  all  periods  of  his  life  a  direct  and  fore- 
most object.  In  this  there  was  in  reality  no  want  of 
patriotism  ;  it  had  become  evident  to  every-body  that 
Rome,  under  its  present  constitution,  must  fall  ;  and 
the  sole  question  was  —  by  whom  ?  Even  Pompey, 
not  by  nature  of  an  aspiring  turn,  and  prompted  to  his 
ambitious  course  undoubtedly  by  circumstances  and 
the  friends  w^ho  besieged  him,  was  in  the  habit  of  say- 
ing, '  Sylla  potuit,  ego  non  potero  ?  '  And  the  fact 
was,  that  if,  from  the  death  of  Sylla,  Rome  recovered 
some  transient  show  of  constitutional  integrity,  that 
happened  not  by  any  lingering  virtue  that  remained  in 
her  republican  forms,  but  entirely  through  the  equi- 
librium and  mechanical  counterpoise  of  rival  factions. 
In  a  case,  therefore,  where  no  benefit  of  choice  was 
allowed  to  Rome  as  to  the  thing,  but  only  as  to  the 
person  —  where  a  revolution  was  certain,  and  the  point 
left  open  to  doubt  simply  by  whom  that  revolution 
should  be  accomplished  —  Caesar  had  (to  say  the  least) 


THE  C^SARS. 


55 


the  same  right  to  enter  the  arena  in  the  character  of 
candidate  as  could  belong  to  any  one  of  his  rivals. 
And  that  he  did  enter  that  arena  constructively,  and 
by  secret  design,  from  his  very  earliest  manhood,  may 
be  gathered  from  this  —  that  he  suffered  no  openings 
towards  a  revolution,  provided  they  had  any  hope 
in  them,  to  escape  his  participation.  It  is  familiarly 
known  that  he  was  engaged  pretty  deeply  in  the  con- 
spirac)^  of  Catiline,^  ^  and  that  he  incurred  considerable 
risk  on  that  occasion  ;  but  it  is  less  known,  and  has 
indeed  escaped  the  notice  of  historians  generally,  that 
ae  was  a  party  to  at  least  two  other  conspiracies. 
There  was  even  a  fourth  meditated  by  Crassus,  which 
Caesar  so  far  encouraged  as  to  undertake  a  journey  to 
Rome  from  a  very  distant  quarter,  merely  with  a  view 
to  such  chances  as  it  might  offer  to  him  ;  but  as  it  did 
not,  upon  examination,  seem  to  him  a  very  promising 
scheme,  he  judged  it  best  to  look  coldly  upon  it,  or  not 
to  embark  in  it  by  any  personal  co-operation.  Upon 
these  and  other  facts  we  build  our  inference  —  that  the 
scheme  of  a  revolution  was  the  one  great  purpose  of 
Caesar,  from  his  first  entrance  upon  public  life.  Nor 
does  it  appear  that  he  cared  much  by  whom  it  was 
undertaken,  provided  only  there  seemed  to  be  any 
sufficient  resources  for  carrying  it  through,  and  for 
sustaining  the  first  collision  with  the  regular  forces  of 
Che  existing  government.  He  relied,  it  seems,  on  his 
vwn  personal  superiority  for  raising  him  to  the  head  of 


56 


THE  C^SARS. 


affairs  eventually,  let  who  would  take  the  nominal  leaci 
at  first.  To  the  same  result,  it  will  be  found,  tended 
the  vast  stream  of  Caesar's  liberalities.  From  the 
senator  downwards  to  the  lowest  fcEX  Romuli,  he  had 
a  hired  body  of  dependents,  both  in  and  out  of  Rome, 
equal  in  numbers  to  a  nation.  In  the  provinces,  and 
in  distant  kingdoms,  he  pursued  the  same  schemes. 
Everywhere  he  had  a  body  of  mercenary  partisans  ; 
kings  are  known  to  have  taken  his  pay.  And  it  is 
remarkable  that  even  in  his  character  of  commander-in- 
chief, -where  the  number  of  legions  allowed  to  him  far 
the  accomplishment  of  his  mission  raised  him  for  a 
number  of  years  above  all  fear  of  coercion  or  control, 
he  persevered  steadily  in  the  same  plan  of  providing 
for  the  day  when  he  might  need  assistance,  not  from 
the  state,  but  against  the  state.  For  amongst  the 
private  anecdotes  which  came  to  light  under  the  re- 
searches made  into  his  history  after  his  death,  was 
this  —  that,  soon  after  his  first  entrance  upon  his  gov- 
ernment in  Gaul,  he  had  raised,  equipped,  disciplined, 
and  maintained  from  his  own  private  funds,  a  legion 
amounting,  perhaps,  to  six  or  seven  thousand  men, 
who  were  bound  by  no  sacrament  of  military  obedience 
to  the  state,  nor  owed  fealty  to  any  auspices  except 
those  of  Cyesar.  This  legion,  from  the  fashion  of  their 
crested  helmets,  which  resembled  the  crested  heads  of 
a  small  bird  of  the  lark  species,  received  the  popular 
name  of  the  Alauda  (or  Lark)  legion.    And  very  sin* 


THE  CJESARS. 


57 


gular  it  was  that  Cato,  or  Marcellus,  or  some  amongst 
those  enemies  of  Caesar,  who  watched  his  conduct 
during  the  period  of  his  Gaulish  command  with  the 
vigilance  of  rancorous  malice,  should  not  have  come  to 
the  knowledge  of  this  fact ;  in  which  case  we  may  be 
sure  that  it  would  have  been  denounced  to  the  senate. 

Such,  then,  for  its  purpose  and  its  uniform  motive, 
was  the  sagacious  munificence  of  Caesar.  Apart  from 
this  motive,  and  considered  in  and  for  itself,  and  sim- 
ply with  a  reference  to  the  splendid  forms  which  it 
often  assumed,  this  munificence  would  furnish  the 
materials  for  a  volume.  The  public  entertainments  of 
Caesar,  his  spectacles  and  shows,  his  naumachiae,  and 
the  pomps  of  his  unrivalled  triumphs,  (the  closing  tri- 
umphs of  the  Republic,)  were  severally  the  finest  of 
their  kind  which  had  then  been  brought  forward. 
Sea-fights  were  exhibited  upon  the  grandest  scale,  ac- 
cording to  every  known  variety  of  nautical  equipment 
and  mode  of  conflict,  upon  a  vast  lake  formed  artifici- 
ally for  that  express  purpose.  Mimic  land-fights  were 
conducted,  in  which  all  the  circumstances  of  real  war 
were  so  faithfully  rehearsed,  that  even  elephants  '  in- 
dorsed with  towers,'  twenty  on  each  side,  took  part  in 
the  combat.  Dramas  were  represented  in  every  known 
language,  {per  omnium  linguarum  histriones.)  And 
hence  [that  is,  from  the  conciliatory  feeling  thus  ex- 
pressed towards  the  various  tribes  of  foreigners  resi- 
dent in  Kome]  some  have  derived  an  explanation  of 


58 


THE  C^SAKS. 


wliat  is  else  a  mysterious  circumstance  amoagsi  the 
ceremonial  observances  at  Caesar's  funeral  —  that  ah 
people  of  foreign  nations  then  residing  at  Rome,  tlis- 
tinguished  themselves  by  the  conspicuous  share  which 
they  took  in  the  public  mourning;  and  that,  beyond 
all  other  foreigners,  the  Jews  for  night  after  night  kept 
watch  and  ward  about  the  emperor's  grave.  Never 
before,  according  to  traditions  which  lasted  through 
several  generations  in  Rome,  had  there  been  so  vast  a 
conflux  of  the  human  race  congregated  to  any  one 
centre,  on  any  one  attraction  of  business  or  of  pleasure, 
as  to  Rome  on  occasion  of  these  spectacles  exhibited 
by  Caesar. 

In  our  days,  the  greatest  occasional  gatherings  of 
the  human  race  are  in  India,  especially  at  the  great 
fair  of  the  Hurdwar,  in  the  northern  part  of  Hindos- 
tan  ;  a  confluence  of  many  millions  is  sometimes  seen 
at  that  spot,  brought  together  under  the  mixed  influ- 
enceb  of  devotion  and  commercial  business,  and  dis- 
persed as  rapidly  as  they  had  been  convoked.  Some 
such  spectacle  of  nations  crowding  upon  nations,  and 
some  such  Babylonian  confusion  of  dresses,  complex- 
ions, languages,  and  jargons,  was  then  witnessed  at 
Rome.  Accommodations  within  doors,  and  under 
roofs  of  houses,  or  of  temples,  was  altogether  impos- 
sible. Myriads  encamped  along  the  streets,  and  along 
the  high-roads  in  the  vicinity  of  Rome.  Myriads  of 
myriads  lay  stretched  on  the  ground,  without  even  the 


THE  C^SABS. 


59 


slight  protection  of  tents,  in  a  vast  circuit  about  tlie 
city.  Multitudes  of  men,  even  senators,  and  others 
of  the  highest  rank,  were  trampled  to  death  in  the 
crowds.  And  the  wl  oie  family  of  man  seemed  at  that 
time  gathered  together  at  the  bidding  of  the  great 
Dictator.  But  these,  or  any  other  themes  connected 
with  the  public  life  of  Caesar,  we  notice  only  in  those 
circumstances  which  have  been  overlooked,  or  partially 
represented  by  historians.  -  Let  us  now,  in  conclusion, 
bring  forward,  from  the  obscurity  in  which  they  have 
hitherto  lurked,  the  anecdotes  which  describe  the 
habits  of  his  private  life,  his  tastes,  and  personal 
peculiarities. 

In  person,  he  was  tall,^^  fair,  and  of  limbs  distin- 
guished for  their  elegant  proportions  and  gracility. 
His  eyes  were  black  and  piercing.  These  circum- 
stances continued  to  be  long  remembered,  and  no 
doubt  were  constantly  recalled  to  the  eyes  of  all  per- 
sons in  the  imperial  palaces,  by  pictures,  busts,  and 
statues ;  for  we  find  the  same  description  of  his  per- 
sonal appearance  three  centuries  afterwards,  in  a  work 
of  the  Emperor  Julian's.  He  was  a  most  accomplished 
horseman,  and  a  master  {peritissirnus)  in  the  use  of 
arms.  But  notwithstanding  his  skill  and  horseman- 
ship, it  seems  that,  when  he  accompanied  his  army  on 
marches,  he  walked  oftener  than  he  rode  ;  no  doubt, 
with  a  view  to  the  benefit  of  his  example,  and  to 
express  that  sympathy  with  his  soldiers  which  gained 


60 


THE  C^SARS. 


him  their  hearts  so  entirely.  On  other  occasions 
when  travelling  apart  from  his  army,  he  seems  more 
frequently  to  have  rode  in  a  carriage  than  on  horse- 
back.  His  purpose,  in  jnaking  this  preference,  must 
have  been  with  a  view  to  the  transport  of  luggage. 
The  carriage  which  he  generally  used  was  a  rheda,  a 
sort  of  gig,  or  rather  curricle,  for  it  was  a  four-wheeled 
carriage,  and  adapted  (as  we  find  from  the  imperial 
regulations  for  the  public  carriages,  &c.)  to  the  con- 
veyance of  about  half  a  ton.  The  mere  personal 
baggage  which  Caesar  carried  with  him,  was  probably 
considerable,  for  he  was  a  man  of  the  most  elegant 
habits,  and  in  all  parts  of  his  life  sedulously  attentive 
to  elegance  of  personal  appearance.  The  length  of 
journeys  which  he  accomplished  within  a  given  time, 
appears  even  to  us  at*  this  day,  and  might  well  there- 
fore appear  to  his  contemporaries,  truly  astonishing. 
A  distance  of  one  hundred  miles  was  no  extraordinary 
day's  journey  for  him  in  a  rheda,  such  as  we  have 
described  it.  So  elegant  were  his  habits,  and  so  con- 
stant his  demand  for  the  luxurious  accommodations  of 
polished  life,  as  it  then  existed  in  Rome,  that  he  is 
said  to  have  carried  with  him,  as  indispensable  parts  of 
his  personal  baggage,  the  little  lozenges  and  squares 
of  ivory,  and  other  costly  materials,  which  were  want- 
ed for  the  tessellated  flooring  of  his  tent.  Habits  such 
as  these  will  easily  account  for  his  travelling  in  a  car- 
riage rather  than  on  horseback. 


THE  CiESARS. 


61 


The  courtesy  and  obliging  disposition  of  Csesar  were 
notorious,  and  both  were  illustrated  in  some  anecdotes 
which  survived  for  generations  in  Rome.  Dining  on 
one  occasion  at  a  table,  where  the  servants  had  inad- 
vertently, for  salad-oil  furnished  some  sort  of  coarse 
lamp-oil,  Csesar  would  not  allow  the  rest  of  the  com- 
pany to  point  out  the  mistake  to  their  host,  for  fear  of 
Bhocking  him  too  much  by  exposing  the  mistake.  At 
another  time,  whilst  halting  at  a  little  cabaret^  when 
one  of  *  his  retinue  was  suddenly  taken  ill,  Csesar 
resigned  to  his  use  the  sole  bed  which  the  house 
afforded.  Incidents  as  trifling  as  these,  express  the 
urbanity  of  Csesar's  nature ;  and,  hence,^  one  is  more 
surprised  to  find  the  alienation  of  the  senate  charged, 
in  no  trifling  degree,  upon  a  failure  in  point  of  cour- 
tesy. Csesar  neglected  to  rise  from  his  seat  on  their 
approaching  him  in  a  body  with  an  address  of  congrat- 
ulation. It  is  said,  and  we  can  believe  it,  that  he  gave 
deeper  oflence  by  this  one  defect  in  a  matter  of  cere- 
monial observance,  than  by  all  his  substantial  attacks 
upon  their  privileges.  What  we  find  it  difiicult  to 
believe,  however,  is  not  that  result  from  the  oflence, 
but  the  possibility  of  the  oflence  itself,  from  one  so 
little  arrogant  as  Caesar,  and  so  entirely  a  man  of  the 
world.  He  was  told  of  the  disgust  which  he  had 
given,  and  we  are  bound  to  believe  his  apology,  in 
which  he  charged  it  upon  sickness,  which  would  not 
|t  the  moment  allow  him  to  maintain  a  standing  atti- 


62 


THE  C^SAES. 


tude.  Certainly  the  whole  tenor  of  his  life  was  not 
courteous  only,  but  kind ;  and,  to  his  enemies,  merci- 
ful in  a  degree  which  implied  so  much  more  magnani- 
mity than  men  in  general  could  understand,  that  by 
many  it  was  put  down  to  the  account  of  weakness. 

Weakness,  however,  there  was  none  in  Caius  Caesar : 
and,  that  there  might  be  none,  it  was  fortunate  that 
conspiracy  should  have  cut  him  off  in  the  full  vigor  of 
his  faculties,  in  the  very  meridian  of  his  glory,  and  on 
the  brink  of  completing  a  series  of  gigantic  •achieve- 
ments. Amongst  these  are  numbered  —  a  digest  of 
the  entire  body  of  the  laws,  even  then  become  un- 
wieldy and  oppressive  ;  the  establishment  of  vast  and 
comprehensive  public  libraries,  Greek  as  well  as  Latin  ; 
the  chastisement  of  Dacia  ;  the  conquest  of  Parthia ; 
and  the  cutting  a  ship  canal  through  the  Isthmus  of 
Corinth.  The  reformation  of  the  calendar  he  had 
already  accomplished.  And  of  all  his  projects  it  may 
be  said  that  they  were  equally  patriotic  in  their  pur- 
pxDse,  and  colossal  in  their  proportions. 

As  an  orator,  Caesar's  merit  was  so  eminent,  that, 
according  to  the  general  belief,  had  he  found  time  to 
cultivate  this  department  of  civil  exertion,  the  precise 
supremacy  of  Cicero  would  have  been  made  question- 
able, or  the  honors  would  have  been  divided.  Cicero 
himself  was  of  that  opinion ;  and  on  different  occasions 
applied  the  epithet  Splendidus  to  Caesar,  as  though  in 
some  exclusive  sense,  or  with  a  peculiar  emphasis,  due 


THE  CjESAKS. 


63 


CO  him.  His  taste  was  much  simpler,  chaster,  and 
disinclined  to  the  Jiorid  and  ornamental,  than  that  of 
Cicero.  So  far  he  would,  in  that  condition  of  the 
Roman  culture  and  feeling,  have  been  less  acceptable 
to  the  public  ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  he  would  have 
compensated  this  disadvantage  by  much  more  of  natu- 
ral and  Demosthenic  fervor. 

In  literature,  the  merits  of  Csesar  are  familiar  to 
most  readers.  Under  the  modest  title  of  Cointnen- 
taries,  he  meant  to  offer  the  records  of  his  Gallic  and 
British  campaigns,  simply  as  notes,  or  memoranda, 
afterwards  to  be  worked  up  by  regular  historians ;  but, 
as  Cicero  observes,  their  merit  was  such  in  the  eyes  of 
the  discerning,  that  all  judicious  writers  shrank  from 
the  attempt  to  alter  them.  In  another  instance  of  his 
literary  labors,  he  showed  a  very  just  sense  of  true 
dignity.  Rightly  conceiving  that  everything  patriotic 
was  dignified,  and  that  to  illustrate  or  polish  his  native 
language,  was  a  service  of  real  patriotism,  he  composed 
a  work  on  the  grammar  and  orthoepy  of  the  Latin 
language.  Cicero  and  himself  were  the  only  Romans 
of  distinction  in  that  age,  who  applied  themselves  with 
true  patriotism  to  the  task  of  purifying  and  ennobling 
their  mother  tongue.  Both  were  aware  of  the  tran- 
scendent quality  of  the  Grecian  literature  ;  but  that 
splendor  did  not  depress  their  hopes  of  raising  their 
vwn  to  something  of  the  same  level.  As  respected 
the  natural  wealth  of  the  two  languages,  it  was  the 


64 


THE  C^SARS. 


private  opinion  of  Cicero,  that  the  Latin  had  the  ad- 
vantage ;  and  if  Caesar  did  not  accompany  him  to  that 
length,  he  yet  felt  that  it  was  but  the  more  necessary 
to  draw  forth  any  single  advantage  which  it  really 
had.13 

Was  Csesar,  upon  the  whole,  the  greatest  of  men? 
Dr.  Beattie  once  observed,  that  if  that  question  were 
left  to  be  collected  from  the  suffrages  already  express- 
ed in  books,  and  scattered  throughout  the  literature 
of  all  nations,  the  scale  would  be  found  to  have  turned 
prodigiously  in  Caesar's  favor,  as  against  any  single 
competitor  ;  and  there  is  no  doubt  whatsoever,  that 
even  amongst  his  own  couDtrymen,  and  his  own  con- 
temporaries, the  same  verdict  would  have  been  re- 
turned, had  it  been  collected  upon  the  famous  principle 
of  Themistocles,  that  he  should  be  reputed  the  first, 
whom  the  greatest  number  of  rival  voices  had  pro- 
nounced the  second. 


THE  CJSSARS. 


65 


CHAPTER  II. 

The  situation  of  the  Second  Caesar,  at  the  crisis  of 
the  great  Dictator's  assassination,  was  so  hazardous 
and  delicate,  as  to  confer  interest  upon  a  character 
not  otherwise  attractive.  To  many  we  know  it  was 
positively  repulsive,  and  in  the  very  highest  degree. 
In  particular,  it  is  recorded  of  Sir  William  Jones,  that 
he  regarded  this  emperor  with  feelings  of  abhorrence 
so  personal  and  deadly,  as  to  refuse  him  his  customary 
titular  honors  whenever  he  had  occasion  to  mention 
him  by  name.  Yet  it  was  the  whole  Roman  people 
that  conferred  upon  him  his  title  of  Augustus.  But 
Sir  William,  ascribing  no  force  to  the  acts  of  a  people 
who  had  sunk  so  low  as  to  exult  in  their  chains,  and 
to  decorate  with  honors  the  very  instruments  of  their 
own  vassalage,  would  not  recognize  this  popular  cre- 
ation, and  spoke  of  him  always  by  his  family  name 
of  Octavius.  The  flattery  of  the  populace,  by  the 
way,  must,  in  this  instance,  have  been  doubly  accept- 
able to  the  emperor,  first,  for  what  it  gave,  and 
secondly,  for  what  it  concealed.  Of  his  grand-uncle 
the  first  Caesar,  a  tradition  survives  —  that  of  all  the 
distinctions  created  in  his  favor,  either  by  the  senate 

or  the  people,  he  put  most  value  upon  the  laurel 
5 


66 


THE  CiESARS. 


crown  which  was  voted  to  him  after  his  last  campaigns 
—  a  beautiful  and  conspicuous  memorial  to  every  eye 
of  his  great  public  acts,  and  at  the  same  time  an 
overshadowing  veil  of  his  one  sole  personal  defect. 
This  laurel  diadem  at  once  proclaimed  his  civic  gran- 
deur, and  concealed  his  baldness,  a  defect  which  was 
more  mortifying  to  a  Eoman  than  it  would  be  to 
ourselves  from  the  peculiar  theory  which  then  pre- 
vailed as  to  its  probable  origin.  A  gratitude  of  the 
same  mixed  quality  must  naturally  have  been  felt  by 
the  Second  Csesar  for  his  title  of  Augustus,  which, 
whilst  it  illustrated  his  public  character  by  the  highest 
expression  of  majesty,  set  apart  and  sequestrated  to 
public  functions,  had  also  the  agreeable  effect  of  with- 
drawing from  the  general  remembrance  his  obscure 
descent.  For  the  Octavian  house  \^gens']  had  in 
neither  of  its  branches  risen  to  any  great  splendor 
of  civic  distinction,. and  in  his  own,  to  little  or  none. 
The  same  titular  decoration,  therefore,  so  offensive  to 
the  celebrated  Whig,  was,  in  the  eyes  of  Augustus,  at 
once  a  trophy  of  public  merit,  a  monument  of  public 
gratitude,  and  an  effectual  obliteration  of  his  own  natal 
obscurity. 

But,  if  merely  odious  to  men  of  Sir  William's  prin- 
ciples, to  others  the  character  of  Augustus,  in  relation 
to  the  circumstances  which  surrounded  him,  was  not 
without  its  appropriate  interest.  He  was  summoned 
In  early  youth,  and  without  warning,  to  face  a  crisis 


THE  C^SARS. 


67 


of  tremendous  hazard,  being  at  the  same  time  himself 
a  man  of  no  very  great  constitutional  courage  ;  perhaps 
he  was  even  a  coward.  And  this  we  say  without 
meaning  to  adopt  as  gospel  truths  all  the  party  re- 
proaches of  Anthony.  Certainly  he  was  utterly  unfur- 
nished by  nature  with  those  endowments  which  seemed 
to  be  indispensable  in  a  successor  to  the  power  of  the 
great  Dictator.  But  exactly  in  these  deficiencies,  and 
in  certain  accidents  unfavorable  to  his  ambition,  lay 
his  security.  He  had  been  adopted  by  his  grand- 
uncle,  Julius.  That  adoption  made  him,  to  all  intents 
and  purposes  of  law,  the  son^"*  of  his  great  patron  ;  and 
doubtless,  in  a  short  time,  this  adoption  would  have 
been  applied  to  more  extensive  uses,  and  as  a  station 
of  vantage  for  introducing  him  to  the  public  favor. 
From  the  inheritance  of  the  Julian  estates  and  family 
honors,  he  would  have  been  trained  to  mount,  as  from 
a  stepping-stone,  to  the  inheritance  of  the  Julian 
power  and  political  station  ;  and  the  Roman  people 
would  have  been  familiarized  to  regard  him  in  that 
character.  But,  luckily  for  himself,  the  finishing,  or 
ceremonial  acts,  were  yet  wanting  in  this  process  — 
the  political  heirship  was  inchoate  and  imperfect. 
Tacitly  understood,  indeed,  it  was  ;  but  had  it  been 
formally  proposed  and  ratified,  there  cannot  be  a  doubt 
that  the  young  Octavius  would  have  been  pointed  out 
to  the  vengeance  of  the  patriots,  and  included  in  the 
scheme  of  the  conspirators,  as  a  fellow- victim  with  his 


68 


THE  C^SARS. 


nominal  father;  and  would  have  been  cut  off  too  sud- 
denly to  benefit  by  that  re-action  of  popular  feeling 
which  saved  the  partisans  of  the  Dictator,  by  separat- 
ing the  conspirators,  and  obliging  them,  without  loss 
of  time,  to  look  to  their  own  safety.  It  was  by  this 
fortunate  accident  that  the  young  heir  and  adopted  son 
of  the  first  Caesar  not  only  escaped  assassination,  but 
was  enabled  to  postpone  indefinitely  the  final  and 
military  struggle  for  the  vacant  seat  of  empire,  and 
in  the  meantime  to  maintain  a  coequal  rank  with  the 
leaders  in  the  state,  by  those  arts  and  resources  in 
which  he  was  superior  to  his  competitors.  His  place 
in  the  favor  of  Caius  Julius  was  of  power  sufficient  to 
give  him  a  share  in  any  triumvirate  which  could  be 
formed  ;  but,  wanting  the  formality  of  a  regular  intro- 
duction to  the  people,  and  the  ratification  of  theit 
acceptance,  that  place  was  not  sufficient  to  raise  him 
permanently  into  the  perilous  and  invidious  station  of 
absolute  supremacy  which  he  afterwards  occupied. 
The  felicity  of  Augustus  was  often  vaunted  by  an- 
tiquity, (with  whom  success  was  not  so  much  a  test 
of  merit  as  itself  a  merit  of  the  highest  quality,)  and 
in  no  instance  was  this  felicity  more  conspicuous  than 
\n  the  first  act  of  his  entrance  upon  the  political  scene. 
No  doubt  his  friends  and  enemies  alike  thought  o* 
him,  at  the  moment  of  Caesar's  assassination,  as  we 
now  think  of  a  young  man  heir- elect  to  some  person 
of  immense  wealth,  cut  ofi*  by  a  sudden  death  before 


THE  CJESARS. 


69 


he  has  nad  time  to  ratify  a  will  in  execution  of  his 
purposes.  Yet^  in  fact  the  case  was  far  otherwise. 
Brought  forward  distinctly  as  the  successor  of  Csesar's 
power,  had  he  even,  by  some  favorable  accident  of 
absence  from  Rome,  or  otherwise,  escaped  being  in- 
volved in  that  great  man's  fate,  he  would  at  all  events 
have  been  thrown  upon  the  instant  necessity  of  de- 
fending his  supreme  station  by  arms.  To  have  left  it 
unasserted,  when  once  solemnly  created  in  his  favor 
by  a  reversionary  title,  would  have  been  deliberately 
to  resign  it.  This  would  have  been  a  confession  of 
weakness  liable  to  no  disguise,  and  ruinous  to  any 
subsequent  pretensions.  Yet,  without  preparation  of 
means,  with  no  development  of  resources  nor  growth 
of  circumstances,  an  appeal  to  arms  would,  in  his  case, 
have  been  of  very  doubtful  issue.  His  true  weapons, 
for  a  long  period,  were  the  arts  of  vigilance  and  dis- 
simulation. Cultivating  these,  he  was  enabled  to  pre- 
pare for  a  contest  which,  undertaken  prematurely,  must 
have  ruined  him,  and  to  raise  himself  to  a  station  of 
even  military  preeminence  to  those  who  naturally,  and 
by  circumstances,  were  originally  every  way  superior 
to  himself. 

The  qualities  in  which  he  really  excelled,  the  gifts 
of  intrigue,  patience,  long  suffering,  dissimulation,  and 
tortuous  fraud,  were  thus  brought  into  play,  and 
allowed  their  full  value.  Such  qualities  had  every 
chance  of  prevailing  in  the  long  run,  against  the  noble 


70 


THE  C^SARS. 


carelessness  and  the  impetuosity  of  tlie  passionate 
Anthony  —  and  they  did  prevail.  Always  on  the 
watch  to  lay  hold  of  those  opportunities  which  the 
generous  negligence  of  his  rival  was  but  too  frequentl;| 
throwing  in  his  way  —  unless  by  the  sudden  reverses 
of  w^ar  and  the  accidents  of  battle,  which  as  much  as 
possible,  and  as  long  as  possible,  he  declined  —  there 
could  be  little  question  in  any  man's  mind,  that 
eventually  he  would  win  his  way  to  a  solitary  throne, 
by  a  policy  so  full  of  caution  and  subtlety.  He  was 
sure  to  risk  nothing  which  could  be  had  on  easier 
terms  ;  and  nothing  unless  for  a  great  overbalance  of 
gain  in  prospect ;  to  lose  nothing  which  he  had  once 
gained ;  and  in  no  case  to  miss  an  advantage,  or  sacri- 
fice an  opportunity,  by  any  consideration  of  gene- 
rosity. No  modern  insurance  office  but  would  have 
guaranteed  an  event  depending  upon  the  final  success 
of  Augustus,  on  terms  far  below  those  which  they 
must  in  prudence  have  exacted  from  the  fiery  and 
adventurous  Anthony.  Each  was  an  ideal  in  his  own 
class.  But  Augustus,  having  finally  triumphed,  has 
met  with  more  than  justice  from  succeeding  ages. 
Even  Lord  Bacon  says,  that,  by  comparison  with 
Julius  Caesar,  he  was  '  non  tam  impar  quam  dispar' 
Burely  a  most  extravagant  encomium,  applied  to  Avhom- 
Boever.  On  the  other  hand,  Anthony,  amongst  the 
most  signal  misfortunes  of  his  life,  might  number  it, 
that  Cicero,  the  great  dispenser  of  immortality,  in 


THE  CiESARS. 


71 


whose  hands  (more  perhaps  than  in  any  one  man's  of 
ftny  age)  were  the  vials  of  good  and  evil  fame,  should 
happen  to  have  been  his  bitter  and  persevering  enemy. 
It  is,  however,  some  balance  to  this,  that  Shakspeare 
had  a  just  conception  of  the  original  grandeur  which 
lay  beneath  that  wild  tempestuous  nature  presented  by 
Anthony  to  the  eye  of  the  undiscriminating  world.  It 
is  to  the  honor  of  Shakspeare  that  he  should  have  been 
able  to  discern  the  true  coloring  of  this  most  original 
character  under  the  smoke  and  tarnish  of  antiquity. 
It  is  no  less  to  the  honor  of  the  great  triumvir,  that  a 
strength  of  coloring  should  survive  in  his  character, 
capable  of  baffling  the  wrongs  and  ravages  of  time. 
Neither  is  it  to  be  thought  strange  that  a  character 
should  have  been  misunderstood  and  falsely  appreciated 
for  nearly  two  thousand  years.  It  happens  not  uncom- 
monly, especially  amongst  an  unimaginative  people, 
like  the  Romans,  that  the  characters  of  men  are 
ciphers  and  enigmas  to  their  own  age,  and  are  first 
read  and  interpreted  by  a  far  distant  posterity.  Stars 
are  supposed  to  exist,  whose  light  has  been  travelling 
for  many  thousands  of  years  without  having  yet 
reached  our  system ;  and  the  eyes  are  yet  unborn 
upon  which-  their  earliest  rays  will  fall.  Men  like 
Mark  Anthony,  with  minds  of  chaotic  composition  — 
light  conflicting  with  darkness,  proportions  of  colossal 
grandeur  disfigured  by  unsymmetrical  arrangement, 
tlie  angelic  in  close  neighborhood  with  the  brutal  — are 


72 


THE  CJESARS. 


first  read  in  their  true  meaning  by  an  age  learned  in 
the  philosophy  of  the  human  heart.  Of  this  philosophy 
the  Romans  had,  by  the  necessities  of  education  anc' 
domestic  discipline,  not  less  than  by  original  constitu- 
tion of  mind,  the  very  narrowest  visual  range.  In  no 
literature  whatsoever  are  so  few  tolerable  notices  to  be 
•  found  of  any  great  truths  in  Psychology.  Nor  could 
this  have  been  otherwise  amongst  a  people  who  tried 
everything  by  the  standard  of  social  value  ;  never 
Becking  for  a  canon  of  excellence,  in  man  considered 
abstractedly  in  and  for  himself,  and  as  having  an 
independent  value  —  but  always  and  exclusively  in 
man  as  a  gregarious  being,  and  designed  for  social  uses 
and  functions.  Not  man  in  his  own  peculiar  nature, 
but  man  in  his  relations  to  other  men,  was  the  station 
from  which  the  Roman  speculators  took  up  their 
philosophy  of  human  nature.  Tried  by  such  standard, 
Mark  Anthony  would  be  found  wanting.  As  a  citizen, 
he  was  irretrievably  licentious,  and  therefore  there 
needed  not  the  bitter  personal  feud,  which  circum- 
stances had  generated  between  them,  to  account  for 
the  acharnement  with  which  Cicero  pursued  him.  Had 
Anthony  been  his  friend  even,  or  his  near  kinsman, 
Cicero  must  still  have  been  his  public  en3my.  And 
not  merely  for  his  vices  ;  for  even  the  grander  features 
of  his  character,  his  towering  ambition,  his  magna- 
nimity, and  the  fascinations  of  his  popular  qualities,  — 
were  all,  in  the  circumstances  of  those  times,  and  in 
his  position,  of  a  tendency  dangerously  uncivil. 


THE  C^SARS. 


73 


So  remarkable  was  the  opposition,  at  all  points,  be- 
between  the  second  Csesai  and  his  rival,  that  whereas, 
Anthon}^  even  in  his  virtues  seemed  dangerous  to  the 
state,  Octavi  as  gave  a  civic  coloring  to  his  most  indiffer- 
ent actions,  and,  with  a  Machiavelian  policy,  observed 
a  scrupulous  regard  to  the  forms  of  the  Republic,  after 
every  fragment  of  the  republican  institutions,  the  privi- 
leges of  the  republican  magistrates,  and  the  functions 
of  the  great  popular  officers,  had  been  absorbed  into 
his  own  autocracy.  Even  in  the  most  prosperous 
days  of  the  Roman  State,  when  the  democratic  forces 
balanced,  and  were  balanced  by,  those  of  the  aristoc- 
racy, it  was  far  from  being  a  general  or  common 
praise,  that  a  man  was  of  a  civic  turn  of  mind,  animo 
civili.  Yet  this  praise  did  Augustus  affect,  and  in 
reality  attain,  at  a  time  when  the  very  object  of  all 
civic  feeling  was  absolutely  extinct ;  so  much  are  men 
governed  by  words.  Suetonius  assures  us,  that  many 
evidences  were  current  even  to  his  times  of  this  popu- 
lar disposition  [civilitas)  in  the  emperor  ;  and  that  it 
survived  every  experience  of  servile  adulation  in  the 
Roman  populace,  and  all  the  effects  of  long  familiarity 
with  irresponsible  power  in  himself.  Such  a  modera- 
tion of  feeling,  we  are  almost  obliged  to  consider  as  a 
genuine  and  unaffected  expression  of  his  real  nature  ; 
for,  as  an  artifice  of  policy,  it  had  soon  lost  its  uses. 
And  it  is  worthy  of  notice,  that  with  the  army  he  laid 
aside  those  popular  manners  as  soon   as  possible, 


74 


THE  C^SARS. 


addressing  them  as  milites,  not  {according  to  his  ear- 
lier practice)  as  coinmilitones.  It  concerned  his  own 
security,  to  be  jealous  of  encroachments  on  his  power. 
But  of  his  rank,  and  the  honors  which  accompanied  it, 
he  seems  to  have  been  uniformly  careless.  Thus,  he 
would  never  leave  a  town  or  enter  it  by  daylight, 
unless  some  higher  rule  of  policy  obliged  him  to  do  so  ; 
by  which  means  he  evaded  a  ceremonial  of  public 
honor  which  was  burdensome  to  all  the  parties  con- 
cerned in  it.  Sometimes,  however,  we  find  that  men, 
careless  of  honors  in  their  own  persons,  are  glad  to 
see  them  settling  upon  their  family  and  immediate 
connections.  But  here  again  Augustus  showed  the 
sincerity  of  his  moderation.  For  upon  one  occasion, 
when  the  whole  audience  in  the  Roman  theatre  had 
risen  upon  the  entrance  of  his  two  adopted  sons, 
at  that  time  not  seventeen  years  old,  he  was  highly 
displeased,  and  even  thought  it  necessary  to  publish 
his  displeasure  in  a  separate  edict.  It  is  another,  and 
a  striking  illustration  of  his  humility,  that  he  willingly 
accepted  of  public  appointments,  and  sedulously  dis- 
charged the  duties  attached  to  them,  in  conjunction 
with  colleagues  who  had  been  chosen  with  little  regard 
to  his  personal  partialities.  In  the  debates  of  the 
senate,  he  showed  the  same  equanimity ;  suffering 
himself  patiently  to  be  contradicted,  and  even  with 
circumstances  of  studied  incivility.  In  the  public 
elections,  he  gave  his  vote  like  any  private  citizen; 


THE  C^SARS. 


75 


and,  when  lie  happened  to  be  a  candidate  himself,  he 
canvassed  the  electors  with  the  same  earnestness  ol 
personal  application,  as  any  other  candidate  with  the 
least  possible  title  to  public  favor  from  present  power 
or  past  services.  But,  perhaps  by  no  expressions  ot 
his  civic  spirit  did  Augustus  so  much  conciliate  men's 
minds,  as  by  the  readiness  with  which  he  participated 
in  their  social  pleasures,  and  by  the  uniform  severity 
with  which  he  refused  to  apply  his  influence  in  any  way 
which  could  disturb  the  pure  administration  of  justice. 
The  Eoman  juries  {judices  they  were  called),  were 
very  corrupt ;  and  easily  swayed  to  an  unconscientious 
verdict,  by  the  appearance  in  court  of  any  great  man 
on  behalf  of  one  of  the  parties  interested ;  nor  was 
such  an  interference  with  the  course  of  private  justice 
any  ways  injurious  to  the  great  man's  character.  The 
wrong  which  he  promoted  did  but  the  more  forcibly 
proclaim  the  warmth  and  fidelity  of  his  friendships. 
So  much  the  more  generally  was  the  uprightness  of 
the  emperor  appreciated,  who  would  neither  tamper 
with  justice  himself  nor  countenance  any  motion  in 
that  direction,  though  it  were  to  serve  his  very  dearest 
friend,  either  by  his  personal  presence,  or  by  the  use 
"»f  his  name.  And,  as  if  it  had  been  a  trifle  merely  to 
forbear,  and  to  show  his  regard  to  justice  in  this  nega- 
tive way,  he  even  allowed  himself  to  be  summoned  aa 
a  witness  on  trials,  and  showed  no  anger  when  his  own 
evidence  was  overborne  by  stronger  on  the  other  side. 


76 


THE  C^SARR 


This  disinterested  love  of  justice,  and  an  integrity,  so 
rare  in  the  great  men  of  Rome,  could  not  but  com- 
mand the  reverence  of  the  people.  But  their  affection, 
doubtless,  was  more  conciliated  by  the  freedom  with 
which  the  emperor  accepted  invitations  from  all  quar- 
ters, and  shared  continually  in  the  festal  pleasures  of 
his  subjects.  This  practice,  however,  he  discontinued, 
or  narrowed,  as  he  advanced  in  years.  Suetonius, 
who,  as  a  true  anecdote-monger,  would  solve  every 
thing,  and  account  for  every  change  by  some  definite 
incident,  charges  this  alteration  in  the  emperor's  con- 
descensions upon  one  particular  party  at  a  wedding 
feast,  where  the  crowd  incommoded  him  much  by  their 
pressure  and  heat.  But,  doubtless,  it  happened  to 
Augustus  as  to  other  men  ;  his  spirits  failed,  and  his 
powers  of  supporting  fatigue  or  bustle,  as  years  stole 
upon  him.  Changes,  coming  by  insensible  steps,  and 
not  willingly  acknowledged,  for  some  time  escape 
notice  ;  until  some  sudden  shock  reminds  a  man  for- 
cibly to  do  that  which  he  has  long  meditated  in  an 
irresolute  way.  The  marriage  banquet  may  have  been 
the  particular  occasion  from  which  Augustus  stepped 
'nto  the  habits  of  old  age,  but  certainly  not  the  cause 
of  so  entire  a  revolution  in  his  mode  of  living. 

It  might  seem  to  throw  some  doubt,  if  not  upon  the 
fact,  yet  at  least  upon  the  sincerity,  of  his  civism,  that 
undoubtedly  Augustus  cultivated  hi*  kingly  connec- 
tions with  considerable  anxiety     It  may  have  been 


THE  CjESAHS. 


77 


upon  motives  merely  political  that  he  kept  at  Rome  the 
children  of  nearly  all  the  kings  then  known  as  allies  or 
vassals  of  the  Roman  power  :  a  curious  fact,  and  not 
generally  known.  In  his  own  palace  were  reared  a 
number  of  youthful  princes  ;  and  they  were  educated 
jointly  with  his  own  children.  It  is  also  upon  record, 
that  in  many  instances  the  fathers  of  these  princes 
spontaneously  repaired  to  Rome,  and  there  assuming 
the  Roman  dress  —  as  an  expression  of  reverence  to 
the  majesty  of  the  omnipotent  State  —  did  personal 
'  suit  and  service  '  {more  clientum)  to  Augustus.  It  is 
an  anecdote  of  not  less  curiosity,  that  a  whole  '  college' 
of  kings  subscribed  money  for  a  temple  at  Athens,  to 
DC  dedicated  in  the  name  of  Augustus.  Throughout 
his  life,  indeed,  this  emperor  paid  a  marked  attention 
to  all  royal  houses  then  known  to  Rome,  as  occu- 
pying the  thrones  upon  the  vast  margin  of  the  empire. 
It  is  true  that  in  part  this  attention  might  be  interpreted 
as  given  politically  to  so  many  lieutenants,  wielding  a 
remote  or  inaccessible  power  for  the  benefit  of  Rome. 
And  the  children  of  these  kings  might  J3e  regarded  as 
hostages,  ostensibly  entertained  for  the  sake  of  educa- 
tion, but  really  as  pledges  for  their  parents'  fidelity, 
and  also  with  a  view  to  the  large  reversionary  advan- 
tages which  might  be  expected  to  arise  upon  the  basis 
of  so  early  and  affectionate  a  connection.  But  it  is  not 
\,he  less  true,  that,  at  one  period  of  his  life,  Augustus 
did  certainly  meditate  some  closer  personal  connection 


78 


THE  C^SARS. 


with  the  royal  families  of  the  earth.  He  speculated, 
undoubtedly,  on  a  marriage  for  himself  with  some 
barbarous  princess,  and  at  one  time  designed  his  daugh- 
ter Julia  as  a  wife  for  Cotiso,  the  king  of  the  Getae. 
Superstition  perhaps  disturbed  the  one  scheme,  and 
policy  the  other.  He  married,  as  is  well  known,  for 
his  final  wife,  and  the  partner  of  his  life  through  its 
whole  triumphant  stage,  Li  via  Drusilla  ;  compelling  her 
husband,  Tiberius  Nero,  to  divorce  her,  notwithstand- 
ing she  was  then  six  months  advanced  in  pregnancy. 
With  this  lady,  who  was  distinguished  for  her  beauty, 
it  is  certain  that  he  was  deeply  in  love  ;  and  that  might 
be  sufficient  to  account  for  the  marriage.  It  is  equally 
certain,  however,  upon  the  concurring  evidence  of  in- 
dependent writers,  that  this  connection  had  an  oracu- 
lar sanction  —  not  to  say  suggestion  ;  a  circumstance 
which  was  long  remembered^  and  was  afterwards  noticed 
by  the  Christian  poet  Prudentius  : 

'  Idque  Deam  sortes  et  Apollinis  antra  dederunt 
Consilium  :  nunquam  melius  nam  caedere  taedas 
Responsum  est,  quam  cum  praegnans  nova  nupta  jugatur.' 

His  daughter  Julia  had  been  promised  by  turns,  and 
always  upon  reasons  of  state,  to  a  whole  muster-roll 
of  suitors  ;  first  of  all,  to  a  son  of  Mark  Anthony  ; 
secondly,  to  the  barbarous  king  ;  thirdly,  to  her  first 
cousin  —  that  Marcellus,  the  son  of  Octavia,  only  sister 
to  Augustus,  whose  early  death,  in  the  midst  of  great 
expectations,  Virgil  has  so  beautifully  introduced  inta 


THE  C^SARS. 


79 


the  vision  of  Ptoman  grandeurs  as  yet  unborn,  which 
^neas  beholds  in  the  shades ;  fourthly,  she  was  pro- 
mised (and  this  time  the  promise  was  kept)  to  the 
fortunate  soldier,  Agrippa,  whose  low  birth  was  not 
permitted  to  obscure  his  military  merits.  By  him  she 
had  a  family  of  children,  upon  whom,  if  upon  any  in 
this  world  the  wrath  of  Providence  seems  to  have 
rested ;  for,  excepting  one,  and  in  spite  of  all  the 
favors  that  earth  and  heaven  could  unite  to  shower 
upon  them,  all  came  to  an  early,  a  violent,  and  an 
infamous  end.  Fifthly,  upon  the  death  of  Agrippa, 
and  again  upon  motives  of  policy,  and  in  atrocious 
contempt  of  all  the  ties  that  nature  and  the  human 
heart  and  human  laws  have  hallowed,  she  was  prom- 
ised, (if  that  word  may  be  applied  to  the  violent 
obtrusion  upon  a  man's  bed  of  one  who  was  doubly  a 
curse  —  first,  for  what  she  brought,  and,  secondly,  for 
what  she  took  away,)  and  given  to  Tiberius,  the  future 
emperor.  Upon  the  whole,  as  far  as  we  can  at  this 
Jay  make  out  the  connection  of  a  man's  acts  and 
purposes,  which,  even  to  his  own  age,  were  never 
entirely  cleared  up,  it  is  probable  that,  so  long  as  the 
triumvirate  survived,  and  so  long  as  the  condition  of 
Koman  power  or  intrigues,  and  the  distribution  of  Ro- 
man influence,  were  such  as  to  leave  a  possibility  that 
any  new  triumvirate  should  arise  —  so  long  Augustus 
was  secretly  meditating  a  retreat  for  himself  at  some 
barbarous  court,  against  any  sudden  reverse  of  fortune 


80 


THE  C^SABS, 


by  means  of  a  domestic  connection,  which  should  give 
him  the  claim  of  a  kinsman.  Such  a  court,  however 
unable  to  make  head  against  the  collective  power  of 
Rome,  might  yet  present  a  front  of  resistance  to  any 
single  partisan  who  should  happen  to  acquire  a  brief 
ascendancy ;  or,  at  the  worst,  as  a  merely  defensive 
power,  might  offer  a  retreat,  secure  in  distance,  and 
difficult  of  access ;  or  might  be  available  as  a  means 
of  delay  for  recovering  from  some  else  fatal  defeat.  It 
is  certain  that  Augustus  viewed  Egypt  with  jealousy 
as  a  province,  which  might  be  turned  to  account  in 
some  such  way  by  any  inspiring  insurgent.  And  it 
must  have  often  struck  him  as  a  remarkable  circum- 
stance, which  by  good  luck  had  turned  out  entirely 
to  the  advantage  of  his  own  family,  but  which  might 
as  readily  have  had  an  opposite  result,  that  the  three 
decisive  battles  of  Pharsalia,  of  Thapsus,  and  of 
Munda,  in  which  the  empire  of  the  world  was  three 
times  over  staked  as  the  prize,  had  severally  brought 
upon  the  defeated  leaders  a  ruin  which  was  total, 
absolute,  and  final.  One  hour  had  seen  the  whole 
fabric  of  their  aspiring  fortunes  demolished  ;  and  no 
resource  was  left  to  them  but  either  in  suicide,  (which, 
accordingly  even  Caesar  had  meditated  at  one  stage 
of  the  battle  of  Munda,  when  it  seemed  to  be  going 
against  him,)  or  in  the  mercy  of  the  victor. 

That  a  victor  in  a  hundred  fights  should  in  his 
hundred-and-first,^^  as  in  his  first,  risk  the  loss  of  that 


THE  CJiSARS. 


81 


particulai  battle,  is  inseparable  from  the  condition  of 
man,  and  the  uncertainty  of  human  means ;  but  tha 
the  loss  of  this  one  battle  should  be  equally  fatal  and 
irrecoverable  with  the  loss  of  his  first,  that  it  should 
leave  him  with  means  no  more  cemented,  and  re- 
sources no  better  matured  for  retarding  his  fall,  and 
throwing  a  long  succession  of  hindrances  in  the  w^ay 
of  his  conqueror,  argues  some  essential  defect  of  sys- 
tem. Under  our  modern  policy,  military  power  — 
though  it  may  be  the  growth  of  one  man's  life  —  soon 
takes  root ;  a  succession  of  campaigns  is  required  for 
its  extirpation  ;  and  it  revolves  backwards  to  its  final 
extinction  through  all  the  stages  by  which  originally 
it  grew.  On  the  Roman  system  this  was  mainly 
impossible  from  the  solitariness  of  the  Roman  power ; 
CO -rival  nations  who  might  balance  the  victorious 
party,  there  were  absolutely  none ;  and  all  the  under- 
lings hastened  to  make  their  peace,  whilst  peace  was 
yet  open  to  them,  on  the  known  terms  of  absolute 
treachery  to  their  former  master,  and  instant  surrender 
to  the  victor  of  the  hour.  For  this  capital  defect  in 
the  tenure  of  Roman  power,  no  matter  in  whose  hands 
deposited,  there  was  no  absolute  remedy.  Many  a 
sleepless  night,  during  the  perilous  game  which  he 
played  with  Anthony,  must  have  familiarized  Octavius 
with  that  view  of  the  risk,  which  to  some  extent  was 
Inseparable  from  his  position  as  the  leader  in  such  a 
struggle  carried  on  in  such  an  empire.  In  this  di- 
6 


82 


THE  CJESAflS. 


lemma,  struck  with  the  extreme  necessity  of  a})plyiug 
some  palliation  to  the  case,  we  have  no  doubt  that 
Augustus  would  devise  the  scheme  of  laying  some 
distant  king  under  such  obligations  to  fidelity  as  would 
suffice  to  stand  the  first  shock  of  misfortune.  Such  a 
person  would  have  power  enough  of  a  direct  militaiy 
kind,  to  face  the  storm  at  its  outbreak.  He  would 
have  power  of  another  kind  in  his  distance.  He  would 
be  sustained  by  the  courage  of  hope,  as  a  kinsman 
having  a  contingent  interest  in  a  kinsman's  prosperity. 
And,  finally,  he  would  be  sustained  by  the  courage  of 
despair,  as  one  who  never  could  expect  to  be  trusted 
by  the  opposite  party.  In  the  worst  case,  such  a 
prince  would  always  offer  a  breathing  time  and  a 
respite  to  his  friends,  were  it  only  by  his  remoteness, 
and  if  not  the  means  of  rallying,  yet  at  least  the  time 
for  rallying,  more  especially  as  the  escape  to  his  fron- 
tier would  be  easy  to  one  who  had  long  forecast  it. 
We  can  hardly  doubt  that  Augustus  meditated  such 
schemes ;  that  he  laid  them  aside  only  as  his  power 
began  to  cemant  and  to  knit  together  after  the  battle 
of  Actium ;  and  that  the  memory  and  the  prudential 
tradition  of  this  plan  survived  in  the  imperial  family  so 
lung  as  itself  survived.  Amongst  other  anecdotes  of 
the  same  tendency,  two  are  recorded  of  Nero,  the 
Bmperor  in  whom  expired  the  line  of  the  original 
Caesars,  which  strengthen  us  in  a  belief  of  what  is 
Otherwise  in  itself  so  probable.    Nero,  in  his  first 


THE  C^SARS. 


83 


distractions,  upon  receiving  the  fatal  tidings  of'tliQ 
revolt  in  Gaul,  when  reviewing  all  possible  plans  of 
escape  from  the  impending  danger,  thought  at  intervals 
of  throwing  himself  on  the  protection  of  the  barbarous 
King  V ologesus.  And  twenty  years  afterwards,  when 
the  Pseudo-Nero  appeared,  he  found  a  strenuous  cham- 
pion and  protector  in  the  King  of  the  Parthians.  Pos- 
sibly, had  an  opportunity  offered  for  searching  the 
Parthian  chancery,  some  treaty  would  have  been  found 
binding  the  kings  of  Parthia,  from  the  age  of  Augustus 
through  some  generations  downwards,  in  requital  of 
services  there  specified,  or  of  treasures  lodged,  to 
secure  a  perpetual  asylum  to  the  posterity  of  the 
Julian  family. 

The  cruelties  of  Augustus  were  perhaps  equal  in 
atrocity  to  any  which  are  recorded ;  and  the  equivocal 
apology  for  those  acts  (one  which  might  as  well  be 
used  to  aggravate  as  to  palliate  the  case)  is,  that  they 
were  not  prompted  by  a  ferocious  nature,  but  by  cal- 
culating policy.  He  once  actually  slaughtered  upon 
an  altar  a  large  body  of  his  prisoners ;  and  such  was 
the  contempt  with  which  he  was  regarded  by  some  of 
that  number,  that,  when  led  out  to  death,  they  saluted 
their  other  proscriber,  Anthony,  with  military  honors, 
acknowledging  merit  even  in  an  enemy,  but  Augustus 
they  passed  with  scornful  silence,  or  with  loud  re- 
proaches. Too  certainly  no  man  has  ever  contended 
for  empire  with  unsullied  conscience,  or  laid  pure 


84 


THE  CiESARS. 


hands  upon  the  ark  of  so  magnificent  a  prize.  Every 
friend  to  Augustus  must  have  wished  that  the  twelve 
years  of  his  struggle  might  for  ever  be  blotted  out  from 
human  remembrance.  During  the  forty- two  years  of 
his  prosperity  and  his  triumph,  being  above  fear,  he 
showed  the  natural  lenity  of  his  temper. 

That  prosperity,  in  a  public  sense,  has  been  rarely 
equalled  ;  but  far  different  was  his  fate,  and  memorable 
was  the  contrast,  within  the  circuit  of  his  own  family. 
This  lord  of  the  universe  groaned  as  often  as  the  ladies 
of  his  house,  his  daughter  and  grand- daughter,  were 
mentioned.  The  shame  which  he  felt  on  their  account, 
led  him  even  to  unnatural  designs,  and  to  wishes  not 
less  so  ;  for  at  one  time  he  entertained  a  plan  for 
putting  the  elder  Julia  to  death  —  and  at  another,  upon 
hearing  that  Phcebe  (one  of  the  female  slaves  in  his 
household)  had  hanged  herself,  he  exclaimed  audibly, 
—  '  Would  that  I  had  been  the  father  of  Phcebe  ! '  It 
must,  however,  be  granted,  that  in  this  miserable  afiair 
he  behaved  with  very  little  of  his  usual  discretion.  In 
the  first  paroxysms  of  his  rage,  on  discovering  his 
daughter's  criminal  conduct,  he  made  a  communication 
of  the  whole  to  the  senate.  That  body  could  do  noth- 
ing in  such  a  matter,  either  by  act  or  by  suggestion ; 
and  in  a  short  time,  as  every-body  could  have  foreseen, 
he  himself  repented  of  his  own  w^ant  of  self-command. 
Upon  the  whole,  it  cannot  be  denied,  that,  according 
to  the  remark  of  Jeremy  Taylor,  of  all  the  men  signally 


THE  CJiSARS. 


85 


decorated  by  history,  Augustus  Caesar  is  that  one  wha 
exemplifies,  in  the  most  emphatic  terms,  the  mixed 
tenor  of  human  life,  and  the  equitable  distribution, 
even  on  this  earth,  of  good  and  evil  fortune.  He  made 
himself  master  of  the  world,  and  against  the  most  for- 
midable competitors  ;  his  power  was  absolute,  from  the 
rising  to  the  setting  sun  ;  and  yet  in  his  own  house, 
where  the  peasant  who  does  the  humblest  chares, 
claims  an  undisputed  authority,  he  was  baffled,  dishon- 
ored, and  made  ridiculous.  He  was  loved  by  nobody  ; 
and  if,  at  the  moment  of  his  death,  he  desired  his 
friends  to  dismiss  him  from  this  world  by  the  common 
?xpression  of  scenical  applause,  {vos  plaudite  !)  in  that 
valedictory  injunction  he  expressed  inadvertently  the 
true  value  of  his  own  long  life,  which,  in  strict  candor, 
may  be  pronounced  one  continued  series  of  histrionic 
efforts,  and  of  excellent  acting,  adapted  to  selfish 
ends. 


86 


THE  CJESARS. 


CHAPTER  III. 

The  next  three  emperors,  Caligula,  Claudius,  and 
Nero,  were  the  last  princes  who  had  any  connecticu 
by  blood  with  the  Julian  house.  In  Nero,  the  sixth 
emperor,  expired  the  last  of  the  Caesars,  who  was  such 
in  reality.  These  three  were  also  the  first  in  that  long 
line  of  monsters,  who,  at  different  times,  under  the  title 
of  Caesars,  dishonored  humanity  more  memorably,  than 
was  possible,  except  in  the  cases  of  those  (if  any  such 
can  be  named)  who  have  abused  the  same  enormous 
powers  in  times  of  the  same  civility,  and  in  defiance  of 
the  same  general  illumination.  But  for  them  it  is  a 
fact,  that  some  crimes,  which  now  stain  the  page  of 
history,  would  have  been  accounted  fabulous  dreams 
of  impure  romancers,  taxing  their  extravagant  imagi- 
nations to  create  combinations  of  wickedness  more 
hideous  than  civilized  men  would  tolerate,  and  more 
unnatural  than  the  human  heart  could  conceive.  Let 
us,  by  way  of  example,  take  a  short  chapter  from  the 
diabolical  life  of  Caligula  :  —  In  what  way  did  he  treat 
his  nearest  and  tenderest  female  connections  ?  His 
mother  had  been  tortured  and  murdered  by  another 
tyrant  almost  as  fiendish  as  himself.  She  was  happily 
removed  from  his  cruelty.    Disdaining,  however,  to 


THE  C^SARS. 


87 


Rckiiowledge  any  connection  with  the  blood  of  so  ob- 
scure a  man  as  Agrippa,  he  publicly  gave  out  that  his 
mother  was  indeed  the  daughter  of  Julia,  but  by  an 
incestuous  commerce  with  her  father  Augustus.  His 
three  sisters  he  debauched.  One  died,  and  her  he 
canonized ;  the  other  two  he  prostituted  to  the  basest 
of  his  own  attendants.  Of  his  wives,  it  would  be  hard 
to  say  whether  they  were  first  sought  and  won  with 
more  circumstances  of  injury  and  outrage,  or  dismissed 
with  more  insult  and  levity.  The  one  whom  he  treat- 
ed best,  and  with  most  profession  of  love,  and  who 
commonly  rode  by  his  side,  equipped  with  spear  and 
shield,  to  his  military  inspections  and  reviews  of  the 
soldiery,  though  not  particularly  beautiful,  was  exhib- 
ited to  his  friends  at  banquets  in  a  state  of  absolute 
nudity.  His  motive  for  treating  her  with  so  much 
kindness,  was,  probably  that  she  brought  him  a 
daughter ;  and  her  he  acknowledged  as  his  own  child, 
f]"om  the  early  brutality  with  which  she  attacked  the 
eyes  and  cheeks  of  other  infants  who  were  presented 
to  her  as  play-fellows.  Hence  it  would  appear  that 
he  was  aware  of  his  own  ferocity,  and  treated  it  as  a 
jest.  The  levity,  indeed,  which  he  mingled  with  his 
worst  and  most  inhuman  acts,  and  the  slightness  of 
the  occasions  upon  which  he  delighted  to  hang  his  most 
memorable  atrocities,  aggravated  their  impression  at 
the  time,  and  must  have  <iontributed  greatly  to  sharpen 
P^e  :^w-rd  of  ^^ngcancp     His  palace  happened  to  be 


88 


THE  C^SARS. 


contiguous  to  the  circus.  Some  seats,  it  seems,  were 
open  indiscriminately  to  the  public  ;  consequently,  the 
only  way  in  which  they  could  be  appropriated,  was  by 
taking  possession  of  them  as  early  as  the  midnight  pre- 
ceding any  great  exhibitions.  Once,  when  it  happened 
that  his  sleep  was  disturbed  by  such  an  occasion,  he 
sent  in  soldiers  to  eject  them;  and  with  orders  so  rig- 
orous, as  it  appeared  by  the  event,  that  in  this  singular 
tumult,  twenty  Roman  knights,  and  as  many  mothers 
of  families,  were  cudgelled  to  death  upon  the  spot,  to 
say  nothing  of  what  the  reporter  calls  '  innumeram 
turbam  ceteram.' 

But  this  is  a  trifle  to  another  anecdote  reported  by 
the  same  authority  :  —  On  some  occasion  it  happened 
that  a  dearth  prevailed,  either  generally  of  cattle,  or  of 
such  cattle  as  were  used  for  feeding  the  wild  beasts 
reserved  for  the  bloody  exhibitions  of  the  amphitheatre. 
Food  could  be  had,  and  perhaps  at  no  very  exorbitant 
price,  but  on  terms  somewhat  higher  than  the  ordinary 
market  price.  A  slight  excuse  served  with  Caligula 
for  acts  the  most  monstrous.  Instantly  repairing  to 
the  public  jails,  and  causing  all  the  prisoners  to  pass  in 
review  before  him  {custodiarum  seriem  recognoscens)^ 
he  pointed  to  two  bald-headed  men,  and  ordered  that 
the  •  whole  file  of  intermediate  persons  should  be 
marched  off  to  the  dens  of  the  wild  beasts  :  '  Tell 
them  off,'  said  he,  '  from  the  bald  man  to  the  bald 
man.'    Yet  these  were  prisoners  committed,  not  for 


THE  C^SAKS. 


89 


punishment,  but  trial.  Nor,  had  it  been  otherwise, 
were  the  charges  against  them  equal,  but  running 
through  every  gradation  of  guilt.  But  the  elogia,  o 
records  of  their  commitment,  he  would  not  so  much  as 
look  at.  With  such  inordinate  capacities  for  cruelty, 
we  cannot  wonder  that  he  should  in  his  common  con- 
versation have  deplored  the  tameness  and  insipidity  of 
his  own  times  and  reign,  as  likely  to  be  marked  by  no 
wide-spreading  calamity.  '•Augustus,'  said  he,  'was 
happy;  for  in  his*  reign  occurred  the  slaughter  of 
Varus  and  his  legions.  Tiberius  w^s  happy  ;  for  in  his 
occurred  that  glorious  fall  of  the  great  amphitheatre 
at  Fidense.  But  for  me  —  alas !  alas  ! '  And  then  he 
would  pray  earnestly  for  fire  or  slaughter  —  pestilence 
or  famine.  Famine  indeed  was  to  some  extent  in  his 
own  power  ;  and  accordingly,  as  far  as  his  courage 
would  carry  him,  he  did  occasionally  try  that  mode  of 
tragedy  upon  the  people  of  Rome,  by  shutting  up  the 
public  granaries  against  them.  As  he  blended  his 
mirth  and  a  truculent  sense  of  the  humorous  with  his 
cruelties,  we  cannot  wonder  that  he  should  soon  blend 
his  cruelties  with  his  ordinary  festivities,  and  that  his 
daily  banquets  would  soon  become  insipid  without  them. 
Hence  he  required  a  daily  supply  of  executions  in  his 
own  halls  and  banqueting  rooms  ;  nor  was  a  dinner 
beld  to  be  complete  without  such  a  dessert.  Artists 
ivere  sought  out  who  had  dexterity  and  strength  enough 
to  do  what  Lucan  somewhere  calls  ensem  rotare,  that 


BO 


THE  CiESARS. 


is,  to  cut  off  a  human  head  with  one  whirl  of  the 
sword.  Even  this  became  insipid,  as  wanting  on(» 
main  element  of  misery  to  the  sufferer,  and  an  indis 
pensable  condiment  to  the  jaded  palate  of  the  con- 
noisseur, viz.,  a  lingering  duration.  As  a  pleasant 
variety,  therefore,  the  tormentors  were  introduced  with 
their  various  instruments  of  torture ;  and  many  a 
dismal  tragedy  in  that  mode  of  human  suffering  was 
conducted  in  the  sacred  presence  during  the  emperor's 
hours  of  amiable  relaxation. 

The  result  of  these  horrid  indulgences  was  exactly 
what  we  might  suppose,  that  even  such  scenes  ceased 
to  irritate  the  languid  appetite,  and  yet  that  without 
them  life  was  not  endurable.  Jaded  and  exhausted  as 
the  sense  of  pleasure  had  become  in  Caligula,  still  it 
could  be  roused  into  any  activity  by  nothing  short  of 
these  murderous  luxuries.  Hence,  it  seems,  that  he 
was  continually  tampering  and  dallying  with  the 
thought  of  murder  ;  and  like  the  old  Parisian  jeweller 
Cardillac,  in  Louis  XIV. 's  time,  who  was  stung  with 
a  perpetual  lust  for  murdering  the  possessors  of  fine 
diamonds  —  not  so  much  for  the  value  of  the  prize  (of 
which  he  never  hoped  to  make  any  use),  as  from  an 
unconquerable  desire  of  precipitating  himself  into  the 
difficulties  and  hazards  of  the  murder,  —  Caligula 
never  failed  to  experience  (and  sometimes  even  J;o 
acknowledge)  a  secret  temptation  to  any  murder  which 
seemed  either  more  than  usually  abominable,  or  more 


THE  CJESAKS. 


91 


ihan  usually  difficult.  Thus,  wlien  the  two  consuls 
were  seated  at  his  table,  he  burst  out  into  sudden  and 
profuse  laughter  ;  and  upon  their  courteously  request- 
ing to  know  what  witty  and  admirable  conceit  might 
be  the  occasion  of  the  imperial  mirth,  he  frankly 
owned  to  them,  and  doubtless  he  did  not  improve  their 
appetites  by  this  confession,  that  in  fact  he  was  laugh- 
ing, and  that  he  could  not  hut  laugh,  (and  then  the 
monster  laughed  immoderately  again,)  at  the  pleasant 
thought  of  seeing  them  both  headless,  and  that  with  so 
little  trouble  to  himself,  {uno  siio  nuto,)  he  could  have 
both  their  throats  cut.  No  doubt  he  was  continually 
balancing  the  arguments  for  and  against  such  little 
escapades  ;  nor  had  any  person  a  reason  for  security 
in  the  extraordinary  obligations,  whether  of  hospitality 
or  of  religious  vows,  which  seemed  to  lay  him  under 
some  peculiar  restraints  in  that  case  above  all  others  ; 
for  such  circumstances  of  peculiarity,  by  which  the 
murder  would  be  stamped  with  unusual  atrocity,  were 
but  the  more  likely  to  make  its  fascinations  irresistible. 
Hence  he  dallied  with  the  thoughts  of  murdering  her 
whom  he  loved  best,  and  indeed  exclusively  —  his  wife 
Cgesonia  ;  and  whilst  fondling  her,  and  toying  playfully 
with  her  polished  throat,  he  was  distracted  (as  he  half 
insinuated  to  her)  between  the  desire  of  caressing  it, 
which  might  be  often  repeated,  and  that  of  cutting  it, 
which  could  be  gratified  but  once. 

Nero  (for  as  to  Claudius,  he  came  too  late  to  the 


92 


THE  C^SARS. 


throne  to  indulge  any  propensities  of  this  nature  with 
so  little  discretion)  was  but  a  variety  of  the  same 
species.  He  also  was  an  amateur,  and  an  enthusiastic 
amateur  of  murder.  But  as  this  taste,  in  the  most 
ingenious  hands,  is  limited  and  monotonous  in  its  modes 
of  manifestation,  it  would  be  tedious  to  run  through  the 
long  Suetonian  roll-call  of  his  peccadilloes  in  this  way. 
One  only  we  shall  cite,  to  illustrate  the  amorous  delight 
with  which  he  pursued  any  murder  which  happened  to 
be  seasoned  highly  to  his  taste  by  enormous  atrocity, 
and  by  almost  unconquerable  difficulty.  It  would 
really  be  pleasant,  were  it  not  for  the  revolting  consid- 
eration of  the  persons  concerned,  and  their  relation  to 
each  other,  to  watch  the  tortuous  pursuit  of  the  hunter, 
and  the  doubles  of  the  game,  in  this  obstinate  chase. 
For  certain  reasons  of  state,  as  Nero  attempted  to 
persuade  himself,  but  in  reality  because  no  other  crime 
had  the  same  attractions  of  unnatural  horror  about  it, 
he  resolved  to  murder  his  mother  Agrippina.  This 
being  settled,  the  next  thing  was  to  arrange  the  mode 
and  the  tools.  Naturally  enough,  according  to  the 
custom  then  prevalent  in  Rome,  he  first  attempted  the 
thing  by  poison.  The  poison  failed  ;  for  Agrippina, 
anticipating  tricks  of  this  kind,  had  armed  her  consti- 
tution against  them,  like  Mithridates  ;  and  daily  took 
potent  antidotes  and  prophylactics.  Or  else  (which  is 
more  probable)  the  emperor's  agent  in  such  purposes, 
fearing  his  sudden  repentance  and  remorse  on  first 


THE   C^SAHS.  93 

• 

hearing  of  his  mother's  death,  or  possibly  even  witness- 
ing her  agonies,  had  composed  a  poison  of  inferior 
strength.  This  had  certainly  occurred  in  the  case  of 
Britannicus,  who  had  thrown  off  with  ease  the  first 
dose  administered  to  him  by  Nero.  Upon  which  he 
had  summoned  to  his  presence  the  woman  employed 
in  the  affair,  and  compelling  her  by  threats  to  mingle  a 
more  powerful  potion  in  his  own  presence,  had  tried  it 
successively  upon  different  animals,  until  he  was  satis- 
fied with  its  effects  ;  after  which,  immediately  inviting 
Britannicus  to  a  banquet,  he  had  finally  dispatched 
him.  On  Agrippina,  however,  no  changes  in  the 
poison,  whether  of  kind  or  strength,  had  any  effect : 
so  that,  after  various  trials,  this  mode  of  murder  was 
abandoned,  and  the  emperor  addressed  himself  to  other 
plans.  The  first  of  these  was  some  curious  mechanical 
device,  by  which  a  false  ceiling  was  to  have  been  sus- 
pended by  bolts  above  her  bed  ;  and  in  the  middle  of 
the  night,  the  bolt  being  suddenly  drawn,  a  vast  weight 
would  have  descended  with  a  ruinous  destruction  to  all 
below.  This  scheme,  however,  taking  air  from  the 
indiscretion  of  some  amongst  the  accomplices,  reached 
the  ears  of  Agrippina  ;  upon  which  the  old  lady  looked 
about  her  too  sharply  to  leave  much  hope  in  that 
scheme :  so  that  also  was  abandoned.  Next,  he  con- 
ceived the  idea  of  an  artificial  ship,  which,  at  the  touch 
of  a  few  springs,  might  fall  to  pieces  in  deep  water. 
Such  a  ship  was  prepared,  and  stationed  at  a  suitable 


94  THE  C^SARS. 

point.  But  the  main  difficulty  remained,  wliicli  was  to 
persuade  the  old  lady  to  go  on  board.  Not  that  she 
knew  in  this  case  who  had  been  the  ship-builder,  for 
that  would  have  ruined  all  ;  but  it  seems  that  she  took 
it  ill  to  be  hunted  in  this  murderous  spirit ;  and  was 
out  of  humor  with  her  son  ;  besides,  that  any  proposal 
coming  from  him,  though  previously  indifferent  to  her, 
would  have  instantly  become  suspected.  To  meet  this 
difficulty  a  sort  of  reconciliation  was  proposed,  and  a 
very  affectionate  message  sent,  which  had  the  effect  of 
throwing  Agrippina  off  her  guard,  and  seduced  her  to 
Baige  for  the  purpose  of  joining  the  emperor's  party  at 
a  great  banquet  held  in  commemoration  of  a  solemn 
festival.  She  came  by  water  in  a  sort  of  light  frigate, 
and  was  to  return  in  the  same  way.  Meantime  Nero 
tampered  with  the  commander  of  her  vessel,  and  pre- 
vailed upon  him  to  wreck  it.  What  was  to  be  done  ? 
The  great  lady  was  anxious  to  return  to  Bome,  and  no 
proper  conveyance  was  at  hand.  Suddenly  it  was 
suggested,  as  if  by  chance,  that  a  ship  of  the  empe- 
ror's, new  and  properly  equipped,  was  moored  at  a 
neighboring  station.  This  was  readily  accepted  by 
Agrippina  :  the  emperor  accompanied  her  to  the  place 
of  embarkation,  took  a  most  tender  leave  of  her,  and 
saw  her  set  sail.  It  was  necessary  that  the  vessel 
should  get  into  deep  water  before  the  experiment  could 
be  made  ;  and  with  the  utmost  agitation  this  pious  son 
awaited  news  of  the  result.    Suddenly  a  messenger 


THE  C^SAKS. 


96 


rushed  breathless  into  his  presence,  and  horrified  him 
by  the  joyful  information- that  his  august  mother  had 
met  with  an  alarming  accident ;  but,  by  the  blessing  of 
Heaven,  had  escaped  safe  and  sound,  and  was  now  on 
her  road  to  mingle  congratulations  with  her  affectionate 
sou.  The  ship,  it  seems,  had  done  its  office  ;  the 
mechanism  nad  played  admirably  ;  but  who  can  pro- 
vide for  ev^ery thing  ?  The  old  lady,  it  turned  out, 
could  swim  like  a  duck  ;  and  the  whole  result  had  been 
to  refresh  her  with  a  little  sea-bathing.  Here  was 
worshipful  intelligence.  Could  any  man's  temper  be 
expected  to  stand  such  continued  sieges  ?  Money,  and 
trouble,  and  infinite  contrivance,  wasted  upon  one  old 
woman,  who  absolutely  would  not,  upon  any  teniis,  be 
murdered  !  Provoking  it  certainly  was  ;  and  of  a  man 
like  Nero  it  could  not  be  expected  that  he  should  any 
longer  dissemble  his  disgust,  or  put  up  with  such 
repeated  affronts.  He  rushed  upon  his  simple  con- 
gratulating friend,  swore  that  he  had  come  to  murder 
him,  and  as  nobody  could  have  suborned  him  but 
Agrippina,  he '  ordered  her  off  to  instant  execution 
And,  unquestionably,  if  people  will  not  be  murdered 
quietly  and  in  a  civil  way,  they  must  expect  that  such 
forbearance  is  not  to  continue  for  ever  ;  and  obviously 
have  themselve?  only  to  blame  for  any  harshness  or 
violence  which  they  may  have  rendered  necessary. 

It  is  singular,  and  shocking  at  the  same  time,  to 
jaention,  that,  for  this  atrocity,  Nero  did  absolutely 


96 


THE  CjESARS. 


receive  solemn  congratulations  from  all  orders  of  men. 
With  such  evidences  of  base  servility  in  the  public 
mind,  and  of  the  utter  corruption  which  they  had  sus- 
tained in  their  elementary  feelings,  it  is  the  less  aston- 
ishing that  he  should  have  made  other  experiments 
upon  the  public  patience,  which  seem  expressly  de- 
signed to  try  how  much  it  would  support.  Whethei 
he  were  really  the  author  of  the  desolating  fire  which 
consumed  Rome  for  six  days  and  seven  nights,  and 
drove  the  mass  of  the  people  into  the  tombs  and  sep- 
ulchres for  shelter,  is  yet  a  matter  of  some  doubt. 
But  one  great  presumption  against  it,  founded  on  its 
desperate  imprudence,  as  attacking  the  people  in  their 
primary  comforts,  is  considerably  weakened  by  the 
enormous  servility  of  the  Romans  in  the  case  just 
stated  :  they  who  could  volunteer  congratulations  to  a 
son  for  butchering  his  mother,  (no  matter  on  what 
pretended  suspicions,)  might  reasonably  be  supposed 
incapable  of  any  resistance  which  required  courage 
even  in  a  case  of  self-defence,  or  of  just  revenge. 
The  direct  reasons,  however,  for  implicating  him  in 
this  affair,  seem  at  present  insufficient.  He  was  dis- 
pleased, it  seems,  with  the  irregularity  and  unsightli- 
ncss  of  the  antique  buildings,  and  also  with  the  streets, 
as  too  narrow  and  winding,  {angusHis  flexurisque 
vicorum.)  But  in  this  he  did  but  express  what  was  no 
doubt  the  common  judgment  of  all  his  contemporaries, 
who  had  seen  the  beautiful  cities  of  Greece  and  Asia 


THE  CJESAES. 


97 


Minor.  The  Rome  of  that  time  was  in  many  parts 
built  of  wood ;  and  there  is  much  probability  that  it 
must  have  been  a  picturesque  city,  and  in  parts  almost 
grotesque.  But  it  is  remarkable,  and  a  fact  which  we 
have  nowhere  seen  noticed,  that  the  ancients,  whether 
Greeks  or  Romans,  had  no  eye  for  the  picturesque  ; 
nay,  that  it  was  a  sense  utterly  unawakened  amongst 
them  ;  and  that  the  very  conception  of  the  picturesque, 
as  of  a  thing  distinct  from  the  beautiful,  is  not  once 
alluded  to  through  the  whole  course  of  ancient  lite- 
rature, nor  would  it  have  been  intelligible  to  any 
ancient  critic  ;  so  that,  whatever  attraction  for  the  eye 
might  exist  in  the  Rome  of  that  day,  there  is  little 
doubt  that  it  was  of  a  kind  to  be  felt  only  by  modern 
spectators.  Mere  dissatisfaction  with  its  external  ap- 
pearance, which  must  have  been  a  pretty  general 
sentiment,  argued,  therefore,  no  necessary  purpose  of 
destroying  it.  Certainly  it  would  be  weightier  ground 
of  suspicion,  if  it  were  really  true  that  some  of  his 
agents  were  detected  on  the  premises  of  different 
senators  in  the  act  of  applying  combustibles  to  their 
mansions.  But  this  story  wears  a  very  fabulous  air. 
For  why  resort  to  the  private  dwellings  of  great  men, 
where  any  intruder  was  sure  of  attracting  notice,  when 
the  same  effect  and  with  the  same  deadly  results, 
might  have  been  attained  quietly  and  secretly  in  so 
many  of  the  humble  Roman  coenacula  ? 

The  great  loss  on  this  memorable  occasion  was  in 
7 


98 


THE  C^SARS. 


the  heraldic  and  ancestral  honors  of  the  city.  His- 
toric Rome  then  went  to  wreck  for  ever.    Then  per- 
ished the  domus  priscorum  ducum  hosiilibus  adhuc 
spoliis  adornatcB  ;  the  '  rostral  '  palace  ;  the  mansion  of 
the  Pompeys ;  the  Blenheims  and  the  Strathfieldsays 
of  the  Scipios,  the  Marcelli,  the  Paulli,  and  the  Caesars  ; 
then  perished  the  aged  trophies  from  Carthage  and 
from  Gaul ;  and,  in  short,  as  the  historian  sums  up 
the  lamentable  desolation,  '  quidquid  visendum  atque 
memorabile  ex  antiquitate  duraverat.^    And  this  of 
itself  might  lead  one  to  suspect  the  emperor's  hand 
as  the  original  agent ;  for  by  no  one  act  was  it  possible 
so  entirely  and  so  suddenly  to  wean  the  people  from 
their  old  republican  recollections,  and  in  one  week  to 
obliterate  the  memorials  of  their  popular  forces,  and 
the  trophies  of  many  ages.    The  old  people  of  Rome 
were  gone  ;  their  characteristic  dress  even  was  gone ; 
for  already  in  the  time  of  Augustus  they  had  laid  aside 
the  toga^  and  assumed   the    cheaper   and  scantier 
poenula,  so  that  the  eye  sought  in  vain  for  Virgil's 
'  Romanus  rerum  dominos  gentemque  togatam.* 
Why  then,  after  all  the  constituents   of  Roman 
grandeur  had  passed   away,  should  their  historical 
trophies   survive,  recalling  to  them  the   scenes  of 
departed  heroism,   in  which  they  had   no  personal 
property,  and  suggesting  to  them  vain  hopes,  which 
for  them   were   never  to  be  other  than  chimeras  ? 
Rven  in  that  sense,  therefore,  and  as  a  great  deposi* 


THE  C^SAES. 


99 


?ory  of  heart-stirring  historical  remembrances,  Home 
xvas  profitably  destroyed  ;  and  in  any  other  sense, 
whether  for  health  or  for  the  conveniences  of  polished 
lite,  or  for  architectural  magnificence,  there  never 
was  a  doubt  that  the  Roman  people  gained  infinitely 
by  this  conflagration.  For,  like  London,  it  arose  from 
its  ashes  with  a  splendor  proportioned  to  its  vast  ex- 
pansion of  wealth  and  population  ;  and  marble  took  the 
place  of  wood.  For  the  moment,  however,  this  event 
must  have  been  felt  by  the  people  as  an  overwhelming 
calamity.  And  it  serves  to  illustrate  the  passive  en- 
durance and  timidity  of  the  popular  temper,  and  to 
what  extent  it  might  be  provoked  with  impunity,  that 
in  this  state  of  general  irritation  and  efi'ervescence, 
Nero  absolutely  forbade  them  to  meddle  with  the 
ruins  of  their  own  dwellings  —  taking  that  charge  upon 
himself,  with  a  view  to  the  vast  wealth  which  he  anti- 
cipated from  sifting  the  rubbish.  And,  as  if  that  mode 
of  plunder  were  not  sufiicient,  he  exacted  compulsory 
contributions  to  the  rebuilding  of  the  city  so  indis- 
criminately, as  to  press  heavily  upon  all  men's  finan- 
ces ;  and  thus,  in  the  public  account  which  universally 
imputed  the  fire  to  him,  he  was  viewed  as  a  twofold 
robber,  who  sought  to  heal  one  calamity  by  the  inflic- 
tion of  another  and  a  greater. 

The  monotony  of  wickedness  and  outrage  becomes 
at  length  fatiguing  to  the  coarsest  and  most  callous 
senses  ;  and  the  historian,  even,  who  caters  professedly 


100 


THE  CJESARS. 


for  the  taste  whicn  feeds  upon  the  monstrous  and  the 
hyperbolical,  is  glad  at  length  to  escape  from  the  long 
evolution  of  his  insane  atrocities,  to  the  striking  and 
truly  scenical  catastrophe  of  retribution  which  overtook 
them,  and  avenged  the  wrongs  of  an  insulted  world. 
Perhaps  history  contains  no  more  impressive  scenes 
than  those  in  which  the  justice  of  Providence  at  length 
arrested  the  monstrous  career  of  Nero. 

It  was  at  Naples,  and  by  a  remarkable  fatality,  on 
the  very  anniversary  of  his  mother's  murder,  that  he 
received  the  first  intelligence  of  the  revolt  in  Gaul 
under  the  Propraetor  Vindex.  This  news  for  about  a 
week  he  treated  with  levity  ;  and,  like  Henry  VII.  of 
England,  who  was  nettled,  not  so  much  at  being  pro- 
claimed a  rebel,  as  because  he  was  described  under 
the  slighting  denomination  of  '  one  Henry  Tidder  or 
Tudor,'  he  complained  bitterly  that  Vindex  had  men- 
tioned him  by  his  family  name  of  ^nobarbus,  rather 
than  his  assumed  one  of  Nero.  But  much  more  keenly 
he  resented  the  insulting  description  of  himself  as  a 
'  miserable  harper,'  appealing  to  all  about  him  whether 
they  had  ever  known  a  better,  and  offering  to  stake 
the  truth  of  all  the  other  charges  against  himself  upon 
the  accuracy  of  this  in  particular.  So  little  even  in 
this  instance  was  he  alive  to  the  true  point  of  the 
insult ;  not  thinking  it  any  disgrace  that  a  Roman 
emperor  should  be  chiefly  known  to  the  world  in  the 
character  of  a  harper,  but  only  if  he  should  happen 


THE  C^SARS. 


101 


h  be  a  bad  one.  Even  in  those  days,  however,  im* 
perfect  as  w^ere  the  means  of  travelling,  rebellion 
moved  somewhat  too  rapidly  to  allow  any  long  inter- 
val of  security  so  light-minded  as  this.  One  couriei 
followed  upon  the  heels  of  another,  until  he  felt  the 
necessity  for  leaving  Naples ;  and  he  returned  to 
Rome,  as  the  historian  says,  prcetrepidus ;  by  which 
word,  however,  according  to  its  genuine  classical 
acceptation,  we  apprehend  is  not  meant  that  he  was 
highly  alarmed,  but  only  that  he  was  in  a  great  hurry. 
That  he  was  not  yet  under  any  real  alarm  (for  he 
trusted  in  certain  prophecies,  which,  like  those  made 
to  the  Scottish  tyrant  '  kept  the  promise  to  the  ear, 
but  broke  it  to  the  sense,')  is  pretty  evident  from  his 
conduct  on  reaching  the  capitol.  For,  without  any 
appeal  to  the  senate  or  the  people,  but  sending  out  a 
few  summonses  to  some  men  of  rank,  he  held  a  hasty 
council,  which  he  speedily  dismissed,  and  occupied 
the  rest  of  the  day  with  experiments  on  certain  musi- 
cal instruments  of  recent  invention,  in  which  the 
keys  were  moved  by  hydraulic  contrivances.  He  had 
tome  to  Rome,  it  appeared,  merely  from  a  sense  of 
decorum. 

Suddenly,  however,  arrived  news,  which  fell  upon 
him  with  the  force  of  a  thunderbolt,  that  the  revolt 
had  extended  to  the  Spanish  provinces,  and  was  head- 
ed by  Galba.  He  fainted  upon  hearing  this;  and 
falling  to  the  ground,  lay  for  a  long  time  lifeless,  as 


102 


THE  C^SARS. 


it  seemed,  and  speechless.  Upon  coming  to  himself 
again,  he  tore  his  robe,  struck  his  forehead,  and  ex- 
claimed aloud  —  that  for  him  all  was  over.  In  this ' 
agony  of  mind,  it  strikes  across  the  utter  darkness  of 
the  scene  with  the  sense  of  a  sudden  and  cheering 
flash,  recalling  to  us  the  possible  goodness  and  fidelity 
of  human  nature  ^ —  w^hen  we  read  that  one  humble 
creature  adhered  to  him,  and,  according  to  her  slender 
means,  gave  him  consolation  during  these  trying  mo- 
ments ;  this  was  the  woman  who  had  tended  his  infant 
years  ;  and  she  now  recalled  to  his  remembrance  such 
instances  of  former  princes  in  adversity,  as  appeared 
fitted  to  sustain  his  drooping  spirits.  It  seems,  how- 
ever, that,  according  to  the  general  course  of  violent 
emotions,  the  rebound  of  high  spirits  was  in  proportion 
to  his  first  despondency.  He  omitted  nothing  of  his 
usual  luxury  or  self-indulgence,  and  he  even  found 
spirits  for  going  incognito  to  the  theatre,  where  he  took 
sufficient  interest  in  the  public  performances,  to  send 
a  message  to  a  favorite  actor.  At  times,  even  in  this 
hopeless  situation,  his  native  ferocity  returned  upon 
him,  and  he  was  believed  to  have  framed  plans  for 
removing  all  his  enemies  at  once  —  the  leaders  of  the 
rebellion,  by  appointing*  successors  to  their  offices, 
and  secretly  sending  assassins  to  dispatch  their  per- 
sons'; the  senate,  by  poison  at  a  great  banquet ;  the 
Gaulish  provinces,  by  delivering  them  up  for  pillage 
to  the  army  ;  the  city,  by  again  setting  it  on  fire. 


THE  C^SAHS. 


103 


^^liiist,  at  the  same  time,  a  vast  number  of  wild  bi  asta. 
was  to  have  been  turned  loose  upon  the  unarmed 
populace  —  for  the  double  purpose  of  destroying  them, 
and  of  distracting  their  attention  from  the  fire.  But, 
as  the  mood  of  his  frenzy  changed,  these  sanguinary 
schemes  were  abandoned,  (not,  however,  under  any 
feelings  of  remorse,  but  from  mere  despair  of  effecting 
them,)  and  on  the  same  day,  hut  after  a  luxurious  din- 
ner, the  imperial  monster  grew  bland  and  pathetic  in 
his  ideas  :  he  would  proceed  to  the  rebellious  army  ; 
he  would  present  himself  unarmed  to  their  view  ;  and 
would  recall  them  to  their  duty  by  the  mere  spectacle 
of  his  tears.  Upon  the  pathos  with  which  he  would 
weep  he  was  resolved  to  rely  entirely.  And  having 
received  the  guilty  to  his  mercy  without  distinction, 
upon  the  following  day  he  would  unite  his  joy  with 
their  joy,  and  would  chant  hymns  of  victory  {epinicia) 
—  '  which  by  the  way,'  said  he,  suddenly,  breaking 
off  to  his  favorite  pursuits,  '  it  is  necessary  that  I 
should  immediately  compose.'  This  caprice  vanished 
like  the  rest ;  and  he  made  an  effort  to  enlist  the 
slaves  and  citizens  into  his  service,  and  to  raise  by 
extortion  a  large  military  chest.  But  in  the  midst  of 
^hese  vascillating  purposes  fresh  tidings  surprised  him 
• —  other  armies  had  revolted,  and  the  rebellion  was 
spreading  contagiously.  This  consummation  of  his 
alarms  reached  him  at  dinner  ;  and  the  expressions  of 
his  angry  fears  took  even  a  scenical  air ;  he  tore  the 


104 


THE  C^SAES. 


dispatches,  upset  the  table,  and  dashed  to  pieces  upon 
the  ground  two  crystal  beakers  —  which  had  a  high 
value  as  works  of  art,  even  in  the  Aurea  Domus,  from 
the  sculptures  which  adorned  them. 

He  now  prepared  for  flight;  and  sending  forward 
commissioners  to  prepare  the  fleet  at  Ostia  for  his 
reception,  he  tampered  with  such  oflicers  of  the  army 
as  were  at  hand,  to  prevail  upon  them  to  accompany 
his  retreat.  But  all  showed  themselves  indisposed  to 
such  schemes,  and  some  flatly  refused.  Upon  which 
he  turned  to  other  counsels ;  sometimes  meditating  a 
flight  to  the  King  of  Parthia,  or  even  to  throw  himself 
on  the  mercy  of  Galba ;  sometimes  inclining  rather 
to  the  plan  of  venturing  into  the  forum  in  mourning 
apparel,  begging  pardon  for  his  past  off*ences,  and,  as 
a  last  resource,  entreating  that  he  might  receive  the 
appointment  of  Egyptian  prefect.  This  plan,  however, 
he  hesitated  to  adopt,  from  some  apprehension  that 
he  should  be  torn  to  pieces  in  his  road  to  the  forum ; 
and,  at  all  events,  he  concluded  to  postpone  it  to  the 
following  day.  Meantime  events  were  now  hurrying 
to  their  catastrophe,  which  for  ever  anticipated  that 
intention.  His  hours  were  numbered,  and  the  closing 
scene  was  at  hand. 

In  the  middle  of  the  night  he  was  aroused  from 
slumber  with  the  intelligence  that  the  military  guard, 
who  did  duty  at  the  palace,  had  all  quitted  their  posts. 
Upon  this  the  unhappy  prince  leaped  from  his  couch, 


TflE  C^SAHS. 


105 


aever  again  to  taste  the  luxury  of  sleep,  and  dispatched 
messengers  to  his  friends.  No  answers  were  returned  ; 
and  upon  that  he  went  personally  with  a  small  retinue 
to  their  hotels.  But  he  found  their  doors  everywhere 
closed ;  and  all  his  importunities  could  not  avail  to 
extort  an  answer.  Sadly  and  slowly  he  returned  to 
his  own  bedchamber  ;  but  there  again  he  found  fresh 
instances  of  desertion,  which  had  occurred  during  his 
short  absence ;  the  pages  of  his  bedchamber  had  fled, 
carrying  with  them  the  coverlids  of  the  imperial  bed, 
which  were  probably  inwrought  with  gold,  and  even  a 
golden  box,  in  which  Nero  had  on  the  preceding  day 
deposited  poison  prepared  against  the  last  extremity. 
Wounded  to  the  heart  by  this  general  desertion,  and 
perhaps  by  some  special  case  of  ingratitude,  such  as 
would  probably  enough  be  signalized  in  the  flight  of 
his  personal  favorites,  he  called  for  a  gladiator  of  the 
household  to  come  and  dispatch  him.  But  none  ap- 
pearing —  '  What ! '  said  he,  '  have  I  neither  friend  nor 
foe  ?  '  And  so  saying,  he  ran  towards  the  Tiber,  with 
the  purpose  of  drowning  himself.  But  that  paroxysm, 
like  all  the  rest,  proved  transient ;  and  he  expressed  a 
wish  for  some  hiding-place,  or  momentary  asylum, 
in  which  he  might  collect  his  unsettled  spirits,  and 
fortify  his  wandering  resolution.  Such  a  retreat  wa? 
offered  him  by  his  libertus  Phaon,  in  his  own  rural 
villa,  about  four  miles  distant  from  Rome.  The  offer 
was  accepted ;  and  the  emperor,  without  further  pre- 


106 


THE  C^SAKS, 


paration  than  that  of  throwing  over  his  person  a  short 
mantle  of  a  dusky  hue,  and  enveloping  his  head  and 
face  in  a  handkerchief,  mounted  his  horse,  and  left 
Eome  with  four  attendants.  It  was  still  night,  but 
probably  verging  towards  the  early  daw^n ;  and  even 
at  that  hour  the  imperial  party  met  some  travellers 
on  their  way  to  Rome  (coming  up  no  doubt,^^  on  law 
business)  —  who  said,  as  they  passed,  '  These  men  are 
certainly  in  chase  of  Nero.'  Two  other  incidents,  of 
an  interesting  nature,  are  recorded  of  this  short  but 
memorable  ride :  at  one  point  of  the  road  the  shouts 
of  the  soldiery  assailed  their  ears  from  the  neighbor- 
ing encampment  of  Galba.  They  were  probably  then 
getting  under  arms  for  their  final  march  to  take  pos- 
session of  the  palace.  At  another  point,  an  accident 
occurred  of  a  more  unfortunate  kind,  but  so  natural 
and  so  well  circumstantiated,  that  it  serves  to  verify 
the  whole  narrative ;  a  dead  body  was  lying  on  the 
road,  at  which  the  emperor's  horse  started  so  violently 
as  nearly  to  dismount  his  rider,  and  under  the  diffi- 
culty of  the  moment  compelled  him  to  withdraw  the 
^.and  which  held  up  the  handkerchief,  and  suddenly  to 
expose  his  features.  Precisely  at  this  critical  moment 
it  happened  that  an  old  half-pay  officer  passed,  recog- 
nized the  emperor,  and  saluted  him.  Perhaps  it  was 
with  some  pur])ose  of  applying  a  remedy  to  this  unfor- 
tunate rencontre,  that  the  party  dismounted  at  a  point 
where  several  roads  met,  and  turned  their  horses  adrift 


THE  C^SARS. 


107 


to  graze  at  will  amongst  the  furze  and  brambles. 
Tlieir  own  purpose  was,  to  make  their  way  to  the  back 
of  the  villa;  but,  to  accomplish  that,  it  was  necessary 
that  they  should  first  cross  a  plantation  of  reeds,  from 
the  peculiar  state  of  which  the}'  found  themselves 
obliged  to  cover  successively  each  space  upon  which 
they  trode  with  parts  of  their  dress,  in  order  to  gain 
any  supportable  footing.  In  this  way,  and  contending 
with  such  hardships,  they  reached  at  length  the  postern 
side  of  the  villa.  Here  we  must  suppose  that  there 
was  no  regular  ingress ;  for,  after  waiting  until  an 
entrance  was  pierced,  it  seems  that  the  emperor  could 
avail  himself  of  it  in  no  more  dignified  posture,  than 
by  creeping  through  the  hole  on  his  hands  and  feet, 
[quadrupes  per  angustias  receptus.) 

Now,  then,  after  such  anxiety,  alarm,  and  hardship, 
Nero  had  reached  a  quiet  rural  asylum.  But  for  the 
unfortunate  occurrence  of  his  horse's  alarm  with  the 
passing  of  the  soldier,  he  might  perhaps  have  counted 
on  a  respite  of  a  day  or  two  in  this  noiseless  and 
obscure  abode.  But  what  a  habitation  for  him  who 
was  yet  ruler  of  the  world  in  the  eye  of  law,  and 
even  de  facto  was  so,  had  any  fatal  accident  befallen 
his  aged  competitor !  The  room  in  which  (as  the  one 
most  removed  from  notice  and  suspicion)  he  had 
secreted  himself,  was  a  cella,  or  little  sleeping  closet 
ol  a  slave,  furnished  only  with  a  miserable  pallet  and 
a  '-<Jarse  rug.    Here  lay  the  founder  and  possessor  of 


108 


THE  C^SARS. 


the  Golden  House,  too  happy  if  he  might  hope  for  the 
peaceable  possession  even  of  this  miserable  crypt 
But  that,  he  knew  too  well,  was  impossible.  A  rival 
pretender  to  the  empire  was  like  the  plague  of  fire  —  as 
dangerous  in  the  shape  of  a  single  spark  left  unextin- 
guished, as  in  that  of  a  prosperous  conflagration.  But 
a  few  brief  sands  yet  remained  to  run  in  the  emperor's 
hour-glass ;  much  variety  of  degradation  or  sufl'ering 
seemed  scarcely  within  the  possibilities  of  his  situation, 
or  within  the  compass  of  the  time.  Yet,  as  though 
Providence  had  decreed  that  his  humiliation  should 
pass  through  every  shape,  and  speak  by  every  expression 
which  came  home  to  his  understanding,  or  was  intelli- 
gible to  his  senses,  even  in  these  few  moments  he  was 
attacked  by  hunger  and  thirst.  No  other  bread  could 
be  obtained  (or,  perhaps,  if  the  emperor's  presence 
were  concealed  from  the  household,  it  was  not  safe  to 
raise  suspicion  by  calling  for  better)  than  that  which 
was  ordinarily  given  to  slaves,  coarse,  black,  and,  to  a 
palate  so  luxurious,  doubtless  disgusting.  This  accord- 
ingly he  rejected;  but  a  litle  tepid  water  he  drank. 
After  which,  with  the  haste  of  one  who  fears  that  he 
may  be  prematurely  interrupted,  but  otherwise,  with 
all  the  reluctance  which  we  may  imagine,  and  which 
his  streaming  tears  proclaimed,  he  addressed  himself 
to  the  last  labor  in  which  he  supposed  himself  to  have 
tiny  interest  on  this  earth  —  that  of  digging  a  grave. 
Measuring  a  space  adjusted  to  the  proportions  of  his 


THE  C^SAKS. 


109 


person,  lie  inquired  anxiously  for  any  loose  fragments 
of  marble,  such  as  might  suffice  to  line  it.  He  re- 
quested also  to  be  furnished  with  wood  and  water,  as 
the  materials  for  the  last  sepulchral  rites.  And  these 
labors  were  accompanied,  or  continually  interrupted  by 
tears  and  lamentations,  or  by  passionate  ejaculations  on 
the  blindness  of  fortune,  in  suffering  so  divine  an  artist 
to  be  thus  violently  snatched  away,  and  on  the  calami- 
tous fate  of  musical  science,  which  then  stood  on  the 
brink  of  so  dire  an  eclipse.  In  these  moments  he  was 
most  truly  in  an  agony ^  according  to  the  original  mean- 
ing of  that  word ;  for  the  conflict  was  great  between 
two  master  principles  of  his  nature  :  on  the  one  hand, 
he  clung  with  the  weakness  of  a  girl  to  life,  even  in 
that  miserable  shape  to  which  it  had  now  sunk  ;  and 
like  the  poor  malefactor,  with  whose  last  struggles 
Prior  has  so  atrociously  amused  himself,  '  he  often  took 
leave,  but  was  loath  to  depart.'  Yet,  on  the  other 
hand,  to  resign  his  life  very  speedily,  seemed  his  only 
chance  ■  for  escaping  the  contumelies,  perhaps  the 
tortures  of  his  enemies  ;  and,  above  all  other  consid- 
erations, for  making  sure  of  a  burial,  and  possibly  of 
burial  rites  ;  to  want  which,  in  the  judgment  of  the 
ancients,  was  the  last  consummation  of  misery.  Thus 
occupied,  and  thus  distracted  —  sternly  attracted  to  the 
grave  by  his  creed,  hideously  repelled  by  infirmity  of 
nature  —  ho  was  suddenly  interrupted  by  a  courier 
with  letters  for  the  master  of  the  house ;  letters,  and 


no 


THE  C^SARS. 


from  Rome  !  What  was  their  import  ?  That  was 
soon  tokl  —  briefly  that  Nero  was  adjudged  to  be  a 
public  enemy  by  the  senate,  and  that  official  orders 
were  issued  for  apprehending  him,  in  order  that  he 
might  be.  brought  to  condign  punishment  according  to 
the  method  of  ancient  precedent.  Ancient  precedent ! 
more  major  em  !  And  how  was  that  ?  eagerly  de- 
manded the  emperor.  He  was  answered  —  that  the 
state  criminal  in  such  cases  was  first  stripped  naked, 
then  impaled  as  it  were  between  the  prongs  of  a  pitch- 
fork, and  in  that  condition  scourged  to  death.  Horror- 
struck  with  this  account,  he  drew  forth  two  poniards, 
or  short  swords,  tried  their  edges,  and  then,  in  utter 
imbecility  of  purpose,  returned  them  to  their  scabbards, 
alleging  that  the  destined  moment  had  not  yet  arrived. 
Then  he  called  upon  Sporus,  the  infamous  partner  in 
his  former  excesses,  to  commence  the  funeral  anthem. 
Others,  again,  he  besought  to  lead  the  way  in  dying, 
and  to  sustain  him  by  the  spectacle  of  their  example. 
But  this  purpose  also  he  dismissed  in  the  very  moment 
of  utterance  ;  and  turning  away  despairingly,  he  apos- 
trophized himself  in  words  reproachful  or  animating, 
now  taxing  his  nature  with  infirmity  of  purpose,  now 
calling  on  himself  by  name,  with  adjurations  to  re- 
member his  dignity,  and  to  act  worthy  of  his  supreme 

station  :  ov  tiqIttsl  iVf^wrt.  cried  he,  o?/  n{)lnst  •  nlipeiv  dsi  h 
totg  TotovToig  *  ays,  i'yiiQB  asavTor  i.   e.    'Fie,  fie,  then, 

Nero!  such  a  season  calls  for  perfect  self-possession. 
Up,  then,  and  rouse  thyself  to  action  ' 


THE  C^ii:SAItS. 


Ill 


Thus,  and  in  similar  efforts  to  master  the  weakness 
of  his  reluctant  nature  —  weakness  which  would  ex- 
tort pity  from  the  severest  minds,  were  it  not  from  the 
odious  connection  which  in  him  it  had  with  cruelty  the 
most  merciless  —  did  this  unhappy  prince,  jam  7ion 
salutis  spem  sed  exitii  solatium  qucerens,  consume  the 
flying  moments,  until  at  length  his  ears  caught  the 
fatal  sounds  or  echoes  from  a  body  of  horsemen  riding 
up  to  the  villa.  These  were  the  officers  charged  with 
his  arrest ;  and  if  he  should  fall  into  their  hands  alive, 
he  knew  that  his  last  chance  was  over  for  liberating 
himself,  by  a  Roman  death,  from  the  burthen  of  igno- 
minious life,  and  from  a  lingering  torture.  He  paused 
from  his  restless  motions,  listened  attentively,  then 
repeated  a  line  from  Homer  — 

'iTTTTiou  fx  (OKVTToSijJV  OL/jLcf}].  KrviT<)<^  ovara  fSaXXei* 
(The  resoundinii^  tread  of  swift-footed  horses  rever- 
berates upon  my  ears)  ;  —  then  under  some  momentary 
impulse  of  courage,  gained  perhaps  by  figuring  to  him- 
self the  bloody  populace  rioting  upon  his  mangled 
body,  yet  even  then  needing  the  auxiliary  hand  and 
vicarious  courage  of  his  private  secretary,  the  feeble- 
hearted  prince  stabbed  himself  in  the  throat.  The 
wound,  ■  however,  was  not  such  as  to  cause  instant 
death.  He  was  still  breathing,  and  not  quite  speech- 
less, when  the  centurion  who  commanded  the  party 
entered  the  closet ;  and  to  this  officer  who  uttered  a 
^ew  hollow  words  of  encouragement,  he  was  still  able 


112 


THE  C^SARS. 


to  make  a  brief  reply.  But  in  the  very  effort  of 
speaking  lie  expired,  and  with  an  ex'pression  of  horror 
impressed  upon  his  stiffened  features,  which  communi- 
cated a  sympathetic  horror  to  all  beholders. 

Such  was  the  too  memorable  tragedy  which  closed 
for  ever  the  brilliant  line  of  the  Julian  family,  and 
translated  the  august  title  of  Caesar  from  its  original 
purpose  as  a  proper  name  to  that  of  an  official  desig- 
nation. It  is  the  most  striking  instance  upon  record 
of  a  dramatic  and  extreme  vengeance  overtaking  ex- 
treme guilt :  for,  as  Nero  had  exhausted  the  utmost 
possibilities  of  crime,  so  it  may  be  affirmed  that  he 
drank  off  the  cup  of  suffering  to  the  very  extremity 
of  what  his  peculiar  nature  allowed.  And  in  no  life 
of  so  short  a  duration,  have  there  ever  been  crowded 
equal  extremities  of  gorgeous  prosperity  and  abject 
infamy.  It  may  be  added,  as  another  striking  illustra- 
tion of  the  rapid  mutability  and  revolutionary  excesses 
which  belonged  to  what  has  been  properly  called  the 
Roman  stratocracy  then  disposing  of  the  world,  that 
within  no  very  great  succession  of  weeks  that  same 
victorious  rebel,  the  Emperor  Galba,  at  whose  feet 
Nero  had  been  self-immolated,  was  laid  a  murdered 
corpse  in  the  same  identical  cell  which  had  witnessed 
the  lingering  agonies  of  his  unhappy  victim.  This 
was  the  act  of  an  emancipated  slave,  anxious,  by  a 
vindictive  insult  to  the  remains  of  one  prince,  to  place 
on   record  his  gratitude  to  another.    '  So  runs  the 


THE  CJaSAKS. 


115 


world  away  ! '  And  in  this  striking  way  is  retribu- 
tion sometimes  dispensed. 

In  the  sixth  Caesar  terminated  the  Julian  line.  The 
three  next  princes  in  the  succession  were  personally 
uninteresting ;  and  with  a  slight  reserve  in  favor  of 
Otho,  whose  motives  for  committing  suicide  (if  truly 
reported)  argue  great  nobility  of  mind,^^  were  even 
brutal  in  the  tenor  of  their  lives  and  monstrous ; 
besides  that  the  extreme  brevity  of  their  several  reigns 
(all  three,  taken  conjunctly,  having  held  the  supreme 
power  for  no  more  than  twelve  months  and  twenty 
days)  dismisses  them  from  all  effectual  station  or  right 
10  a  separate  notice  in  the  line  of  Caesars.  Coming 
to  the  tenth  in  the  succession,  Vespasian,  and  his  two 
sons,  Titus  and  Domitian,  who  make  up  the  list  of 
the  twelve  Caesars,  as  they  are  usually  called,  we  find 
matter  for  deeper  political  meditation  and  subjects  of 
curious  research.  But  these  emperors  would  be  more 
properly  classed  with  the  five  who  succeeded  them  — 
Nerva,  Trajan,  Hadrian,  and  the  two  Antonines  ;  after 
whom  comes  the  young  rufhan,  Commodus,  another 
Caligula  or  Nero,  from  whose  short  and  infamous 
reign  Gibbon  takes  up  his  tale  of  the  decline  of  the 
empire.  And  this  classification  would  probably  have 
prevailed,  had  not  the  very  curious  work  of  Suetonius, 
Those  own  life  and  period  of  observation  determined 
the  series  and  cycle  of  his  subjects,  led  to  a  different 

distribution.    But  as  it  is  evident  that,  in  the  suc- 
8 


U4 


THE  CJESARS. 


cession  of  the  first  twelve  Caesars,  the  six  latter  have 
no  connection  whatever  by  descent,  collaterally,  or 
otherwise,  with  the  six  first,  it  would  be  a  more 
logical  distribution  to  combine  them  according  to  the 
fortunes  of  the  state  itself,  and  the  succession  of  its 
prosperity  through  the  several  stages  of  splendor, 
declension,  revival,  and  final  decay.  Under  this  ar- 
rangement, the  first  seventeen  would  belong  to  the 
first  stage  ;  Commodus  would  open  the  second ; 
Aurelian  down  to  Constantino  or  Julian  would  fill  the 
third ;  and  Jovian  to  Augustulus  would  bring  up  the 
melancholy  rear.  Meantime  it  will  be  proper,  after 
thus  briefly  throwing  our  eyes  over  the  monstrous 
atrocities  of  the  early  Caesars,  to  spend  a  few  lines  in 
examining  their  origin,  and  the  circumstances  which 
favored  their  growth.  For  a  mere  hunter  after  hidden 
or  forgotten  singularities  ;  a  lover  on  their  own  ac- 
count of  all  strange  perversities  and  freaks  of  nature, 
whether  in  action,  taste,  or  opinion  ;  for  a  collector 
and  amateur  of  misgrowths  and  abortions  ;  for  a  Sue- 
tonius, in  short,  it  may  be  quite  enough  to  state  and 
to  arrange  his  cabinet  of  specimens  from  the  marvel- 
lous in  human  nature.  But  certainly  in  modern  times, 
any  historian,  however  little  affecting  the  praise  of  a 
philosophic  investigator,  would  feel  himself  called 
upon  to  remove  a  little  the  taint  of  the  miraculous 
and  preternatural  which  adheres  to  such  anecdotes, 
by  entering  into  the  psychological  grounds  of  theii 


THE  CjESARS. 


115 


possibility  ;  whether  lying  in  any  peculiarly  vicious 
education,  early  familiarity  with  bad  models,  corrupt- 
ing associations,  or  other  plausible  key  to  effects,  which, 
taken  separately,  and  out  of  their  natural  connection 
with  their  explanatory  causes,  are  apt  rather  to  startle 
and  revolt  the  feelings  of  sober  thinkers.  Except, 
perhaps,  in  some  chapters  of  Italian  history,  as,  for 
example,  among  the  most  profligate  of  the  Papal 
houses,  and  amongst  some  of  the  Florentine  princes, 
we  find  hardly  any  parallel  to  the  atrocities  of  Calig- 
ula and  Nero  ;  nor  indeed  was  Tiberius  much  (if  at 
all)  behind  them,  though  otherwise  so  wary  and  cau- 
tious in  his  conduct.  The  same  tenor  of  licentiousness 
beyond  the  needs  of  the  individual,  the  same  craving 
after  the  marvellous  and  the  stupendous  in  guilt,  is 
continually  emerging  in  succeeding  emperors  —  in 
Vitellius,  in  Domitian,  in  Commodus,  in  Caracalla  — 
everywhere,  in  short,  where  it  was  not  overruled  by 
one  of  two  causes,  either  by  original  goodness  of 
nature  too  powerful  to  be  mastered  by  ordinary  seduc- 
tions, (and  in  some  cases  removed  from  their  influence 
by  an  early  apprenticeship  to  camps,)  or  by  the  terrors 
of  an  exemplary  ruin  immediately  preceding.  For 
such  a  determinate  tendency  to  the  enormous  and  the 
anomalous,  sufficient  causes  must  exist.  What  were 
ihey  ? 

In  the  first  place,  we  may  observe  that  the  people 
<^  Rome  in  that  age  were  generally  more  corrupt  by 


116 


THE  C^SARS. 


many  degrees  than  has  been  usually  supposed  possi. 
ble.  The  effect  of  revolutionary  times,  to  relax  all 
modes  of  moral  obligation,  and  to  unsettle  the  moral 
sense,  has  been  well  and  philosophically  stated  by  Mr. 
Coleridge  ;  but  that  would  hardly  account  for  the  utter 
licentiousness  and  depravity  of  Imperial  Rome.  Look- 
ing back  to  Republican  Rome,  and  considering  the 
state  of  public  morals  but  fifty  years  before  the  em- 
perors, we  can  with  difficulty  believe  that  the  descend- 
ants of  a  people  so  severe  in  their  habits  could  thus 
rapidly  degenerate,  and  that  a  populace,  once  so  hardy 
and  masculine,  should  assume  the  manners  which  we 
might  expect  in  the  debauchees  of  Daphne  (the  in- 
famous suburb  of  Antiochj  or  of  Canopus,  into  which 
settled  the  very  lees  and  dregs  of  the  vicious  Alexan- 
dria. Such  extreme  changes  would  falsify  all  that  we 
know  of  human  nature  ;  we  might,  d  priori,  pronounce 
them  impossible ;  and  in  fact,  upon  searching  history, 
we  find  other  modes  of  solving  the  difficulty.  In 
reality,  the  citizens  of  Rome  were  at  this  time  a  new 
race,  brought  together  from  every  quarter  of  the  world, 
but  especially  from  Asia.  So  vast  a  proportion  of 
the  ancient  citizens  had  been  cut  off  by  the  sword, 
and  partly  to  conceal  this  waste  of  population,  but 
much  more  by  way  of  cheaply  requiting  services,  or 
of  showing  favor,  or  of  acquiring  influence,  slaves 
bad  been  emancipated  in  such  great  multitudes,  and 
afterwards  invested  with  all  the  rights  of  citizens, 


THE  C^SARS. 


117 


that,  in  a  single  generation,  Rome  became  almost 
transmuted  into  a  baser  metal  ;  the  progeny  of  those 
whom  the  last  generation  had  purchased  from  the 
slave  merchants.  These  people  derived  their  stock 
chiefly  from  Cappadocia,  Pontus,  &c.,  and  the  other 
populous  regions  of  Asia  Minor ;  and  hence  the  taint 
of  Asiatic  luxury  and  depravity,  which  was  so  con- 
spicuous to  all  the  Komans  of  the  old  republican 
severity.  Juvenal  is  to  be  understood  more  literally 
than  is  sometimes  supposed,  when  he  complains  that 
long  before  his  time  the  Orontes  (that  river  which 
washed  the  infamous  capital  of  Syria)  had  mingled 
its  impure  waters  with  those  of  the  Tiber.  And  a 
little  befoi'e  him,  Lucan  speaks  with  mere  historic 
gravity  v*^hen  he  says  — 

—  '  Vivant  Galataeque  Syrique 

Cappadoces,  Gallique,  extremique  orbis  Iberi, 
Armenii,  Cilices  :  nam  post  civilia  bella 
Hie  Populus  Romamis  erit.*^^^ 

Probably  in  the  time  of  Nero,  not  one  man  in  six 
was  of  pure  Roman  descent. And  the  consequences 
were  suitable.  Scarcely  a  family  has  come  down  to 
our  knowledge  that  could  not  in  one  generation  enu- 
merate a  long  catalogue  of  divorces  within  its  own 
contracted  circle.  Every  man  had  married  a  series 
of  wives  ;  every  woman  a  series  of  husbands.  Even 
in  the  palace  of  Augustus,  who  wished  to  be  viewed 
as  an  exemplar  or  ideal  model  of  domestic  purity, 


118 


THE  C^SABS. 


every  principal  member  of  his  family  was  tainted  in 
that  way  ;  himself  in  a  manner  and  a  degree  infamous 
even  at  that  time.^^  For  the  first  400  years  of  Rome, 
not  one  divorce  had  been  granted  or  asked,  although 
the  statute  which  allowed  of  this  indulgence  had 
always  been  in  force.  But  in  the  age  succeeding  to 
the  civil  wars,  men  and  women  '  married,'  says  one 
author,  '  with  a  view  to  divorce,  and  divorced  in  order 
to  marry.  Many  of  these  changes  happened  within 
the  year,  especially  if  the  lady  had  a  large  fortune, 
which  always  went  with  her  and  procured  her  choice 
of  transient  husbands.'  And,  '  can  one  imagine,' 
asks  the  same  writer,  '  that  the  fair  one  who  changed 
her  husband  every  quarter,  strictly  kept  her  matri- 
monial faith  all  the  three  months  ?  '  Thus  the  very 
fountain  of  all  the  '  household  charities  '  and  house- 
hold virtues  was  polluted.  And  after  that  we  need 
little  wonder  at  the  assassinations,  poisonings,  and 
forging  of  wills,  which  then  laid  waste  the  domestic 
life  of  the  Romans. 

2.  A  second  source  of  the  universal  depravity  was 
the  growing  inefficacy  of  the  public  religion  ;  and  this 
arose  from  its  disproportion  and  inadequacy  to  the 
intellectual  advances  of  the  nation.  Religion,  in  its 
very  etymology,  has  been  held  to  imply  a  religatio, 
chat  is,  a  reiterated  or  secondary  obligation  of  morals ; 
a  sanction  supplementary  to  that  of  the  conscience. 
Now,  for  a  rude  and  uncultivated  pf.ople,  the  Pagan 


THE  C^SARS. 


119 


mythology  might  not  be  too  gross  to  discharge  the 
main  functions  of  a  useful  religion.  So  long  as  the 
understanding  could  submit  to  the  fables  of  the  Pagan 
creed,  so  long  it  was  possible  that  the  hopes  and  fears 
built  upon  that  creed  might  be  practically  efficient  on 
men's  lives  and  intentions.  But  when  the  foundation 
gave  way,  the  whole  superstructure  of  necessity  fell 
to  the  ground.  Those  who  were  obliged  to  reject  the 
ridiculous  legends  which  invested  the  whole  of  their 
Pantheon,  together  with  the  fabulous  adjudgers  of 
future  punishments,  could  not  but  dismiss  the  punish- 
ments, which  were,  in  fact,  as  laughable,  and  as 
obviously  the  fictions  of  human  ingenuity,  as  their 
dispensers.  In  short,  the  civilized  part  of  the  world 
in  those  days  lay  in  this  dreadful  condition  ;  their 
intellect  had  far  outgrown  their  religion  ;  the  dispro- 
portions between  the  two  were  at  length  become  mon- 
strous ;  and  as  yet  no  purer  or  more  elevated  faith 
was  prepared  for  their  acceptance.  The  case  was  as 
shocking  as  if,  with  our  present  intellectual  needs, 
we  should  be  unhappy  enough  to  have  no  creed  on 
which  to  rest  the  burden  of  our  final  hopes  and  fears, 
of  our  moral  obligations,  and  of  our  consolations  in 
misery,  except  the  fairy  mythology  of  our  nurses.  The 
Rondition  of  a  people  so  situated,  of  a  people  under 
the  calamity  of  having  outgrown  its  religious  faith, 
has  never  been  sufficiently  considered.  It  is  probable 
that  such  a  condition  has  never  existed  before  or  since 


120 


THE  C^SARS. 


that  era  of  the  world.  The  consequences  to  Home 
were  —  that  the  reasoninoj  and  disputatious  part  of 
her  population  took  refuge  from  the  painful  state  of 
doubt  in  Atheism  ;  amongst  the  thoughtless  and  irre- 
flective  the  consequences  were  chiefly  felt  in  their 
morals,  which  were  thus  sapped  in  their  foundation. 

3.  A  third  cause,  which  from  the  first  had  exercised 
a  most  baleful  influence  upon  the  arts  and  upon  litera- 
ture in  Rome,  had  by  this  time  matured  its  disastrous 
tendencies  towards  the  extinction  of  the  moral  sensibil- 
ities. This  was  the  circus,  and  the  whole  machinery, 
form  and  substance,  of  the  Circensian  shows.  Why 
had  tragedy  no  existence  as  a  part  of  the  Roman 
literature  ?  Because  —  and  that  was  a  reason  which 
would  have  sufficed  to  stifle  all  the  dramatic  genius 
of  Greece  and  England  —  there  was  too  much  tragedy 
in  the  shape  of  gross  reality,  almost  daily  before  their 
eyes.  The  amphitheatre  extinguished  the  theatre. 
How  was  it  possible  that  the  fine  and  intellectual 
griefs  of  the  drama  should  win  their  way  to  hearts 
seared  and  rendered  callous  by  the  continual  exhibi- 
tion of  scenes  the  most  hideous,  in  which  human 
blood  was  poured  out  like  water,  and  a  human  life 
sacrificed  at  any  moment  either  to  caprice  in  the 
populace,  or  to  a  strife  of  rivalry  between  the  ayes 
and  the  noes^  or  dii\  the  penalty  for  any  trifling  instance 
of  awkwardness  in  the  performer  himself?  Even  the 
more  innocent  exhibitions,  in  which  brutes  only  were 


THE  CJESAES. 


121 


the  sufferers,  could  not  but  be  mortal  to  all  the  finer 
sensibilities.  Five  thousand  wild  animals,  torn  from 
their  native  abodes  in  the  wilderness  or  forest,  were 
often  turned  out  to  be  hunted,  or  for  mutual  slaughter, 
in  the  course  of  a  single  exhibition  of  this  natuie; 
and  it  sometimes  happened,  (a  fact  which  of  itself 
proclaims  the  course  of  the  public  propensities,)  that 
the  person  at  whose  expense  the  shows  were  exhibited, 
by  way  of  paying  special  court  to  the  people  and 
meriting  their  favor,  in  the  way  most  conspicuously 
open  to  him,  issued  orders  that  all,  without  a  solitary 
exception,  should  be  slaughtered.  He  made  it  known, 
as  the  A^ery  highest  gratification  which  the  case  allowed, 
that  (in  the  language  of  our  modern  auctioneers)  the 
whole,  '  without  reserve,'  should  perish  before  their 
eyes.  Even  such  spectacles  must  have  hardened  the 
heart  and  blunted  the  more  delicate  sensibilities  ;  but 
these  would  soon  cease  to  stimulate  the  pampered 
and  exhausted  sense.  From  the  combats  of  tigers  or 
leopards,  in  which  the  passions  could  only  be  gathered 
indirectly,  and  by  way  of  inference  from  the-motions, 
the  transition  must  have  been  almost  inevitable  to 
those  of  men,  whose  nobler  and  more  varied  passions 
spoke  directly,  and  by  the  intelligible  language  of  the 
eye,  to  human  spectators  ;  and  from  the  frequent  con- 
templation of  these  authorized  murders,  in  which  a 
whole  people,  women  as  much  as  men,  and  children 
intermingled  with  both,  looked  on  with  leisurely  indif- 


122 


THE  C^SARS. 


ference,  with  anxious  expectation,  or  with  rapturous 
delight,  whilst  below  them  were  passing  the  direct 
sufferings  of  humanity,  and  not  seldom  its  dying 
pangs,  it  was  impossible  to  expect  a  result  different 
from  that  which  did  in  fact  take  place,  —  universal 
hardness  of  heart,  obdurate  depravity,  and  a  twofold 
degradation  of  human  nature,  which  acted  simultane- 
ously upon  the  two  pillars  of  morality,  (which  are 
otherwise  not  often  assailed  together,)  of  natural  sen- 
sibility in  the  first  place,  and  in  the  second,  of  consci- 
entious principle. 

4.  But  these  were  circumstances  which  applied  to 
the  whole  population  indiscriminately.  Superadded 
to  these,  in  the  case  of  the  emperor,  and  affecting 
Mm  exclusively,  was  this  prodigious  disadvantage  — 
that  ancient  reverence  for  the  immediate  witnesses 
of  his  actions,  and  for  the  people  and  senate  who 
would  under  other  circumstances  have  exercised  the 
old  functions  of  the  censor,  was,  as  to  the  emperor, 
pretty  nearly  obliterated.  The  very  title  of  imperator, 
from  which  we  have  derived  our  modern  one  of 
emperor,  proclaims  the  nature  of  the  government,  and 
the  tenure  of  that  office.  It  was  purely  a  government 
by  the  sword,  or  permanent  stratocracy,  having  a 
movable  head.  Never  was  there  a  people  who  inquired 
so  impertinently  as  the  Romans  into  the  domestic 
conduct  of  each  private  citizen.  No  rank  escaped 
this  jealous  vigilance  ;  and  private  liberty,  even  in  the 


THE  CJESARS. 


123 


most  indifferent  circumstances  of  taste  or  expense, 
was  sacrificed  to  this  inquisitorial  rigor  of  surveillance^ 
exercised  on  behalf  of  the  stale,  sometimes  by  errone- 
ous patriotism,  too  often  by  malice  in  disguise.  To 
this  spirit  the  highest  public  officers  were  obliged  to 
bow ;  the  consuls,  not  less  than  others.  And  even 
the  occasional  dictator,  if  by  law  irresponsible,  acted 
nevertheless  as  one  who  knew  that  any  change  which 
depressed  his  party  might  eventually  abrogate  his 
privilege.  For  the  first  time  in  the  person  of  an 
imperator  was  seen  a  supreme  autocrat,  who  had  vir- 
tually and  effectively  all  the  irresponsibility  which  the 
law  assigned,  and  the  origin  of  his  office  presumed. 
Satisfied  to  know  that  he  possessed  such  power,  Au- 
gustus, as  much  from  natural  taste  as  policy,  was  glad 
to  dissemble  it,  and  by  every  means  to  withdraw  it 
from  public  notice.  But  he  had  passed  his  youth  as 
citizen  of  a  republic  ;  and  in  the  state  of  transition  to 
autocracy,  in  his  office  of  triumvir,  had  experimentally 
known  the  perils  of  rivalship,  and  the  pains  of  foreign 
control,  too  feelingly  to  provoke  unnecessarily  any 
sleeping  embers  of  the  republican  spirit.  Tiberius, 
though  familiar  from  his  infancy  with  the  servile 
homage  of  a  court,  was  yet  modified  by  the  popular 
temper  of  Augustus ;  and  he  came  late  to  the  throne. 
Caligula  was  the  first  prince  on  whom  the  entire  effect 
of  his  political  situation  was  allowed  to  operate  ;  and 
the  natural  results  were  seen  —  he  was  the  first  abso- 


124  THE  C^SARS. 

lute  monster.  He  must  early  have  seen  the  reali- 
ties of  his  position,  and  from  what  quarter  it  was  that 
any  cloud  could  arise  to  menace  his  security.  To 
the  senate  or  people  any  respect  which  he  might  think 
proper  to  pay,  must  have  been  imputed  by  all  parties 
to  the  lingering  superstitions  of  custom,  to  involuntary 
habit,  to  court  dissimulation,  or  to  the  decencies  of 
external  form,  and  the  prescriptive  reverence  of  ancient 
names.  But  neither  senate  nor  people  could  enforce 
their  claims,  whatever  they  might  happen  to  be. 
Their  sanction  and  ratifying  vote  might  be  worth 
having,  as  consecrating  what  was  already  secure,  and 
conciliating  the  scruples  of  the  weak  to  the  absolute 
decision  of  the  strong.  But  their  resistance,  as  an 
original  movement,  was  so  wholly  without  hope,  that 
they  were  never  weak  enough  to  threaten  it. 

The  army  was  the  true  successor  to  their  places, 
being  the  ultimate  depository  of  power.  Yet,  as  the 
army  was  necessarily  subdivided,  as  the  shifting  cir- 
cumstances upon  every  frontier  were  continually 
varying  the  strength  of  the  several  divisions  as  to 
numbers  and  state  of  discipline,  one  part  might  be 
balanced  against  the  other  by  an  imperator  standing 
in  the  centre  of  the  whole.  The  rigor  of  the  military 
mcramentum,  or  oath  of  allegiance,  made  it  dangerous 
Co  offer  the  first  overtures  to  rebellion  ;  and  the  money, 
which  the  soldiers  were  continually  depositing  in  the 
bank,  placed  at  the  foot  of  their  military  standards,  if 


THE  C^SAUS. 


126 


sometimes  turned  against  the  emperor,  was  also 
liable  to  be  sequestrated  in  his  favor.  There  were 
then,  in  fact,  two  great  forces  in  the  government 
acting  in  and  by  each  other  —  the  Stratocracy,  axii 
the  Autocracy.  Each  needed  the  other  ;  each  stood 
in  awe  of  each.  But,  as  regarded  all  other  forces 
in  the  empire,  constitutional  or  irregular,  popular  or 
senatorial,  neither  had  anything  to  fear.  Under  any 
ordinary  circumstances,  therefore,  considering  the 
hazards  of  a  rebellion,  the  emperor  was  substantially 
liberated  from  all  control.  Vexations  or  outrages 
upon  the  populace  were  not  s.uch  to  the  army.  It 
was  but  rarely  that  the  soldier  participated  in  the 
emotions  of  the  citizen.  And  thus,  being  effectually 
without  check,  the  most  vicious  of  the  Caesars  went 
on  without  fear,  presuming  upon  the  weakness  of  one 
part  of  his  subjects,  and  the  indifference  of  the  other, 
until  he  was  tempted  onwards  to  atrocities,  which 
armed  against  him  the  common  feelings  of  human 
nature,  and  aP.  mankind,  as  it  were,  rose  in  a  body 
with  one  voice,  and  apparently  with  one  heart,  united 
by  mere  force  of  indignant  sympathy,  to  put  him 
down,  and  '  abate '  him  as  a  monster.  But,  until  he 
brought  matters  to  this  extremity,  Csesar  had  no  cause 
to  fear.  Nor  was  it  at  all  certain,  in  any  one 
instance,  where  this  exemplary  chastisement  overtook 
him,  that  the  apparent  unanimity  of  the  actors  went 
further  than  the  practical   conclusion  of  '  abating ' 


126 


THE  C^SARS. 


the  imperial  nuisance,  or  that  their  indignation  had 
settled  upon  the  same  offences.  In  general,  the  army 
measured  the  guilt  by  the  public  scandal,  rather  than 
by  its  moral  atrocity  ;  and  Csesar  suffered  perhaps  in 
every  case,  not  so  much  bocause  he  had  violated  his 
duties,  as  because  he  had  dishonored  his  office. 

It  is,  therefore,  in  the  total  absence  of  the  checks 
which  have  almost  universally  existed  to  control  other 
despots,  under  some  indirect  shape,  even  where  none 
was  provided  by  the  laws,  that  we  must  seek  for  the 
main  peculiarity  affecting  the  condition  of  the  Roman 
Csesar,  which  peculiarity  it  was,  superadded  to  the 
other  three,  that  finally  made  those  three  operative  in 
their  fullest  extent.  It  is  in  the  perfection  of  the 
stratocracy  that  we  must  look  for  the  key  to  the 
excesses  of  the  autocrat.  Even  in  the  bloody  des- 
potisms of  the  Barbary  States,  there  has  always 
existed  in  the  religious  prejudices  of  the  people,  which 
could  not  be  violated  with  safety,  one  check  more 
upon  the  caprices  of  the  despot  than  was  found  at 
Rome.  Upon  the  whole,  therefore,  what  affects  us 
on  the  first  reading  as  a  prodigy  or  anomaly  in  the 
frantic  outrages  of  the  early  Csesars  —  falls  within  the 
natural  bounds  of  intelligible  human  nature,  when 
sve  state  the  case  considerately.  Surrounded  by  a 
population  which  had  not  only  gone  through  a  most 
vicious  and  corrupting  discipline,  and  had  been  utterly 
ruined  by  the  license  of  revolutionary  times,  and  the 


THE  CjESARS. 


127 


bloodiest  proscriptions,  but  had  even  been  extensively 
changed  in  its  very  elements,  and  from  the  descend- 
ants of  Romulus  had  been  transmuted  into  an  Asiatic 
mob  :  — ■  starting  from  this  point,  and  considering  as 
the  second  feature  of  the  case,  that  this  transfigured 
people,  morally  so  degenerate,  were  carried,  however, 
by  the  progress  of  civilization,  to  a  certain  intellectual 
altitude,  which  the  popular  religion  had  not  strength 
to  ascend  —  but  from  inherent  disproportion  remained 
at  the  base  of  the  general  civilization,  incapable  of 
accompanying  the  other  elements  in  their  advance  ;  — 
thirdly,  that  this  polished  condition  of  society,  which 
should  naturally  with  the  evils  of  a  luxurious  repose 
have  counted  upon  its  pacific  benefits,  had  yet,  by 
means  of  its  circus  and  its  gladiatorial  contests,  applied 
a  constant  irritation,  and  a  system  of  provocations  to 
the  appetites  for  blood,  such  as  in  all  other  nations  are 
connected  with  the  rudest  stages  of  society,  and  with 
the  most  barbarous  modes  of  warfare,  nor  even  in  such 
circumstances,  without  many  palliatives  wanting  to 
the  spectators  of  the  circus  ;  —  combining  these  con- 
siderations, we  have  already  a  key  to  the  enormities 
and  hideous  excesses  of  the  Roman  Imperator.  The 
hot  blood  which  excites,  and  the  adventurous  courage 
which  accompanies,  the  excesses  of  sanguinary  warfare, 
firesuppose  a  condition  of  the  moral  nature  not  to  be 
compared  for  malignity  and  baleful  tendency  to  the 
«ool  and  cowardly  spirit  of  amateurship,  in  which  the 


128 


THE  C^SARS. 


Roman  (perhaps  an  effeminate  Asiatic)  sat  looking 
down  upon  the  bravest  of  men,  (Thracians  or  other 
Europeans,)  mangling  each  other  for  his  recreation. 
When,  lastly,  from  such  a  population,  and  thus  disci- 
plined from  his  nursery  days,  we  suppose  the  case  of 
one  individual  selected,  privileged,  and  raised  to  a 
conscious  irresponsibility,  except  at  the  bar  of  one 
extra-judicial  tribunal,  not  easily  irritated,  and  noto- 
riously to  be  propitiated  by  other  means  than  those  of 
upright  or  impartial  conduct,  we  lay  together  the 
elements  of  a  situation  too  trying  for  poor  human 
nature,  and  fitted  only  to  the  faculties  of  an  angel  or 
a  demon ;  of  an  angel,  if  we  suppose  him  to  resist  its 
full  temptations ;  of  a  demon,  if  we  suppose  him  to  use 
its  total  opportunities.  Thus  interpreted  and  solved, 
Caligula  and  Nero  become  ordinary  men. 

But,  finally,  what  if,  after  all,  the  worst  of  the 
Caesars,  and  those  in  particular,  were  entitled  to  the 
benefit  of  a  still  shorter  and  more  conclusive  apology? 
What  if,  in  a  true  medical  sense,  they  were  insane? 
It  is  certain  that  a  vein  of  madness  ran  in  the  family ; 
and  anecdotes  are  recorded  of  the  three  worst,  which 
go  far  to  establish  it  as  a  fact,  and  others  which  would 
mply  it  as  symptoms — preceding  or  accompanying. 
As  belonging  to  the  former  class,  take  the  following 
gtory :  At  midnight  an  elderly  gentleman  suddenly 
sends  round  a  message  to  a  select  party  of  noblemen, 
rouses  them  out  of.  bed,  and  summons  them  instantly 


THE  C^SARS. 


129 


fco  his  palace.    Trembling  for  their  lives  from  tliG 

suddenness  of  the  summons,  and  from  the  unsea* 

sonable  hour,  and  scarcely  doubting  that  by  some 

anonymous  delator    they  have    been    implicated  as 

parties  to  a  conspiracy,  they  hurry  to  the  palace  — 

are  received  in  portentous  silence  by  the  ushers  and 

pages  in   attendance  —  are    conducted   to  a  saloon, 

where  (as  in  everywhere  else)  the  silence  of  night 

prevails,  united  with  the  silence  of  fear  and  whispering 

expectation.    All  are  seated  —  all  look  at  each  other 

in  ominous  anxiety.    Which  is  accuser  ?    Which  is 

the  accused  ?    On  whom  shall  their  suspicions  settle 

-—  on  whom  their  pity  r     All    are    silent  —  almost 

speechless  —  and  even  the  current  of  their  thoughts  is 

frost-bound  by  fear.    Suddenly  the  sound  of  a  fiddle 

or  a  viol  is  caught  from  a  distance  —  it  swells  upon 

the  ear — steps  approach  —  and  in  another  moment 

in  rushes  the  elderly  gentleman,  grave  and  gloomy 

as  his  audience,  but  capering  about  in  a  frenzy  of 

excitement.    For  half  an  hour  he  continues  to  perform 

all  possible  evolutions  of  caprioles,  pirouettes,  and 

other    extravagant   feats    of  activity,  accompanying 

\iimself  on  the  fiddle;    and,  at  length,  not  having 

once  looked  at   his   guests,  the  elderly  gentleman 

whirls  out  of  the  room  in  the  same  transport  of 

emotion  with  which  he  entered  it ;  the  panic-struck 

visitors  are  requested  by  a  slave  to  consider  themselves 

%s  dismissed :  they  retire ;  resume  their  couches :  — 
9 


130 


THE  C^SARS. 


the  nocturnal  pageant  has  '  dislimned '  and  vanished  ; 
and  on  the  following  morning,  were  it  not  for  their 
concurring  testimonies,  all  would  be  disposed  to  take 
this  interruption  of  their  sleep  for  one  of  its  most 
fantastic  dreams.  The  elderly  gentleman  who  fig- 
ured in  this  delirious  pas  seul  —  who  was  he  ?  He 
was  Tiberius  Caesar,  king  of  kings,  and  lord  of  the 
terraqueous  globe.  Would  a  British  jury  demand 
better  evidence  than  this  of  a  disturbed  intellect  in 
any  formal  process  de  lunatico  inquirendo  ?  For 
Caligula,  again,  the  evidence  of  symptoms  is  still 
plainer.  He  knew  his  own  defect ;  and  proposed 
going  through  a  course  of  hellebore.  Sleeplessness, 
one  of  the  commonest  indications  of  lunacy,  haunted 
him  in  an  excess  rarely  recorded. The  same,  or 
similar  facts,  might  be  brought  forward  on  behalf  of 
Nero.  And  thus  these  unfortunate  princes,  who  have 
so  long  (and  with  so  little  investigation  of  their  cases) 
passed  for  monsters  or  for  demoniac  counterfeits  of 
men,  would  at  length  be  brought  back  within  the  fold 
of  humanity,  as  objects  rather  of  pity  than  of  abhor- 
rence, would  be  reconciled  to  our  indulgent  feelings, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  made  intelligible  to  our  under- 
standings. 


THE  C^SARS. 


J81 


CHAPTER  IV. 

The  five  Ceosars^^  who  succeeded  immediately  o  the 
first  twelve,  were,  in  as  high  a  sense  as  their  office 
allowed,  patriots.  Hadrian  is  perhaps  the  first  of  all 
whom  circumstances  permitted  to  show  his  patiotism 
without  fear.  It  illustrates  at  one  and  the  same 
moment  a  trait  in  this  emperor's  character,  and  in  the 
Roman  habits,  that  he  acquired  much  reputation  for 
hardiness  by  walking  bareheaded.  '  Never,  on  any 
occasion,'  says  one  of  his  memorialists  (Dio),  '  neither 
in  summer  heat  nor  in  winter's  cold,  did  he  cover  his 
head  ;  but,  as  well  in  the  Celtic  snoAvs  as  in  Egyptian 
heats,  he  went  about  bareheaded.'  This  anecdote 
could  not  fail  to  win  the  especial  admiration  of  Isaac 
Casaubon,  who  lived  in  an  age  when  men  believed  a 
hat  no  less  indispensable  to  the  head,  even  within 
doors,  than  shoes  or  stockings  to  the  feet.  His  aston- 
ishment on  the  occasion  is  thus  expressed  :  '  Tan  turn 
est  >j  uoxijoig : '  such  and  so  mighty  is  the  force  of  habit 
and  daily  use.  And  then  he  goes  on  to  ask  —  '  Quis 
hodie  nudum  caput  radiis  soiis,  aut  omnia  perurenti 
frigori,  ausit  exponere  ? '  Yet  we  ourselves  and  our 
illustrious  friend,  Christopher  North,  have  walked  for 
twenty  years  amongst  our  British  lakes  and  mountaina 


THE  CjESARS. 


hatless,  and  amidst  both  snow  and  rain,  such  as  llo- 
mans  did  not  often  experience.  We  were  naked,  and 
yet  not  ashamed.  Nor  in  this  are  we  altogether  singu- 
lar. But,  says  Casaubon,  the  Romans  went  farther ; 
for  they  walked  about  the  streets  of  Rome^'^  bare- 
headed, and  never  assumed  a  hat  or  a  cap,  a  petasus  or 
a  galerus^  a  Macedonian  causia,  or  a  pileus,  whether 
Thessaiian,  Arcadian  or  Laconic,  unless  when  they 
entered  upon  a  journey.  Nay,  some  there  were,  as 
Masinissa  and  Julius  Caesar,  who  declined  even  on 
such  an  occasion  to  cover-  their  heads.  Perhaps  in 
imitation  of  these  celebrated  leaders,  Hadrian  adopted 
the  same  practice,  but  not  with  the  same  result ;  for  to 
him,  either  from  age  or  constitution,  this  very  custom 
proved  the  original  occasion  of  his  last  illness. 

Imitation,  indeed,  was  a  general  principle  of  action 
with  Hadrian,  and  the  key  to  much  of  his  public 
conduct ;  and  allowably  enough,  considering  the  ex- 
emplary lives  (in  a  public  sense)  of  some  who  had 
preceded  him,  and  the  singular  anxiety  with  which  he 
distinguished  between  the  lights  and  shadows  of  their 
examples.  He  imitated  the  great  Dictator,  Julius,  in 
his  vigilance  of  inspection  into  the  civil,  not  less  than 
the  martial  police  of  his  times,  shaping  his  new  regu- 
lations to  meet  abuses  as  they  arose,  and  strenuously 
maintaining  the  old  ones  in  vigorous  operation.  As 
respected  the  army,  this  was  matter  of  peculiar  praise, 
because  peculiarly  disinterested ;  for  his  foreign  policj 


THE  C^SARS. 


133 


was  pacific  ;  he  made  no  new  conquests  :  and  hi 
retired  from  the  old  ones  of  Trojan,  where  they  could 
not  have  been  maintained  without  disproportionate 
bloockhed,  or  a  jealousy  beyond  the  value  of  the  stake. 
In  this  point  of  his  administration  he  took  Augustus 
for  his  model  ;  as  again  in  his  care  of  the  army,  in  his 
occasional  bounties,  and  in  his  paternal  solicitude  foi 
their  comforts,  he  looked  rather  to  the  example  of  Julius. 
Him  also  he  imitated  in  his  affability  and  in  his  ambi- 
tious courtesies ;  one  instance  of  which,  as  blending 
an  artifice  of  political  subtlety  and  simulation  with  a 
remarkable  exertion  of  memory,  it  may  be  well  to 
mentioUo  The  custom  was,  in  canvassing  the  citizens 
of  Rome,  that  the  candidate  should  address  every  voter 
by  his  name ;  it  was  a  fiction  of  republican  etiquette, 
that  every  man  participating  in  the  political  privileges 
of  the  State  iftust  be  personally  known  to  public  aspi- 
rants. But,  as  this  was  supposed  to  be,  in  a  literal 
sense,  impossible  to  all  men  with  the  ordinary  endow- 
ments of  memory,  in  order  to  reconcile  the  pretensions 
of  republican  hauteur  with  the  necessities  of  human 
weakness,  a  custom  had  grown  up  of  relying  upon 
a  class  of  men  called  nomenclators,  whose  express 
business  and  profession  it  was  to  make  themselves 
acquainted  with  the  person  and  name  of  every  citizen. 
One  of  these  people  accompanied  every  candidate,  and 
quietly  whispered  into  his  ear  the  name  of  each  voter 
\&  he  came  in  sight.    Few,  indeed,  were  they  who 


134 


THE  C^SARS. 


could  dispense  with  the  services  of  such  an  assessor ; 
for  the  office  imposed  a  twofold  memory,  that  of 
names  and  of  persons,;  and  to  estimate  the  immensity 
of  the  effort,  we  must  recollect  that  the  number  of 
voters  often  far  exceed  one  quarter  of  a  million. 
The  very  same  trial  of  memory  he  undertook  with 
respect  to  his  own  army,  in  this  instance  recalling  the 
well  known  feat  of  Mithridates.  And  throughout  his 
life  he  did  not  once  forget  the  face  or  name  of  any 
veteran  soldier  whom  he  had  ever  occasion  to  notice, 
no  matter  under  what  remote  climate,  or  under  what 
difference  of  circumstances.  Wonderful  is  the  effect 
upon,  soldiers  of  such  enduring  and  separate  remem- 
brance, which  operates  always  as  the  most  touching 
kind  of  personal  flattery,  and  which,  in  every  age  of 
the  world,  since  the  social  sensibilities  of  men  have 
been  much  developed,  military  commanders  are  found 
to  have  played  upon  as  the  most  effectual  chord  in  the 
great  system  which  they  modulated ;  some  few,  by  a 
rare  endowment  of  nature ;  others,  as  Napoleon  Bona- 
parte, by  elaborate  mimicries  of  pantomimic  art.^^ 

Other  modes  he  had  of  winning  affection  from,  the 
army ;  in  particular  that,  so  often  practised  before  and 
since,  of  accommodating  him'self  to  the  strictest  ritual 
of  martial  discipline  and  castrensian  life.  He  slept  in 
the  open  air,  or,  if  he  used  a  tent  (papilio),  it  was 
open  at  the'  sides.  He  ate  the  ordinary  rations  of 
cheese,  bacon,  &c. ;  he  used  no  other  drink  than  that 


THE  CiESARS. 


135 


composition  of  vinegar  and  water,  known  by  the  namp 
of  posca,  which  formed  the  sole  beverage  allowed  in  the 
Roman  camps.  He  joined  personally  in  the  periodical 
exercises  of  the  army  —  those  even  which  were  trying 
to  the  most  vigorous  youth  and  health  :  marching,  for 
example,  on  stated  occasions,  twenty  English  miles 
without  intermission,  in  full  armor  and  completely 
accoutred.  Luxury  of  every  kind  he  not  only  inter- 
dicted to  the  soldier  by  severe  ordinances,  himself 
enforcing  their  execution,  but  discountenanced  it 
(though  elsewhere  splendid  and  even  gorgeous  in  his 
personal  habits)  by  his  own  continual  example.  In 
dress,  for  instance,  he  sternly  banished  the  purple  and 
gold  embroideries,  the  jewelled  arms,  and  the  floating 
draperies,  so  little  in  accordance  with  the  severe  char- 
acter of  '  war  in  procinct'  Hardly  would  he  allow 
himself  an  ivory  hilt  to  his  sabre.  The  same  severe 
proscription  he  extended  to  every  sort  of  furniture,  or 
decorations  of  art,  which  sheltered  even  in  the  bosom 
of  camps  those  habits  of  effeminate  luxury  —  so  apt  in 
all  great  empires  to  steal  by  imperceptible  steps  from 
the  voluptuous  palace  to  the  soldier's  tent  —  following 
in  the  equipage  of  great  leading  officers,  or  of  subal- 
terns highly  connected.  There  was  at  that  time  a 
practice  prevailing,  in  the  great  standing  camps  on  the 
several  frontiers  and  at  all  the  military  stations,  of  re- 
!iewing  as  much  as  possible  the  image  of  distant  Rome 
by  the  erection  of  long  colonnades  and  piazzas  — 


136 


THE  C^SABS. 


BiDgle,  double,  or  triple ;  of  crypts,  or  subterranean 
saloons,  (and  sometimes  subterranean  galleries  and 
corridors,)  for  evading  the  sultry  noontides  of  July  and 
August ;  of  verdant  cloisters  or  arcades,  with  roofs 
high  over-arched,  constructed  entirely  out  of  flexile 
shrubs,  box-myrtle,  and  others,  trained  and  trimmed  in 
regular  forms  ;  besides  endless  other  applications  of  the 
topiary  art,  which  in  those  days  (like  the  needlework 
of  Miss  Linwood^^in  ours),  though  no  more  than  a 
mechanic  craft,  in  some  measure  realized  the  efl'ects  of 
a  fine  art  by  the  perfect  skill  of  its  execution.  Ali 
these  modes  of  luxury,  with  a  policy  that  had  the  more 
merit  as  it  thwarted  his  own  private  inclinations,  did 
Hadrian  peremptorily  abolish  ;  perhaps  amongst  other 
more  obvious  purposes,  seeking  to  intercept  the  earliest 
buddings  of  those  local  attachments  which  are  as  inju- 
rious to  the  martial  character  and  the  proper  pursuits 
of  men  whose  vocation  obliges  them  to  consider  them- 
selves eternally  under  marching  orders,  as  they  are^ 
propitious  to  all  the  best  interests  of  society  in  connec- 
tion with  the  feelings  of  civic  life. 

We  dwell  upon  this  prince  not  without  reason  is* 
this  particular ;  -for,  amongst  the  CiBsars,  Hadrian 
stands  forward  in  high  relief  as  a  reformer  of  the  army. 
Well  and  truly  might  it  be  said  of  him  —  that,  post 
Ccesarem  Octavianum  lahantem  disciplinam,  incurid 
mperiorum  principum,  ipse  retinuit.  Not  content 
with  the  cleansing  and  purgations  we  have  mentioned. 


THE  CJESARS. 


137 


he  placed  upon  a  new  footing  the  whole  tenure,  duties, 
and  pledges  of  military  offices. It  cannot  much  sur 
prise  us  that  this  department  of  the  public  service 
should  gradually  have  gone  to  ruin  or  decay.  Under 
the  senate  and  people,  under  the  auspices  of  those 
awful  symbols  —  letters  more  significant  and  ominous 
than  ever  before  had  troubled  the  eyes  of  man,  except 
upon  Belshazzar's  wall —  S.  P.  Q.  E,.,  the  officers  of 
the  Roman  army  had  been  kept  true  to  their  duties, 
and  vigilant  by  emulation  and  a  healthy  ambition. 
But,  when  the  ripeness  of  corruption  had  by  dissolving 
the  body  of  the  State  brought  out  of  its  ashes  a  new 
mode  of  life,  and  had  recast  the  aristocratic  republic, 
by  aid  of  its  democratic  elements  then  suddenly  vic- 
torious, into  a  pure  autocracy  —  whatever  might  be 
the  advantages  in  other  respects  of  this  great  change, 
in  one  point  it  had  certainly  injured  the  public  service, 
by  throwing  the  higher  military  appointments,  all  in 
fact  which  conferred  any  authority,  into  the  channels 
of  court  favor  —  and  by  consequence  into  a  mercenary 
disposal.  Each  successive  emperor  had  been  too 
anxious  for  his  own  immediate  security,  to  find  leisure 
for  the  remoter  interests  of  the  empire  :  all  looked  to 
the  army,  as  it  were,  for  their  own  immediate  security 
against  competitors,  without  venturing  to  tamper  with 
its  constitution,  to  risk  popularity  by  reforming  abuses, 
to  balance  present  interest  against  a  remote  one,  or  to 
cultivate  the  public  welfare  at  the  hazard  of  their  own : 


138 


THE  CiESARS. 


contented  with  obtaining  that,  they  left  the  internal 
arrangements  of  so  formidable  a  body  in  the  state  to 
which  circumstances  had  brought  it,  and  to  which 
naturally  the  views  of  all  existing  beneficiaries  had 
gradually  adjusted  themselves.  What  these  might  be, 
and  to  what  further  results  they  might  tend,  was  a 
matter  of  moment  doubtless  to  the  empire.  But  the 
empire  was  strong  ;  if  its  motive  energy  was  decaying, 
its  vis  inerticB  was  for  ages  enormous,  and  could  stand 
up  against  assaults  repeated  for  many  ages  :  whilst  the 
emperor  was  in  the  beginning  of  his  authority  weak, 
and  pledged  by  instant  interest,  no  less  than  by  express 
promises,  to  the  support  of  that  body  whose  favor  had 
substantially  supported  himself.  Hadrian  was  the  first 
who  turned  his- attention  efi^ectually  in  that  direction; 
whether  it  were  that  he  first  was  struck  with  the 
tendency  of  the  abuses,  or  that  he  valued  the  hazard 
less  which  he  incurred  in  correcting  them,  or  that 
having  no  successor  of  his  own  blood,  he  had  a  less 
personal  and  afiecting  interest  at  stake  in  setting  this 
hazard  at  defiance.  Hitherto,  the  highest  regimental 
rank,  that  of  tribune,  had  been  disposed  of  in  two 
ways,  either  civilly  upon  popular  favor  and  election,  or 
upon  the  express  recommendation  of  the  soldiery.  This 
custom  had  prevailed  under  the  republic,  and  the  force 
of  habit  had  availed  to  propagate  that  practice  under  a 
new  mode  of  government.  But  now  were  introduced 
new  regulations  :  the  tribune  was  selected  for  his  mili- 


THK  C^SARS. 


139 


tary  qualities  and  experience  :  none  was  appointed  tc 
this  important  office,  '  nisi  harbd  plena, ^  The  cen- 
turion's truncheon,'^  again,  was  given  to  no  man, 
'nisi  rohusto  et  honce  famcE.'  The  arms  and  military 
appointments  (^supellectilis)  were  revised  ;  the  register 
of  names  was  duly  called  over ;  and  none  suffered  to 
remain  in  the  camps  who  was  either  above  or  below 
the  military  age.  The  same  vigilance  and  jealousy 
were  extended  to  the  great  stationary  stores  and  reposi- 
tories of  biscuit,  vinegar,  and  other  equipments  for  the 
soldiery.  All  things  were  in  constant  readiness  in  the 
capital  and  the  provinces,  in  the  garrisons  and  camps, 
abroad  and  at  home,  to  meet  the  outbreak  of  a  foreign 
war  or  a  domestic  sedition.  Whatever  were  the  ser- 
vice, it  could  by  no  possibility  find  Hadrian  unprepared. 
And  he  first,  in  fact,  of  all  the  Caesars,  restored  to  its 
ancient  republican  standard,  as  reformed  and  perfected 
by  Narius,  the  old  martial  discipline  of  the  Scipios  and 
the  Paulli  —  that  discipline,  to  which,  more  than  to  any 
physical  superiority  of  her  soldiery,  Rome  had  been 
indebted  for  her  conquest  of  the  earth ;  and  which  had 
inevitably  decayed  in  the  long  series  of  wars  growing 
out  of  personal  ambition.  From  the  days  of  Marius, 
every  great  leader  had  sacrificed  to  the  necessities  of 
sourting  favor  from  the  troops,  as  much  as  was  possible 
of  the  hardships  incident  to  actual  service,  and  as  much 
as  he  dared  of  the  once  rigorous  discipline.  Hadrian 
Srst  found  himself  in  circumstances,  or  was  the  first 


140 


THE  C^SARS. 


who  had  courage  enough  to  decline  a  momentary 
interest  in  favor  of  a  greater  in  reversion  ;  and  a  per- 
sonal object  which  was  transient,  in  favor  of  a  State 
one  continually  revolving. 

For  a  prince,  with  no  children  of  his  own,  it  is  in 
any  case  a  task  of  peculiar  delicacy  to  select  a  suic- 
cessor.  In  the  Eoman  empire  the  difficulties  were 
much  aggravated.  The  interests  of  the  State  were,  in 
the  first  place,  to  be  consulted ;'  for  a  mighty  burthen 
of  responsibility  rested  upon  the  emperor  in  the  most 
personal  sense.  Duties  of  every  kind  fell  to  his  station, 
which,  from  the  peculiar  constitution  of  the  govern- 
ment, and  from  circumstances  rooted  in  the  very  origin 
of  the  imperatorial  office,  could  not  be  devolved  upon 
a  council.  Council  there  was  none,  nor  could  be 
recognized  as  such  in  the  State  machinery.  The  em- 
peror, himself  a  sacred  and  sequestered  creature,  might 
be  supposed  to  enjoy  the  secret  tutelage  of  the  Supreme 
Deity  ;  but  a  council,  composed  of  subordinate  and 
responsible  agents,  could  not.  Again,  the  auspices  of 
the  emperor,  and  his  edicts,  apart  even  from  any  celes- 
tial or  supernatural  inspiration,  simply  as  emanations 
of  his  own  divine  character,  had  a  value  and  a  conse- 
cration which  could  never  belong  to  those  of  a 
council  —  or  to  those  even  which  had  been  sullied  by 
ftie  breath  of  any  less  august  reviser.  The  emperor, 
cherefore,  or  —  as  with  a  view  to  his  solitary  and 
unique  character  we  ought  to  call  him  —  in  the  original 


THE  C^SARS. 


141 


irrepresentable  term,  the  imperator,  could  not  delegate 
his  duties,  or  execute  them  in  any  avowed  form  by 
proxies  or  representatives.  He  was  himself  the  great 
fountain  of  law  —  of  honor  —  of  preferment  —  of  civil 
and  political  regulations.  He  was  the  fountain  also  of 
good  and  evil  fame.  He  was  the  great  chancellor,  or 
supreme  dispenser  of  equity  to  all  climates,  nations, 
languages,  of  his  mighty  dominions,  which  connected 
the  turbaned  races  of  the  Orient,  and  tbose  who  sat 
in  the  gates  of  the  rising  sun,  with  the  islands  of  the 
West,  and  the  unfathomed  depths  of  the  mysterious 
Scandinavia.  He  w^as  the  universal  guardian  of  the 
public  and  private  interests  which  composed  the  great 
edifice  of  the  social  system  as  then  existing  amongst 
his  subjects.  Above  all,  and  out  of  his  own  private 
purse,  he  supported  the  heraldries  of  his  dominions  - — 
the  peerage,  senatorial  or  praetorian,  and  the  great 
gentry  or  chivalry  of  the  Equites.  These  were  classes 
who  would  have  been  dishonored  by  the  censorship 
of  a  less  august  comptroller.  And  for  the  classes 
below  these,  - —  by  how  much  they  were  lower  and 
more  remote  from  his  ocular  superintendence,  —  by 
so  much  the  more  were  they  linked  to  him  in  a 
connection  of  absolute  dependence.  Csesar  it  was  who 
provided  their  daily  food,  Csesar  who  provided  their 
pleasures  and  relaxations.  He  chartered  the  fleets 
which  brought  grain  to  the  Tiber  —  he  bespoke  the 
Sardinian  granaries  while  yet  unformed  —  and  the 


THE  C^SAES. 


harvests  of  the  Nile  while  yet  unsown.  Not  the  con- 
nection between  a  mother  and  her  unborn  infant  is 
more  intimate  and  vital,  than  that  which  subsisted 
between  the  mighty  populace  of  the  Roman  capitol 
and  their  paternal  emperor.  They  drew  their  nutri- 
ment from  him  ;  they  lived  and  were  happy  by  sym- 
pathy with  the  motions  of  his  will ;  to  him  also  the 
arts,  the  knowledge,  and  the  literature  of  the  empire 
looked  for  support.  To  him  the  armies  looked  for 
their  laurels,  and  the  eagles  in  every  clime  turned 
their  aspiring  eyes,  waiting  to  bend  their  flight  accord- 
ing to  the  signal  of  his  Jovian  nod.  And  all  these 
vast  functions  and  ministrations  arose  partly  as  a 
natural  efiect,  but  partly  also  they  were  a  cause  of 
the  emperor's  own  divinity.  He  was  capable  of  ser- 
vices so  exalted,  because  he  also  was  held  a  god,  and 
had  his  own  altars,  his  own  incense,  his  own  worship 
and  priests.  And  that  was  the  cause,  and  that  was  the 
result  of  his  bearing,  on  his  own  shoulders,  a  burthen 
so  mighty  and  Atlantean. 

Yet,  if  in  this  view  it  was  needful  to  have  a  man 
of  talent,  on  the  other  hand  there  was  reason  to  dread 
a  man  of  talents  too  adventurous,  too  aspiring,  or 
too  intriguing.  His  situation,  as  Caesar,  or  Crown 
£^rince,  flung  into  his  hands  a  power  of  fomenting 
conspiracies,  and  of  concealing  them  until  the  very 
moment  of  explosion,  which  made  him  an  object  of 
^^Imost  exclusive  terror  to  his  principal,  the  Caesar 


V 


THE  CJESARS. 


143 


Augustus.  His  situation  again,  as  an  heir  voluntarily 
adopted,  made  him  the  proper  object  of  public  affection 
and  caresses,  which  became  peculiarly  embarrassing  to 
one  who  had,  perhaps,  soon  found  reasons  for  suspect 
ing,  fearing,  and  hating  him  beyond  all  other  men. 

The  young  nobleman,  whom  Hadrian  adopted  by 
his  earliest  choice,  was  Lucius  Aurelius  Verus,  the  son 
of  Cejonius  Commodus.  These  names  were  borne 
also  by  the  son  ;  but,  after  his  adoption  into  the  JElian 
family,  he  was  generally  known  by  the  appellation  of 
iElius  Verus.  The  scandal  of  those  times  imputed  his 
adoption  to  the  worst  motives.  '  Adriano,'  says  one 
author,  '  (ut  malevoli  loquuntur)  acceptior  forma  quam 
morihus.'  And  thus  much  undoubtedly  there  is  to 
countenance  so  shocking  an  insinuation,  that  very  little 
is  recorded  of  the  young  prince  but  such  anecdotes  as 
illustrate  his  excessive  luxury  and  effeminate  dedica- 
tion to  pleasure.  Still  it  is  our  private  opinion,  that 
Hadrian's  real  motives  have  been  misrepresented  ;  that 
he  sought  in  the  young  man's  extraordinary  beauty  — 
[for  he  was,  says  Spartian,  pulchritudinis  regice]  —  a 
plausible  pretext  that  should  be  sufficient  to  explain 
and  to  countenance  his  preference,  whilst  under  his 
provisional  adoption  he  was  enabled  to  postpone  the 
definitive  choice  of  an  imperator  elect,  until  his  own 
more  advanced  age  might  diminish  the  motives  for 
intriguing  against  himself.  It  was,  therefore,  a  mere 
ad  interim  adoption ;  for  it  is  certain,  however  we 


144 


THE  C^SAES. 


may  choose  to  explain  that  fact,  that  Hadrian  foresaw 
and  calculated  on  the  early  death  of  ^lius.  This 
prophetic  knowledge  may  have  been  grounded  on  a 
private  familiarity  with  some  constitutional  infirmity 
affecting  his  daily  health,  or  with  some  habits  of  life 
incompatible  with  longevity,  or  with  both  combined. 
It  is  pretended  that  this  distinguished  mark  of  favor 
was  conferred  in  fulfilment  of  a  direct  contract  on  the 
emperor's  part,  as  the  price  of  favors,  such  as  the 
Latin  reader  will  easily  understand  from  the  strong 
expression  of  Spartian  above  cited.  But  it  is  far 
more  probable  that  Hadrian  relied  on  this  admirable 
beauty,  and  allowed  it  so  much  weight,  as  the  readiest 
and  most  intelligible  justification  to  the  multitude,  of  a 
choice  which  thus  offered  to  their  homage  a  public 
favorite  —  and  to  the  nobility,  of  so  invidious  a  prefer- 
ence, which  placed  one  of  their  own  number  far  above 
the  level  of  his  natural  rivals.  The  necessities  of  the 
moment  were  thus  satisfied  without  present  or  future 
danger ;  —  as  respected  the  future,  he  knew  or  believed 
that  Verus  was  marked  out  for  early  death  ;  and  would 
often  say,  in  a  strain  of  compliment  somewhat  dispro- 
portionate, applying  to  him  the  Virgilian  lines  on  the 
hopeful  and  lamented  Marcellus, 

'  Ostendent  terris  hunc  tan  turn  fata,  neque  ultra 
Esse  sinent.' 

And,  at  the  same  time,  to  countenance  the  belief  that 
be  had  been  disappointed,  he  would  affect  to  sigh, 


THE  C.^LSARS. 


145 


exclaiming  —  '  Ah  !  that  I  should  thus  fruitlessly  have 
squandered  a  sum  of  three  millions  sterling  ! '  for  so 
much  had  been  distributed  in  largesses  to  the  people 
and  the  army  on  the  occasion  of  his  inauguration. 
Meantime,  as  respected  the  present,  the  qualities  of  the 
young  man  were  amply  fitted  to  sustain  a  Rom. an  pop- 
ularity ;  for,  in  addition  to  his  extreme  and  statuesque 
beauty  of  person,  he  was  (in  the  report  of  one  who  did 
not  wish  to  color  his  cha.racter  advantageously)  '  memor 
familice  suce,  comptus,  decorus,  oris  veiierandi,  eloquen- 
tlcE  celsioris,  versu  facilis,  in  repuhlicd  etiam  non 
inutilis,^  Even  as  a  military  officer,  he  had  a  respect- 
able character ;  as  an  orator  he  w^as  more  than 
respectable ;  and  in  other  qualifications  less  interesting 
to  the  populace,  he  had  that  happy  mediocrity  of  merit 
which  was  best  fitted  for  his  delicate  and  difiicult 
situation  —  sufficient  to  do  credit  to  the  emperor's 
preference  —  sufficient  to  sustain  the  popular  regard, 
but  not  brilliant  enough  to  throw  his  patron  into  the 
shade.  For  the  rest  his  vices  were  of  a  nature  not 
greatly  or  necessarily  to  interfere  with  his  public 
duties,  and  emphatically  such  as  met  with  the  readiest 
indulgence  from  the  Roman  laxity  of  morals.  Some 
few  instances,  indeed,  are  notice'd  of  cruelty ;  but  there 
is  reason  to  think  that  it  was  merely  by  accident,  and 
as  an  indirect  result  of  other  purposes,  that  he  ever 
allowed  himself  in  such  manifestations  of  irresponsible 
power  —  not  as  gratifying  any  harsh  impulses  of  his 
10 


146 


THB  C^SAKS. 


native  character.  The  most  remarkable  aeglect  of 
humanity  with  which  he  has  been  taxed,  occurred  in 
.  the  treatment  of  his  couriers ;  these  were  the  bearers 
of  news  and  official  dispatches,  at  that  time  fulfilling 
the  functions  of  the  modern  post ;  and  it  must  be 
remembered  that  as  yet  they  were  not  slaves,  (as  after- 
wards by  the  reformation  of  Alexander  Severus,)  but 
free  citizens.  They  had  been  already  dressed  in  a 
particular  livery  or  uniform,  and  possibly  they  might 
wear  some  symbolical  badges  of  their  profession ;  but 
the  new  Caesar  chose  to  dress  them  altogether  in 
character  as  winged  Cupids,  affixing  literal  wings  to 
their  shoulders,  and  facetiously  distinguishing  them 
by  the  names  of  the  four  cardinal  winds,  (Boreas, 
Aquilo,  Notus,  <^c.)  and  others  as  levanters  or  hurri- 
canes, (Circius,  &c.)  Thus  far  he  did  no  more  than 
indulge  a  blameless  fancy ;  but  in  his  anxiety  that  his 
runners  should  emulate  their  patron  winds,  and  do 
credit  to  the  names  which  he  had  assigned  them,  he  is 
said  to  have  exacted  a  degree  of  speed  inconsistent 
with  any  merciful  regard  for  their  bodily  powers. 
But  these  were,  after  all,  perhaps,  mere  improvements 
of  malice  upon  some  solitary  incident.  The  true  stain 
upon  his  memory,  and  one  which  is  open  to  no  doubt 
whatever,  is  excessive  and  extravagant  luxury  —  ex- 
cessive in  degree,  extravagant  and  even  ludicrous  in 
its  forms.  For  example,  he  constructed  a  sort  of  bed 
DT  sofa  —  protected  from  insects  by  an  awning  of  net- 


THE  C^SARS. 


147 


n-'ork  composed  ot  lilies,  delicately  fabricated  into  the 
proper  meshes,  &c.,  and  the  couches  composed  wholly 
rose-leaves ;  and  even  of  these,  not  without  an  ex- 
quisite preparation ;  for  the  white  parts  of  the  leaves, 
as  coarser  and  harsher  to  the  touch,  (possibly,  also,  as 
less  odorous,)  were  scrupulously  rejected*  Here  he 
lay  indolently  stretched  amongst  favorite  ladies, 

*  And  like  a  naked  Indian  slept  himself  away.' 
He  had  also  tables  composed  of  the  same  delicate 
m^aterial  —  prepared  and  purified  in  the  same  elaborate 
way  —  and  to  these  were  adapted  seats  in  the  fashion 
of  sofas  [accuhationes),  corresponding  in  their  mate- 
rials, and  in  their  mode  of  preparation.  He  was  also 
an  expert  performer,  and  even  an  original  inventor,  in 
the  art  of  cookery ;  and  one  dish  of  his  discovery, 
which,  from  its  four  component  parts,  obtained  the 
nam.e  of  tetrapharmacum,  was  so  far  from  owing  its 
celebrity  to  its  royal  birth,  that  it  maintained  its  place 
on  Hadrian's  table  to  the  time  of  his  death.  These, 
however,  were  mere  fopperies  or  pardonable  extrava- 
gances in  one  so  young  and  so  exalted ;  '  quae,  etsi 
non  decora,'  as  the  historian  observes,  '  non  tamen  ad 
perniciem  publicam  prompta  sunt.'  A  graver  mode 
of  licentiousness  appeared  in  his  connections  with 
women.  He  made  no  secret  of  his  lawless  amours  ; 
and  to  his  own  wife,  on  her  expostulating  with  him  on 
Uis  aberrations  in  this  respect,  he  replied  —  that  '  wife ' 
n^as  a  designation  of  rank  and  official  dignity,  not  of 


t48 


THE  C^SARS. 


tenderness  and  affection,  or  implying  any  claim  of  lov^e 
on  either  side  ;  upon  which  distinction  he  begged  that 
she  would  mind  her  own  affairs,  and  leave  him  to  pur- 
sue such  as  he  might  himself  be  involved  ir  by  his 
sensibility  to  female  charms. 

Howevef,  he  and  all  his  errors,  his  '  regal  beauty/ 
his  princely  pomps,  and  his  authorized  hopes,  were 
suddenly  swallowed  up  by  the  inexorable  grave ;  and 
he  would  have  passed  away  like  an  exhalation,  and 
leaving  no  remembrance  of  himself  more  durable  than 
his  own  beds  of  rose-leaves,  and  his  reticulated  cano- 
pies of  lilies,  had  it  not  been  that  Hadrian  filled  the 
world  with  images  of  his  perfect  fawn-like  beauty  in 
the  shape  of  colossal  statues,  and  raised  temples  even 
to  his  memory  in  various  cities.  This  Caesar,  therefore, 
dying  thus  prematurely,  never  tasted  of  empire ;  and 
his  name  would  have  had  but  a  doubtful  title  to  a  place 
in  the  imperatorial  roll,  had  it  not  been  recalled  to  a 
second  chance  for  the  sacred  honors  in  the  person  of  his 
son  —  whom  it  was  the  pleasure  of  Hadrian,  by  way  of 
testifying  his  affection  for  the  father,  to  associate  in  the 
order  of  succession  with  the  philosophic  Marcus  Aure- 
lius  Antoninus.  This  fact,  and  the  certainty  that  to 
♦••he  second  ^lius  Verus  he  gave  his  own  daughter  in 
n\arriage,  rather  than  to  his  associate  Csesar  Marcus 
Aurelius,  make  it  evident  that  his  regret  for  the  elder 
Verus  was  unaffected  and  deep  ;  and  they  overthrow 
effectually  the  common  report  of  historians  —  that  he 


THE  C^SARS. 


149 


repented  of  his  earliest  choice,  as  of  one  that  had  been 
disappointed  not  by  the  decrees  of  fate,  but  by  the 
violent  defect  of  merit  in  its  object.  On  the  contrary, 
he  prefaced  his  inauguration  of  this  junior  Caesar  by 
the  following  tender  words  —  Let  us  confound  the 
rapine  of  the  grave,  and  let  the  empire  possess  amongst 
her  rulers  a  second  ^lius  Verus. 

'  Diis  aliter  visum  est : '  the  blood  of  the  iElian 
family  was  not  privileged  to  ascend  or  aspire :  it  gra- 
vitated violently  to  extinction  ;  and  this  junior  Verus 
is  supposed  to  have  been  as  much  indebted  to  his  as- 
sessor on  the  throne  for  shielding  his  obscure  vices,  and 
drawing  over  his  defects  the  ample  draperies  of  the 
imperatorial  robe,  as  he  was  to  Hadrian,  his  grand- 
father by  fiction  of  law,  for  his  adoption  into  the 
reigning  family,  and  his  consecration  as  one  of  the 
Caesars.  He,  says  one  historian,  shed  no  ray  of  light 
or  illustration  upon  the  imperial  house,  except  by  one 
solitary  quality.  This  bears  a  harsh  sound ;  but  it  has 
the  effect  of  a  sudden  redemption  for  his  memory, 
when  we  learn  —  that  this  solitary  quality,  in  virtue  of 
which  he  claimed  a  natural  affinity  to  the  sacred  house, 
and  challenged  a  natural  interest  in  the  purple,  was  the 
very  princely  one  of  —  a  merciful  disposition. 

The  two  Antonines  fix  an  era  in  the  imperial  history ; 
for  they  were  both  eminent  models  of  wise  and  good 
rulers  ;  and  some  would  say,  that  they  fixed  a  crisis  ; 
hv  with  their  successor  commenced,  in  the  popular 


150 


THE  C^SARS. 


belief,  the  decline  of  the  empire.  That  at  least  is  the 
doctrine  of  Gibbon  ;  but  perhaps  it  would  not  be  found 
altogether  able  to  sustain  itself  against  a  closer  and 
philosophic  examination  of  the  true  elements  involved 
.n  the  idea  of  declension  as  applied  to  political  bodies. 
Be  that  as  it  may,  however,  and  waiving  any  interest 
which  might  happen  to  invest  the  Antonines  as  the  last 
princes  who  kept  up  the  empire  to  its  original  level, 
both  of  them  had  enough  of  merit  to  challenge  a 
separate  notice  in  their  personal  characters,  and  apart 
from  the  accidents  of  their  position. 

The  elder  of  the  two,  who  is  usually  distinguished 
by  the  title  of  Pius,  is  thus  described  by  one  of  his 
biographers  :  — '  He  was  externally  of  remarkable 
beauty  ;  eminent  for  his  moral  character,  full  of  benign 
dispositions,  noble,  with  a  countenance  of  a  most  gentle 
expression,  intellectually  of  singular  endowments,  pos- 
sessing an  elegant  style  of  eloquence,  distinguished  for 
his  literature,  generally  temperate,  an  earnest  lover  of 
agricultural  pursuits,  mild  in  his  deportment,  bountiful 
in  the  use  of  his  own,  but  a  stern  respecter  of  the  rights 
of  others  ;  and,  finally,  he  was  all  this  without  osten- 
tation, and  with  a  constant  regard  to  the  proportions 
of  cases,  and  to  the  demands  of  time  and  place.'  His 
bounty  displayed  itself  in  a  way,  which  may  be  worth 
mentioning,  as  at  once  illustrating  the  age,  and  the 
prudence  with  which  he  controlled  the  most  generous 
of   his  impulses  :  —  '  Fcenus  trientarium,^  ^  says  the 


THE  CiESAHS. 


151 


historian,  '  hoc  est  minimis  usuris  exercuit,  uL  patri- 
monio  suo  plurimos  adjuvaret.^  The  meaning  of 
which  is  this  :  —  In  Rome,  the  customary  interest  for 
money  was  what  was  called  centesimcE  usurce  ;  that  is, 
the  hundredth  part,  or  one  per  cent.  But,  as  this 
expressed  not  the  annual,  but  the  monthly  interest,  the 
true  rate  was,  in  fact,  twelve  per  cent. ;  and  that  is  the 
meaning  of  centesimce  usurce.  Nor  could  money  be 
obtained  anywhere  on  better  terms  than  these  ;  and, 
moreover,  this  one  per  cent,  was  exacted  rigorously  as 
the  monthly  day  came  round,  no  arrears  being  suffered 
to  lie  over.  Under  these  circumstances,  it  was  a  pro- 
digious service  to  lend  money  at  a  diminished  rate,  and 
one  which  furnished  many  men  with  the  means  of 
saving  themselves  from  ruin.  Pius,  then,  by  way  of 
extending  his  aid  as  far  as  possible,  reduced  the 
monthly  rate  of  his  loans  to  one-third  per  cent.,  which 
made  the  annual  interest  the  very  moderate  one  of  four 
per  cent.  The  channels,  which  public  spirit  had  as 
yet  opened  to  the  beneficence  of  the  opulent,  were  few 
indeed  :  charity  and  munificence  languished,  or  they 
weie  abused,  or  they  were  inefiiciently  directed,  simply 
through  defects  in  the  structure  of  society.  Social 
organization,  for  its  large  development,  demanded  the 
agency  of  newspapers,  (together  with  many  other  forms 
of  assistance  from  the  press,)  of  banks,  of  public  car- 
riages on  an  extensive  scale,  besides  infinite  other 
jiventions  or  establishments  not  yet  created  —  which 


152 


THE  C^SARS. 


support  and  powerfully  re-act  upon  that  same  progress 
of  society  which  originally  gave  birth  to  themselves. 
All  things  considered,  in  the  Rome  of  that  day,  where 
all  munificence  confined  itself  to  the  direct  largesses  of 
a  few  leading  necessaries  of  life,  —  a  great  step  was 
taken,  and  the  best  step,  in  this  lending  of  money  at 
a  low  interest,  towards  a  more  refined  and  beneficial 
mode  of  charity. 

In  his  public  character,  he  was  perhaps  the  most 
patriotic  of  Roman  emperors,  and  the  purest  from  all 
taint  of  corrupt  or  indirect  ends.  Peculation,  embez- 
zlement or  misapplication  of  the  public  funds,  were 
universally  corrected  ;  provincial  oppressors  were  ex- 
posed and  defeated :  the  taxes  and  tributes  were  dimin- 
ished ;  and  the  public  expenses  were  thrown  as  much 
as  possible  upon  the  public  estates,  and  in  some  in- 
stances upon  his  own  private  estates.  So  far,  indeed, 
did  Pius  stretch  his  sympathy  with  the  poorer  classes 
of  his  subjects,  that  on  this  account  chiefly  he  resided 
permanently  in  the  capital  —  alleging  in  excuse,  partly 
that  he  thus  stationed  himself  in  the  very  centre  of  his 
mighty  empire,  to  which  all  couriers  could  come  by 
the  shortest  radii,  but  chiefly  that  he  thus  spared  the 
provincialists  those  burdens  which  must  else  have 
alighted  upon  them  ;  '  for,'  said  he,  '  even  the  slen- 
derest retinue  of  a  Roman  emperor  is  burthensome  to 
the  whole  line  of  its  progress.'  His  tenderness  and 
consideration,  indeed,  were  extended  to  all  classes,  and 


THE  C./ESAES. 


153 


all  relations  of  his  subjects  ;  even  to  those  who  stood 
in  the  shadow  of  his  public  displeasure  as  State  delin- 
quents, or  as  the  most  atrocious  criminals.  To  the 
children  of  great  treasury  defaulters,  he  returned  the 
confiscated  estates  of  their  fathers,  deducting  only  what 
might  repair  the  public  loss.  And  so  resolutely  did 
he  refuse  to  shed  the  blood  of  any  in  the  senatorial 
order,  to  whom  he  conceived  himself  more  especially 
bound  in  paternal  ties,  that  even  a  parricide,  whom  the 
laws  would  not  suffer  to  live,  was  simply  exposed  upon 
a  desert  island. 

Little,  indeed,  did  Pius  w^ant  of  being  a  perfect 
Christian,  in  heart  and  in  practice.  Yet  all  this  display 
of  goodness  and  merciful  indulgence,  nay,  all  his 
munificence,  would  have  availed  him  little  with  the 
people  at  large,  had  he  neglected  to  furnish  shows 
and  exhibitions  in  the  arena  of  suitable  magnificence. 
Luckily  for  his  reputation,  he  exceeded  the  general 
standard  of  imperial  splendor  not  less  as  the  patron  of 
the  amphitheatre  than  in  his  more  important  functions. 
It  is  recorded  of  him —  that  in  one  missio  he  sent  for- 
ward on  the  arena  a  hundred  lions.  Nor  was  he  less 
distinguished  by  the  rarity  of  the  wild  animals  which  he 
exhibited  than  by  their  number.  There  were  elephants, 
there  were  crocodiles,  there  were  hippopotami  at  one 
time  upon  the  stage :  there  was  also  the  rhinoceros,  and 
the  still  rarer  crocuta  or  corocotta,  with  a  few  strepsik- 
\    eroies.    Some  of  these  were  matched  in  duel?,  some  in 


154 


THE  C.^:SAES. 


general  battles  ^vith  tigers  ;  in  fact,  there  was  no  species 
of  wild  animal  throughout  the  deserts  and  sandy  Zaarras 
of  Africa,  the  infinite  steppes  of  Asia,  or  the  lawny 
recesses  and  dim  forests  of  then  sylvan  Europe,^^  no 
species  known  to  natural  history,  (and  some  even  of 
which  naturalists  have  lost  sight,)  which  the  Emperor 
Pius  did  not  produce  to  his  Roman  subjects  on  his  cere- 
monious pomps.  And  in- another  point  he  carried  his 
splendors  to  a  point  which  set  the  seal  to  his  liberality. 
In  the  phrase  of  modern  auctioneers,  he  gave  up  the 
wild  beasts  to  slaughter  '  without  reserve.'  It  was  the 
custom,  in  ordinary  cases,  so  far  to  consider  the  enor- 
mous cost  of  these  far-fetched  rarities  as  to  preserve 
for  future  occasions  those  which  escaped  the  arrows  of 
the  populace,  or  survived  the  bloody  combats  in  which 
they  were  engaged.  Thus,  out  of  the  overflowings  of 
one  great  exhibition,  would  be  found  materials  for 
another.  But  Pius  would  not  allow  of  these  reserva- 
tions. All  were  given  up  unreservedly  to  the  savage 
purposes  of  the  spectators;  land  and  sea  were  ran- 
sacked; the  sanctuaries  of  the  torrid  zone  were  vio- 
lated ;  columns  of  the  army  were  put  in  motion  —  and 
all  for  the  transient  effect  of  crowning  an  extra  hour 
with  hecatombs  of  forest  blood,  each  separate  minute 
of  which  had  cost  a  king's  ransom. 

Yet  these  displays  were  alien  to  the  nature  of  Pius ; 
find  even  through  the  tyranny  of  custom,  he  had  been 
so  little  changed,  that  to  the  last  he  continued  to  turn 


THE  CAESARS. 


155 


aside,  as  often  as  the  public  ritual  of  his  duty  allowed 
him,  from  these  fierce  spectacles  to  the  gentler  amuse- 
ments of  fishing  and  hunting.  His  taste  and  his  affec- 
tions naturally  carried  him  to  all  domestic  pleasures 
of  a  quiet  nature.  A  walk  in  a  shrubbery  or  along  a 
piazza,  enlivened  with  the  conversation  of  a  friend  or 
two,  pleased  him  better  than  all  the  court  festivals ; 
and  among  festivals  or  anniversary  celebrations,  he 
preferred  those  which,  like  the  harvest-home  or  feast 
of  the  vintagers,  whilst  they  sanctioned  a  total  care- 
lessness and  dismissal  of  public  anxieties,  were  at  the 
same  time  colored  by  the  innocent  gayety  which  be- 
longs to  rural  and  to  primitive  manners.  In  person, 
this  emperor  was  tall  and  dignified  {staturd  elevatd 
decorus) ;  but  latterly  he  stooped ;  to  remedy  which 
defect,  that  he*  might  discharge  his  public  part  with 
the  more  decorum,  he  wore  stays .^^  Of  his  other  per- 
sonal habits  little  is  recorded,  except  that,  early  in  the 
morning  and  just  before  receiving  the  compliments  of 
his  friends  and  dependents  (salutatores)^  or  what  in 
modern  phrase  would  be  called  his  levee,  he  took  a 
little  plain  bread  [panem  siccum  comedit),  that  is, 
bread  without  condiments  or  accompaniments  of  any 
kind,  by  way  of  breakfast.  In  no  meal  has  luxury 
advanced  more  upon  the  model  of  the  ancients  than 
in  this;  the  dinners  {cmnce)  of  the  Romans^ were  even 
\nore  luxurious,  and  a  thousand  times  more  costly, 
than  our  own ;  but  their  breakfasts  were  scandalously 


156 


THE 


meagre  J  and,  with  many  men,  breakfast  was  no  pro- 
fessed meal  at  all.  Galen  tells  us  that  a  little  bread, 
and  at  most  a  little  seasoning  of  oil,  honey,  or  diied 
fruits,  w'as  the  utmost  breakfast  which  men  generally 
allowed  themselves  :  some  indeed  drank  wine  after  it, 
but  this  was  far  from  being  a  common  practice.^^ 

The  Emperor  Pius  died  in  his  seventieth  year.  The 
immediate  occasion  of  his  death  was  —  not  breakfast 
nor  c(2na^  but  something  of  the  kind.  He  had  received 
a  present  of  Alpine  cheese,  and  he  ordered  some  for 
supper.  The  trap  for  his  life  w^as  baited  with  toasted 
cheese.  There  is  no  reason  to  think  that  he  ate  im- 
moderately ;  but  that  night  he  was  seized  with  indiges- 
tion. Delirium  followed ;  during  which  it  is  singular 
that  his  mind  teemed  with  a  class  of  imagery  and  of  pas- 
sions  the  most  remote  (as  it  might  have  been  thought) 
from  the  voluntary  occupations  of  his  thoughts.  He 
raved  about  the  State,  and  about  those  kings  with 
whom  he  was  displeased;  nor  were  his  thoughts  one 
moment  removed  from  the  public  service.  Yet  he  was 
the  least  ambitious  of  princes,  and  his  reign  was  em- 
phatically said  to  be  bloodless.  Finding  his  fever 
increase,  he  became  sensible  that  he  was  dying ;  and  ho 
ordered  the  golden  statue  of  Prosperity,  a  household 
symbol  of  empire,  to  be  transferred  from  his  own  bed- 
room to  that  of  his  successor.  Once  again,  how^ever, 
for  the  last  time,  he  gave  the  word  to  the  officer  of  the 
guard;  and,  soon  after,  turning  away  his  face  to  the 


THE  C^SARS. 


157 


wall  against  which  his  bed  was  placed,  he  passed  oul 
of  life  in  the  very  gentlest  sleep,  '  quasi  doriniret^ 
$piritum  xeddidit ; '  or,  as  a  Greek  author  expresses  it, 
Kar  Icrov  V7rv(^  rw  /xaA-aKcoraTO).  He  was  one  of  those  few 
Roman  Emperors  whom  posterity  truly  honored  with 
the  title  of  avaifiaKTo^  (or  bloodless)  ;  solusque  omnium 
•prope  p?'i7icipum  prorsus  sine  civili  sanguine  et  hostili 
vixit.  In  the  whole  tenor  of  his  life  and  character  he 
was  thought  to  resemble  Numa.  And  Pausanias,  after 
remarking  on  his  title  of  Ev(Te/3rj<^  (or  Pius),  upon  the 
meaning  and  origin  of  which  there  are  several  different 
hypotheses,  closes  with  this  memorable  tribute  to  his  pa- 
ternal qualities  —  So^rj  8e  i/mr),  Koi  TO  ovofxa  to  tov  Kvpov 
cfi€poiTO  av  TOV  Trpeo-jSvrepoVy  TlaTr]p  avOpijJwwv  KaXovfievos 
hut,  in  my  opinion,  lie  should,  also  hear  the  name  of  Gyrus 
the  elder  —  heing  hailed  as  Father  of  the  Human  Race, 
A  thoughtful  Roman  would  have  been  apt  to  ex- 
claim, This  is  too  good  to  last,  upon  finding  so 
admirable  a  ruler  succeeded  by  one  still  more  admira- 
ble in  the  person  of  Marcus  Aurelius.  From  the  first 
dawn  of  his  infancy,  this  prince  indicated,  by  his  grave 
deportment,  the  philosophic  character  of  his  mind  ;  and 
at  eleven  years  of  age  he  professed  himself  a  formal 
devotee  of  philosophy  in  its  strictest  form,  —  assuming 
the  garb,  and  submitting  to  its  most  ascetic  ordinances* 
In  particular,  he  slept  upon  the  ground,  and  in  other 
respects  he  practised  a  style  of  living  the  most  simple 
vnd  remote  from  the  habits  of  rich  men  [or,  in  hia 


158 


THE  CiESARS. 


own  words,  t6  kiror  y.ura  t[v  dlairavj  xoct  n:o^(no  Tt^g  tt'Aovol- 

uySjg  aywy/;?]  ;  thoiigli  it  is  true  that  lie  himself  ascribes 
this  simplicity  of  life  to  the  influence  of  hi^  mother 
and  not  to  the  premature  assumption  of  the  stoical 
character.  He  pushed  his  austerities  indeed  to  excess  ; 
for  Dio  mentions  that  in  his  boyish  days  he  was  re- 
duced to  great  weakness  by  exercises  too  severe,  and  a 
diet  of  too  little  nutriment.  In  fact,  his  whole  heart 
was  set  upon  philosophic  attainments,  and  perhaps  upon 
philosophic  glory.  All  the  great  philosophers  of  his 
own  time,  whether  Stoic  or  Peripatetic,  and  amongst 
them  Sextus  of  Cheronsea,  a  nephew  of  Plutarch,  were 
retained  as  his  instructors.  There  was  none  whom  he 
did  not  enrich  ;  and  as  many  as  were  fitted  by  birth 
and  manners  to  fill  important  situations,  he  raised  to 
the  highest  ofifices  in  the  State.^^  Philosophy,  however, 
did  not  so  much  absorb  his  aflections,  but  that  he  found 
time  to  cultivate  the  fine  arts  (painting  he  both  studied 
and  practised),  and  such  gymnastic  exercises  as  he 
held  consistent  with  his  public  dignity.  Wrestling, 
hunting,  fowling,  playing  at  cricket  {pila),  he  admired 
and  patronized  by  personal  participation.  He  tried  his 
powers  even  as  a  runner.  But  with  these  tasks,  and 
entering  so  critically,  both  as  a  connoisseur  and  as  a 
practising  amateur,  into  such  trials  of  skill,  so  little  did 
ne  relish  the  very  same  spectacles  when  connected 
with  the  cruel  exhibitions  of  the  circus  and  amphithe- 
atre, that  it  was  not  without  some  friendly  violence  on 


THE  C^SARS. 


159 


the  part  of  those  who  could  venture  on  such  a  liberty, 
nor  even  thus,  perhaps,  without  the  necessities  of  hia 
official  station,  that  he  would  be  persuaded  to  visit  eithei 
one  or  the  other.^^  In  this  he  meditated  no  reflection 
upon  his  father  by  adoption,  the  Emperor  Pius  (who 
also,  for  aught  we  know,  might  secretly  revolt  from  a 
species  of  amusement  which,  as  the  prescriptive  test  of 
munificence  in  the  popular  estimate,  it  was  necessary 
to  support)  ;  on  the  contrary,  he  obeyed  him  with 
the  punctiliousness  of  a  Roman  obedience  ;  he  watched 
the  very  motions  of  his  countenance  ;  and  he  waited  so 
continually  upon  his  pleasure,  that  for  three-and-twenty 
years  w^hich  they  lived  together,  he  is  recorded  to  have 
slept  out  of  his  father's  palace  only  for  two  nights. 
This  rigor  of  filial  duty  illustrates  a  feature  of  Roman 
life  ;  for  such  was  the  sanctity  of  law,  that  a  father 
created  by  legal  fiction  was  in  all  respects  treated  with 
the  same  veneration  and  affection,  as  a  father  who 
claimed  upon  the  most  unquestioned  footing  of  natural 
right.  Such,  however,  is  the  universal  baseness  of 
courts,  that  even  this  scrupulous  and  minute  attention 
to  his  duties,  did  not  protect  Marcus  from  the  injurious 
insinuations  of  whisperers.  There  were  not  wanting 
persons  who  endeavored  to  turn  to'  account  the  general 
circumstances  in  the  situation  of  the  Csesar,  which 
pointed  him  out  to  the  jealousy  of  the  emperor.  Rut 
these  being  no  more  than  what  adhere  necessarily  to 
the  case  of  every  heir  as  such,  and  meeting  fortunatelj 


160 


THE  CiESARS„ 


with  no  more  proneness  to  suspicion  in  the  temper  of 
the  Augustus  than  they  did  with  countenance  in  the 
conduct  of  the  Caesar,  made  so  little  impression,  that  at 
length  these  malicious  efforts  died  away,  from  mero 
defect  of  encouragement. 

The  most  interesting  political  crisis  in  the  reign  of 
Marcus  was  the  war  in  Germany  with  the  Marcomanni, 
concurrently  with  pestilence  in  Rome.  The  agitation 
of  the  public  mind  was  intense  ;  and  prophets  arose,  as 
since  under  corresponding  circumstances  in  Christian 
countries,  who  announced  the  approaching  dissolution 
of  the  world.  The  purse  of  Marcus  was  open,  as  usual, 
to  the  distresses  of  his  subjects.  But  it  was  chiefly  for 
the  expense  of  funerals  that  his  aid  was  claimed.  In 
this  way  he  alleviated  the  domestic  calamities  of  hia 
capital,  or  expressed  his  sympathy  with  the  sufferers, 
where  alleviation  was  beyond  his  power  ;  whilst,  by  the 
energy  of  his  movements  and  his  personal  presence  on 
the  Danube,  he  soon  dissipated  those  anxieties  of  Home 
which  pointed  in  a  foreign  direction.  The  war,  how- 
ever, had  been  a  dreadful  one,  and  had  excited  such 
just  fears  in  the  most  experienced  heads  of  the  State, 
that,  happening  in  its  outbreak  to  coincide  with  a  Par- 
thian war,  it  was  skilfully  protracted  until  the  entire 
thunders  of  Rome,  and  the  undivided  energies  of  her 
supreme  captains,  could  be  concentrated  upon  this 
lingle  point.  Both^^  emperors  left  Rome,  and  crossed 
the  Alps ;  the  war  was  thrown  back  upon  its  native 


THE  C^SAHS. 


161 


seats  —  Austria  and  the  modern  Hungary :  great 
battles  were  fought  and  won  ;  and  peace,  with  conse- 
quent relief  and  restoration  to  liberty*,  was  reconquered 
for  many  friendly  nations,  who  had  suffered  under  the 
ravages  of  the  Marcomanni,  the  Sarmatians,  the  Quadi, 
and  the  Vandals ;  whilst  some  of  the  hostile  people 
were  nearly  obliterated  from  the  map,  and  their  names 
blotted  out  from  the  memory  of  men. 

Since  the  days  of  Gaul  as  an  independent  power,  no 
war  had  so  much  alarmed  the  people  of  Rome ;  and 
their  fear  was  justified  by  the  difficulties  and  prodigious 
efforts  which  accompanied  its  suppression.  The  public 
treasury  was  exhausted ;  loans  were  an  engine  of  fiscal 
policy,  not  then  understood  or  perhaps  practicable  ;  and 
great  distress  was  at  hand  for  the  St^te.  In  these 
circumstances,  Marcus  adopted  a  wise  (though  it  was 
then  esteemed  a  violent  or  desperate)  remedy.  Time 
and  excessive  luxury  had  accumulated  in  the  imperial 
palaces  and  villas  vast  repositories  of  apparel,  furniture, 
jewels,  pictures,  and  household  utensils,  valuable  alike 
for  the  materials  and  the  workmanship.  Many  of  these 
articles  were  consecrated,  by  color^^  or  otherwise,  to  the 
use  of  the  sacred  household ;  and  to  have  been  found 
in  possession  of  them,  or  with  the  materials  for  making 
them,  would  have  entailed  the  penalties  of  treason. 
All  these  stores  were  now  brought  out  to  open  day,  and 
put  up  to  public  sale  by  auction,  free  license  being  first 
granted  to  the  bidders,  whoever  they  might  be,  to  use, 

i 


162 


THE  C^SARS. 


or  otherwise  to  exercise  the  fullest  rights  of  property 
upon  all  they  bought.  The  auction  lasted  for  two 
months.  Every  man  was  guaranteed  in  the  peaceable 
ownership  of  his  purchases.  And  afterwards,  when 
the  public  distress  had  passed  over,  a  still  further  in- 
dulgence was  extended  to  the  purchasers.  Notice  was 
given  —  that  all  who  were  dissatisfied  with  their  pur- 
chases, or  who  for  other  means  might  wish  to  recover 
their  cost,  would  receive  back  the  purchase  money, 
upon  returning  the  articles.  Dinner  services  of  gold 
and  crystal,  murrhine  vases,'^^' and  even  his  wife's  ward- 
robe of  silken  robes  interwoven  with  gold,  all  these, 
and  countless  other  articles,  were  accordingly  returned, 
and  the  full  auction  prices  j)aid  back ;  or  were  ?iol 
returned,  and  no  displeasure  shovvn  to  those  who  pub- 
licly displayed  them  as  their  own.  Having  gone  so 
far,  overruled  by  the  necessities  of  the  public  service, 
in  breaking  down  those  legal  barriers  by  which  a  pecu- 
liar dress,  furniture,  equipage,  &c.,  were  appropriated 
to  the  imperial  house,  as  distinguished  from  the  very 
highest  of  the  noble  houses,  Marcus  had  a  sufficient 
pretext  for  extending  indefinitely  the  effect  of  the 
dispensation  then  granted.  Articles  purchased  at  the 
auction  bore  no  characteristic  marks  to  distinguish 
them  from  others  of  the  same  form  and  texture  :  so 
that  a  license  to  use  any  one  article  of  the  sacred 
pattern,  became  necessarily  a  general  license  for  all 
others  which  resembled  them.     And  thus,  without 


THE  CiESARS. 


163 


nbrog^iting  the  prejudices  which  protected  the  imperial 
precedency,  a  body  of  sumptuary  laws  —  the  most 
ruinous  to  the  progress  of  manufacturing  skill,  '  w^hich 
has  ever  been  devised  —  were  silently  suspended.  One 
or  two  aspiring  families  might  be  offended  by  these 
innovations,  which  meantime  gave  the  pleasures  of 
enjoyment  to  thousands,  and  of  hope  to  millions. 

But  these,  though  very  noticeable  relaxations  of  the 
existing  prerogative,  were,  as  respected  the  temper 
which  dictated  them,  no  more  than  every- day  manifes- 
tations of  the  emperor's  perpetual  benignity.  Fortu- 
nately for  Marcus,  the  indestructible  privilege  of  the 
divina  domus  exalted  it  so  unapproachably  beyond  all 
competition,  that  no  possible  remissions  of  aulic  rigor 
could  ever  be  misinterpreted ;  fear  there  could  be 
none,  lest  such  paternal  indulgences  should  lose  their 
effect  and  acceptation  as  pure  condescensions.  They 
could  neither  injure  their  author,  who  was  otherwise 
charmed  and  consecrated,  from  disrespect ;  nor  could 
they  suffer  injury  themselves  by  misconstruction,  or 
seem  other  than  sincere,  coming  from  a  prince  whose 
entire  life  was  one  long  series  of  acts  expressing  the 
same  affable  spirit.  Such,  indeed,  was  the  effect  of 
this  uninterrupted  benevolence  in  the  emperor,  that  at 
length  all  men,  according  to  their  several  ages,  hailed 
him  as  their  father,  son,  or  brother.  And  when  he 
died,  in  the  sixty-first  year  of  his  life  (the  18th  of  his 
reign),  he  wa?  laniant'id  with  a  corresponding  pe^ 


164 


THE  C^SARS. 


culiarity  in  tlie  public  ceremonial,  such,  for  instance, 
us  the  studied  interfusion  of  the  senatorial  body  with 
the  populace,  expressive  of  the  levelling  power  of  a 
true  and  comprehensive  grief ;  a  peculiarity  for  which 
no  precedent  was  found,  and  which  never  afterwards 
became  a  precedent  for  similar  honors  to  the  best  of 
his  successors. 

But  malice  has  the  divine  privilege  of  ubiquity ; 
and  therefore  it  was  that  even  this  great  model  of 
private  and  public  virtue  did  not  escape  the  foulest 
libels  :  he  was  twice  accused  of  murder ;  once  on  the 
person  of  a  gladiator,  with  whom  the  empress  is  said 
to  have  fallen  in  love  ;  and  again,  upon  his  associate 
in  the  empire,  who  died  in  reality  of  an  apopletic 
seizure,  on  his  return  from  the  German  campaign. 
Neither  of  these  atrocious  fictions  ever  gained  the 
least  hold  of  the  public  attention,  so  entirely  were 
they  put  down  by  the  "prima  facie  evidence  of  facts, 
and  of  the  emperor's  notorious  character.  In  fact  his 
faults,  if  he  had  any  in  his  public  life,  were  entirely 
those  of  too  much  indulgence.  In  a  few  cases  of 
enormous  guilt,  it  is  recorded  that  he  showed  himself 
inexorable.  But,  generally  speaking,  he  was  far 
otherwise  ;  and,  in  particular,  he  carried  his  indul- 
gence to  his  wife's  vices  to  an  access  which  drew  upon 
him  the  satirical  notice  of  the  stage. 

The  gladiators,  and  still  more  the  sailors  of  that  age, 
were  constantly  to  be  seen  plying  naked,  and  Faustina 


THE  C^SAHS.  165 

was  shameless  enough  to  take  her  station  in  places 
which  gave  her  the  advantages  of  a  leisurely  review ; 
and  she  actually  selected  favorites  from  both  classes 
on  the  ground  of  a  personal  inspection.  With  others 
of  greater  rank  she  is  said  even  to  have  been  surprised 
by  her  husband ;  in  particular  with  one  called  Tertul- 
lus,  at  dinner .^^  But  to  all  remonstrances  on  this  sub- 
ject, Marcus  is  reported  to  have  replied,  '  Si  uxorem 
dimittimus ,  reddamus  et  dotem  ; '  meaning  that,  having 
received  his  right  of  succession  to  the  empire  simply 
by  his  adoption  into  the  family  of  Pius,  his  wife's 
father,  gratitude  and  filial  duty  obliged  him  to  view  any 
dishonors  emanating  from  his  wife's  conduct  as  joint 
legacies  with  the  splendors  inherited  from  their  com- 
mon father  ;  in  short,  that  he  was  not  at  liberty  to 
separate  the  rose  from  its  thorns.  However,  the  facta 
are  not  sufficiently  known  to  warrant  us  in  criticizing 
very  severely  his  behavior  on  so  trying  an  occasion. 
It  would  be  too  much  for  human  frailty,  that  absolutely 
no  stain  should  remain  upon  his  memory.  Possibly 
the  best  use  which  can  be  made  of  such  a  fact  is,  in 
the  way  of  consolation  to  any  unhappy  man,  whom  his 
wife  may  too  liberally  have  endowed  with  honors  of 
this  kind,  by  reminding  him  that  he  shares  this  dis- 
tinction with  the  great  philosophic  emperor.  The  re- 
flection upon  this  story  by  one  of  his  biographers  is 
this  —  '  Such  is  the  force  of  daily  life  in  a  good  ruler, 
^o  great  the  power  of  his  sanctity,  gentleness,  and 


166  THE  C^SARS. 

piety,  that  no  breath  of  slander  or  invidious  suggestion 
from  an  acquaintance  can  avail  to  sully  his  memory. 
In  short,  to  Antonine,  immutable  as  the  heavens  in 
the  tenor  of  his  own  life,  and  in  the  manifestations  of 
his  own  moral  temper,  and  who  was  not  by  possibility 
liable  to  any  impulse  or  "  shadow  of  turning  "  from 
another  man's  suggestion,  it  was  not  eventually  an 
injury  that  he  was  dishonored  by  some  of  his  connec- 
tions ;  on  him,  invulnerable  in  his  own  character, 
neither  a  harlot  for  his  wife,  nor  a  gladiator  for  his 
son,  could  inflict  a  wound.  Then  as  now,  oh  sacred 
lord  Dioclesian,  he  was  reputed  a  God  ;  not  as  others 
are  reputed,  but  specially  and  in  a  peculiar  sense,  and 
with  a  privilege  to  such  worship  from  all  men  as  you 
yourself  addressed  to  him  —  who  often  breathe  a  wish 
to  Heaven,  that  you  were  or  could  be  such  in  life  and 
merciful  disposition  as  was  Marcus  Aurelius.' 

What  this  encomiast  says  in  a  rhetorical  tone  was 
literally  true.  Marcus  w^as  raised  to  divine  honors,  or 
canonized  (as  in  Christian  phrase  we  might  express 
it).  That  was  a  matter  of  course  ;  and,  considering 
with  whom  he  shared  such  honors,  they  are  of  little 
account  in  expressing  the  grief  and  veneration  which 
followed  him.  A  circumstance  more  characteristic, 
in  the  record  of  those  observances  which  attested  the 
public  feeling,  is  this  —  that  he  who  at  that  time  had 
ao  bust,  picture,  or  statue  of  Marcus  in  his  house,  was 
looked  upon  as  a  profane  and  irreligious  man.  Finally 


THE  CJESARS. 


167 


to  do  him  honor  not  by  testimonies  of  men's  opinions 
in  his  favor,  but  by  facts  of  his  own  life  and  conduct, 
one  memorable  trophy  there  is  amongst  the  moral  dis- 
tinctions of  the  philosophic  Caesar,  utterly  unnoticed 
hitherto  by  historians,  but  which  will  hereafter  obtain 
a  conspicuous  place  in  any  perfect  record  of  the  steps 
by  which  civilization  has  advanced,  and  human  nature 
has  been  exalted.  It  is  this  :  Marcus  Aurelius  was  the 
first  great  military  leader  (and  his  civil  office  as  su- 
preme interpreter  and  creator  of  law  consecrated  his 
example)  who  allowed  rights  indefeasible  —  rights  un- 
cancelled by  his  misfortune  in  the  field,  to  the  prisoner 
of  war.  Others  had  been  merciful  and  variously  indul- 
gent, upon  their  own  discretion,  and  u23on  a  random 
impulse  to  some,  or  possibly  to  all  of  their  prisoners ; 
but  this  was  either  in  submission  to  the  usage  of  that 
particular  war,  or  to  special  self-interest,  or  at  most  to 
individual  good  feeling.  None  had  allowed  a  prisoner 
to  challenge  any  forbearance  as  of  right.  But  Marcus 
Aurelius  first  resolutely  maintained  that  certain  inde- 
structible rights  adhered  to  every  soldier,  simply  as  a 
man,  which  rights,  capture  by  the  sword,  or  any  other 
accident  of  war,  could  do  nothing  to  shake  or  dimin- 
ish. We  have  noticed  ottier  instances  in  which  Marcus 
Aurelius  labored,  at  the  risk  of  his  popularity,  to  ele- 
vate t]ie  condition  of  human  nature.  But  those, 
though  equally  expressing  the  goodness  and  loftiness 
'^f  his  nature,  were  by  accident  directed  to  a  perishable 


168 


THE  C^SAHS. 


institution,  which  time  has  swept  away,  and  along  with 
it  therefore  his  reformations.  Here,  however,  is  an 
immortal  act  of  goodness  built  upon  an  immortal  basis ; 
for  so  long  as  armies  congregate,  and  the  sword  is  the 
arbiter  of  international  quarrels,  so  long  it  will  deserve 
to  be  had  in  remembrance,  that  the  first  man  who  set 
limits  to  the  empire  of  wrong,  and  first  translated 
within  the  jurisdiction  of  man's  moral  nature  that 
state  of  war  which  had  heretofore  been  consigned,  by 
principle  no  less  than  by  practice,  to  anarchy,  animal 
violence,  and  brute  force,  was  also  the  first  philosopher 
who  sat  upon  a  throne. 

In  this,  as  in  his  universal  spirit  of  forgiveness,  we 
cannot  but  acknowledge  a  Christian  by  anticipation ; 
nor  can  we  hesitate  to  believe,  that  through  one  or 
other  of  his  many  philosophic  friends,^^  whose  attention 
Christianity  was  by  that  time  powerful  to  attract,  some 
reflex  images  of  Christian  doctrines  —  some  half-con- 
scious perception  of  its  perfect  beauty  —  had  flashed 
upon  his  mind.  And  when  we  view  him  from  this 
distant  age,  as  heading  that  shining  array,  the  How- 
ards and  the  Wilberforces,  who  have  since  then  in  a 
practical  sense  hearkened  to  the  sighs  of  '  all  prisoners 
and  captives '  —  we  are  ready  to  suppose  him  addressed 
by  the  great  Founder  of  Christianity,  in  the  words  of 
Scripture,  '  Verily^  I  say  unto  thee,  Thou  art  not  fat 
from  the  kingdom  of  heaven.'' 

As  a  supplement  to  the  reign  of  Marcus  AureliUs. 


THE  C^SARS. 


169 


we  ought  to  notice  the  rise  of  one  great  rebel,  the  sole 
civil  disturber  of  his  time,  in  Syria.  This  was  Avidius 
Cassius,  whose  descent  from  Cassius  (the  noted  con- 
spirator against  the  great  Dictator,  Julius)  seems  to 
have  suggested  to  him  a  wandering  idea,  and  at  length 
a  formal  purpose  of  restoring  the  ancient  republic. 
Avidius  was  the  commander-in-chief  of  the  Oriental 
army,  whose  head- quarters  were  then  fixed  at  Antioch. 
His  native  disposition,  which  inclined  him  to  cruelty, 
and  his  political  views,  made  him,  from  his  first 
entrance  upon  office,  a  severe  disciplinarian.  The  well 
known  enormities  of  the  neighboring  Daphne  gave 
nim  ample  opportunities  for  the  exercise  of  his  harsh 
propensities  in  reforming  the  dissolute  soldiery.  He 
amputated  heads,  arms,  feet,  and  hams :  he  turned  out 
his  mutilated  victims,  as  walking  spectacles  of  warn- 
ing ;  he  burned  them ;  he  smoked  them  to  death ;  and, 
in  one  instance,  he  crucified  a  detachment  of  his  army, 
together  with  their  centurions,  for  having,  unauthor- 
ized, gained  a  splendid  victory,  and  captured  a  large 
booty  on  the  Danube.  Upon  this  the  soldiers  mutinied 
against  him,  in  mere  indignation  at  his  tyranny. 
However,  he  prosecuted  his  purpose,  and  prevailed,  by 
his  bold  contempt  of  the  danger  which  menaced  him. 
From  the  abuses  in  the  army,  he  proceeded  to  attack 
the  abuses  of  the  civil  administration.  But  as  these 
were  protected  by  the  example  of  the  great  procon- 
sular lieutenants   and    provincial    governors,  policy 


170 


THE  C^SARS, 


obliged  him  to  confine  himself  to  verbal  expressions  of 
anger  ;  until  at  length  sensible  that  this  impotent  rail- 
ing did  but  expose  him  to  contempt,  he  resolved  to  arm 
himself  with  the  powers  of  radical  reform,  by  open 
rebellion.  His  ultimate  purpose  was  the  restoration  of 
the  ancient  republic,  or,  (as  he  himself  expresses  it  in 
an  interesting  letter  which  yet  survives,)  'ut  in  anti- 
qiium  siatum  puhJica  forma  reddatur;^  i,  e.  that  the 
constitution  should  be  restored  to  its  original  condition. 
And  this  must  be  efiected  by  military  violence  and  the 
aid  of  the  executioner  —  or,  in  his  own  words,  multis 
gladiis,  multis  elogiis,^^  (by  innumerable  sabres,  by 
innumerable  records  of  condemnation.)  Against  this 
man  Marcus  was  warned  by  his  imperial  colleague 
Lucius  Verus,  in  a  very  remarkable  letter.  After 
expressing  his  suspicions  of  him  generally,  the  writer 
goes  on  to  say  — '  I  would  you  had  him  closely 
watched.  For  he  is  a  general  disliker  of  us  and  of  our 
doings;  he  is  gathering  together  an  enormous  treasure, 
and  he  makes  an  open  jest  of  our  literary  pursuits. 
You,  for  instance, -he  calls  a  philosophizing  old  woman, 
and  me  a  dissolute  buffoon  and  scamp.  Consider  what 
you  would  have  done.  For  my  part,  I  bear  the  fellow 
no  ill  will ;  but  again  I  say,  take  care  that  he  does  not 
do  a  mischief  to  yourself,  or  your  children.' 
•  The  answer  of  Marcus  is  noble  and  characteristic; 
*I  have  read  your  letter,  and  I  will  confess  to  you  1 
think  it  more  scrupulously  timid  than  becomes  aD 


THE  C^SAUS. 


171 


emperor,  and  timid  in  a  way  unsuited  to  the  spirit  ol 
our  times.  Consider  this  —  if  the  empire  is  destined 
to  Cassius  by  the  decrees  of  Providence,  in  that  case  it 
will  not  be  in  our  power  to  put  him  to  death,  however 
much  we  may  desire  to  do  so.  You  know  your  great- 
grandfather's saying,  —  No  prince  ever  killed  his  own 
heir  —  no  man,  that  is,  ever  yet  prevailed  against  one 
whom  Providence  had  marked  out  as  his  successor. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  providence  opposes  him,  then, 
without  any  cruelty  on  our  part,  he  will  spontaneously 
fall  into  some  snare  spread  for  him  by  destiny.  Be- 
sides, we  cannot  treat  a  man  as  under  impeachment 
whom  nobody  impeaches,  and  whom,  by  your  own 
confession,  the  soldiers  love.  Then  again,  in  cases  of 
high  treason,  even  those  criminals  who  are  convicted 
upon  the  clearest  evidence,  yet,  as  friendless  and 
deserted  persons  contending  against  the  powerful,  and 
matched  against  those  who  are  armed  with  the  whole 
authority  of  the  State,  seems  to  suffer  some  wrong. 
You  remember  what  your  grandfather  said  :  Wretched, 
indeed,  is  the  fate  of  princes,  who  then  first  ob4;ain 
credit  in  any  charges  of  conspiracy  which  they  allege  — 
when  they  happen  to  seal  the  validity  of  their  charges 
against  the  plotters,  by  falling  martyrs  to  the  plot. 
Domitian  it  was,  in  fact,  who  first  uttered  this  truth ; 
but  I  choose  rather  to  place  it  under  the  authority  of 
Hadrian,  because  the  sayings  of  tyrants,  even  when 
they  are  true  and  happy,  carry  less  weight  with  them 


THE  U^SARS: 


than  naturally  they  ought.  For  Cassius,  then,  let  him 
keep  his  present  temper  and  inclinations ;  and  the  more 
BO  —  being  (as  he  is)  a  good  General  —  austere  in  his 
discipline,  brave,  and  one  whom  the  State  cannot  afford 
to  lose.  For  as  to  what  you  insinuate  —  that  I  ought 
to  provide  for  my  children's  interests,  by  putting  this 
man  judicially  out  of  the  way,  very  frankly  I  say  to 
you  —  Perish  my  children,  if  Avidius  shall  deserve 
more  attachment  than  they,  and  if  it  shall  prove  salu- 
tary to  the  State  that  Cassius  should  live  rather  than 
the  children  of  Marcus.' 

This  letter  afibrds  a  singular  illustration  of  fatalism, 
such  certainly  as  we  might  expect  in  a  Stoic,  but  car- 
ried even  to  a  Turkish  excess ;  and  not  theoretically 
professed  only,  but  practically  acted  upon  in  a  case  of 
capital  hazard.  That  no  prmce  ever  killed  his  own 
successor,  i.  e.  that  it  was  in  vain  for  a  prince  to  put 
conspirators  to  death,  because,  by  the  very  possibility 
of  doing  so,  a  demonstration  is  obtained  that  such 
conspirators  had  never  been  destined  to  prosper,  is  as 
condensed  and  striking  an  expression  of  fatalism  as 
tver  has  been  devised.  The  rest  of  the  letter  is  truly 
noble,  and  breathes  the  very  soul  of  careless  magna- 
nimity reposing  upon  conscious  innocence.  Meantime 
Cassius  increased  in  power  and  influence  :  his  army 
had  become  a  most  formidable  engine  of  his  ambition 
through  its  restored  discipline  ;  and  his  own  authority 
was  sevenfold  greater,  because  he  had  himself  created 


THE  CAESARS. 


173 


fcliat  discipline  in  the  face  of  unequalled  temptations 
hourly  renewed  and  rooted  in  the  very  centre  of  his 
head- quarters.  '  Daphne,  by  Orontes,'  a  suburb  ol 
Antioch,  was  infamous  for  its  seductions  ;  and  Daphnic 
luxury  had  become  proverbial  for  expressing  an  excess 
of  voluptuousness,  such  as  other  places  could  not  rival 
by  mere  defect  of  means,  and  preparations  elaborate 
enough  to  sustain  it  in  all  its  varieties  of  mode,  or  to 
conceal  it  from  public  notice.  In  the  very  purlieus 
of  this  great  nest,  or  sty  of  sensuality,  within  sight  and 
touch  of  its  pollutions,  did  he  keep  his  army  fiercely 
reined  up,  daring  and  defying  them,  as  it  were,  to  taste 
of  the  banquet  whose  very  odor  they  inhaled. 

Thus  provided  with  the  means,  and  improved  instru- 
ments, for  executing  his  purposes,  he  broke  out  into 
open  rebellion  ;  and,  though  hostile  to  the  principatus, 
or  personal  supremacy  of  one  man,  he  did  not  feel  his 
republican  purism  at  all  wounded  by  the  style  and  title 
of  Imperator,  —  that  being  a  military  term,  and  a  mere 
titular  honor,  which  had  co- existed  with  the  severest 
forms  of  republicanism.  Lnperafor,  then,  he  was 
saluted  and  proclaimed  ;  and  doubtless  the  writer  of 
the  warning  letter  from  Syria  would  now  declare  that 
the  sequel  had  justified  the  fears  which  Marcus  had 
thought  so  unbecoming  to  a  Roman  emperor.  But 
.igain  Marcus  would  have  said,  '  Let  us  wait  for  the 
«equel  of  the  sequel,'  and  that  would  have  justified 
him.    It  is  often  found  by  experience  that  men,  whc 


i74 


THE  C^SAHS. 


have  learned  to  reverence  a  person  in  authority  chiefly 
by  his  offices  of  correction  applied  to  their  own  aberra- 
tions, —  who  have  known  and  feared  him,  in  short,  in 
his  character  of  reformer,  —  will  be  more  than  usually 
inclined  to  desert  him  on  his  first  movement  in- the 
direction  of  wrong.  Their  obedience  being  founded 
on  fear,  and  fear  being  never  wholly  disconnected  from 
hatred,  they  naturally  seize  with  eagerness  upon  the 
first  lawful  pretext  for  disobedience  ;  the  luxury  of 
revenge  is,  in  such  a  case,  too  potent,  —  a  meritorious 
disobedience  too  novel  a  temptation,  —  to  have  a 
chance  of  being  rejected.  Never,  indeed,  does  erring 
human  nature  look  more  abject  than  in  the  person  of 
a  severe  exactor  of  duty,  who  has  immolated  thousands 
to  the  wrath  of  offended  law,  suddenly  himself  become- 
ing  a  capital  ofi*ender,  a  glozing  tempter  in  search  of 
accomplices,  and  in  that  character  at  once  standing 
before  the  meanest  of  his  own  dependents  as  a  self- 
deposed  officer,  liable  to  any  man's  arrest,  and,  ipso 
facto ^  a  suppliant  for  his  own  mercy.  The  stern  and 
haughty  Cassius,  who  had  so  often  tightened  the  cords 
of  discipline  until  they  threatened  to  snap  asunder, 
now  found,  experimentally,  the  bitterness  of  these 
obvious  truths.  The  trembling  sentinel  now  looked 
insolently  in  his  face  ;  the  cowering  legionary,  with 
whom  '  to  hear  was  to  obey,'  now  mused  or^  even 
bandied  words  upon  his  orders  ;  the  great  lieutenants 
of  his  office,  who  stood  next  to  his  own  person  in 


THE  CiESARS. 


175 


jtutliority,  were  preparing  for  revolt,  open  or  secret, 
as  circumstances  should  prescribe  ;  not  the  accusei 
only,  but  the  very  avenger,  was  upon  his  steps ;  Neme- 
sis, that  Nemesis  who  once  so  closely  adhered  to  the 
name  and  fortunes  of  the  lawful  Caesar,  turning  against 
every  one  of  his  assassins^^  the  edge  of  his  own  assassi- 
nating sword,  was  already  at  his  heels  ;  and  in  the 
midst  of  a  sudden  prosperity,  and  its  accompanying 
shouts  of  gratulation,  he,  heard  the  sullen  knells  of 
approaching  death.  Antioch,  it  was  true,  the  great  Ro- 
man capital  of  the  Orient,  bore  him,  for  certain  motives 
of  self-interest,  peculiar  good-will.  But  there  was  no 
city  of  the  world  in  which  the  Roman  Caesar  did  not 
reckon  many  liege-men  and  partisans.  And  the  very 
hands,  which  dressed  his  altars  and  crowned  his  Praeto- 
rian pavilion,  might  not  improbably  in  that  same  hour 
put  an  edge  upon  the  sabre  which  was  to  avenge  the 
injuries  of  the  too  indulgent  and  long  suffering  Anto- 
ninus. Meantime,  to  give  a  color  of  patriotism  to  his 
treason,  Cassius  alleged  public  motives  ;  in  a  letter, 
which  he  wrote  after  assuming  the  purple,  he  says  : 

Wretched  empire,  miserable  state,  which  endures 
these  hungry  blood-suckers  battening  on  her  vitals !  — 
A  worthy  man,  doubtless,  is  Marcus  ;  who,  in  his  eager- 
ness to  be  reputed  clement,  suffers  those  to  live  whose 
conduct  he  himself  abhors.  Where  is  that  L.  Cassius, 
whose  name  I  vainly  inherit  ?    Where  is  that  Marcus, 

-  not  Aurelius,    mark  you,   but    Cato   Censorius  ? 


176 


THE  C^SAKS. 


Where  the  good  old  discipline  of  ancestral  times,  lou^ 
since  indeed  disused,  but  now  not  so  much  as  looked 
after  in  our  aspirations  ?  Marcus  Antoninus  is  a 
scholar ;  he  enacts  the  philosopher ;  and  he  tries  con- 
clusions upon  the  four  elements,  and  upon  the  nature 
of  the  soul  ;  and  he  discourses  most  learnedly  upon  the 
llonestum  ;  and  concerning  the  Summum  Bonum  he  is 
unanswerable.  Meanwhile,  is  he  learned  in  the  inter- 
ests of  the  State?  Can  he  argue  a  point  upon  the  public 
economy  ?  You  see  what  a  host  of  sabres  is  required, 
what  a  host  of  impeachments,  sentences,  executions, 
before  the  commonwealth  can  reassume  its  ancient 
integrity  What!  shall  I  esteem  as  proconsuls,  as 
governors,  those  who  for  that  end  only  deem  themselves 
invested  with  lieutenancies  or  great  senatorial  appoint- 
ments, that  they  may  gorge  themselves  with  the  provin- 
cial luxuries  and  wealth  ?  No  doubt  you  heard  in 
what  way  our  friend  the  philosopher  gave  the  place  of 
praetorian  prefect  to  one  who  but  three  days  before 
was  a  bankrupt,  —  insolvent,  by  G — ,  and  a  beggar. 
Be  not  you  content :  that  same  gentlemen  is  now  as 
rich  as  a  prefect  should  be  ;  and  has  been  so,  I  tel] 
Vou,  any  time  these  three  days.  And  how,  I  pray  you, 
how  —  how,  my  good  sir  ?  How,  but  out  of  the  bowels 
of  the  provinces,  and  the  marrow  of  their  bones  ?  But 
:io  matter,  let  them  be  rich  ;  let  them  be  blood-suckers  ; 
so  much,  God  willing,  shall  they  regorge  into  the 
treasury  of  the  empire.    Let  but  Heaven  smile  upon 


THE  CjESAIIS. 


177 


Dur  party,  and  the  Cassiani  shall  return  to  the  republic 
its  old  impersonal  supremacy/ 

But  Heaven  did  not  smile ;  nor  did  man.  Rome 
neard  with  bitter  indignation  of  this  old  traitor's  in- 
gratitude, and  his  false  mask  of  republican  civism. 
Excepting  Marcus  Aurelius  himself,  not  one  man  but 
thirsted  for  revenge.  And  that  was  soon  obtained. 
He  and  all  his  supporters,  one  after  the  other,  rapidly 
fell  (as  Marcus  had  predicted)  into  snares  laid  by  the 
officers  who  continued  true  to  their  allegiance.  Except 
the  family  and  household  of  Cassius,  there  remained  in 
a  short  time  none  for  the  vengeance  of  the  Senate,  or 
for  the^  mercy  of  the  Emperor,  In  them  centred  the 
last  arrears  of  hope  and  fear,  of  chastisement  or  par- 
don, depending  upon  this  memorable  revolt.  And 
about  the  disposal  of  their  persons  arose  the  final 
question  to  which  the  case  gave  birth.  The  letters  yet 
remain  in  which  the  several  parties  interested  gave 
utterance  to  the  passions  which  possessed  them.  Faus- 
tina, the  Empress,  urged  her  husband  with  feminine 
violence  to  adopt  against  his  prisoners  comprehensive 
acts  of  vengeance.  '  Noli  parcere  hominibus,'  says 
sne,  '  qui  tibi  non  pepercerunt ;  et  nec  mihi  nec  filiis 
uostris  parcerent,^^  si  vicissent.'  And  elsewhere  she 
irritates  his  wrath  against  the  army  as  accomplices  for 
the  time,  and  as  a  body  of  men  '  qui,  nisi  opprimuntur, 
opprimunt.'  We  may  be  sure  of  the  result.  After 
commending  her  zeal  for  her  own  family,  he  says^ 
12 


178 


THE  C^SAES. 


'  Ego  vero  et  ejus  liberis  parcam,  et  genero,  et  uxori ; 
et  ad  senatum  scribam  ne  aiit  proscriptio  gravior  sit> 
aut  poena  crudelior ; '  adding  that,  had  his  counsels 
prevailed,  not  even  Cassius  himself  should  have  per- 
ished. As  to  his  relatives,  '  Why,'  he  asks,  '  should 
I  speak  of  pardon  to  them,  who  indeed  have  done  no 
wrong,  and  are  blameless  even  in  purpose  ?  '  Accord- 
ingly, his  letter  of  intercession  to  the  Senate  protests, 
that,  so  far  from  asking  for  further  victims  to  the  crime 
of  Avidius  Cassius,  would  to  God  he  could  call  back 
from  the  dead  many  of  those  who  had  fallen !  With 
immense  applause,  and  with  turbulent  acclamations, 
the  Senate  granted  all  his  requests  '  in  consideration  of 
his  philosophy,  of  his  long-suffering,  of  his  learning 
and  accomplishments,  of  his  nobility,  of  his  innocence/ 
And  until  a  monster  arose  who  delighted  in  the  blood 
of  the  guiltless,  it  is  recorded  that  the  posterity  of 
Avidius  Cassius  lived  in  security,  and  were  admitted 
to  honors  and  public  distinctions  by  favor  of  him, 
whose  life  and  empire  that  memorable  traitor  had 
sought  to  undermine  under  the  favor  of  his  guileless 
master's  too  confiding  magnanimity. 


THE  CtESAKS. 


179 


CHAPTER  V. 


The  Roman  empire,  and  the  Roman  emperors,  it 
miglit  naturally  be  supposed  by  one  who  had  not  as 
yet  traversed  that  tremendous  chapter  in  the  history 
3f  man,  would  be  likely  to  present  a  separate  and 
almost  equal  interest.  The  empire,  in  the  first  place, 
us  the  most  magnificent  monument  of  human  power 
which  our  planet  has  beheld,  must  for  that  single 
reason,  even  though  its  records  were  otherwise  of  little 
interest^  fix  upon  itself  the  very  keenest  gaze  from  all 
succeeding  ages  to  the  end  of  time.  To  trace  the 
fortunes  and  revolution  of  that  unrivalled  monarchy 
over  which  the  Roman  eagle  brooded,  to  follow  the 
dilapidations  of  that  aerial  arch,  which  silently  and 
steadily  through  seven  centuries  ascended  under  the 
colossal  architecture  of  the  children  of  Romulus,  to 
watch  the  unweaving  of  the  golden  arras,  and  step  by 
step  to  see  paralysis  stealing  over  the  once  perfect 
cohesion  of  the  republican  creations,  —  cannot  but  in- 
sure a  severe,  though  melancholy  delight.  On  its  own 
separate  account,  the  decline  of  this  throne-shattering 
power  must  and  will  engage  the  foremost  plaice 
nmongst  all  historical  reviewers.  The  '  dislimning ' 
and  unmoulding  of  some  mighty  pageantry  in  the 


180 


THE  CiESARS. 


heavens  has  its  own  appropriate  grandeurs,  qo  less 
than  the  gathering  of  iis  cloudy  pomps.  The  going 
down  of  the  sun  is  contemplated  with  no  less  awe 
than  his  rising.  Nor  is  any  thing  portentous  in  its 
growth,  wdiich  is  not  also  portentous  in  the  steps  and 
'  moments  '  of  its  decay.  Hence,  in  the  second  place, 
we  might  presume  a  commensurate  interest  in  the 
characters  and  fortunes  of  the  successive  emperors.  If 
the  empire  challenged  our  first  survey,  the  next  would 
seem  due  to  the  Caesars  w^ho  guided  its  course ;  to  the 
great  ones  who  retarded,  and  to  the  bad  ones  who 
precipitated,  its  ruin. 

Such  might  be  the  natural  expectation  of  an  inex- 
perienced reader.  But  it  is  not  so.  The  Caesars, 
throughout  their  long  line,  are  not  interesting,  neither 
personally  in  themselves,  nor  derivatively  from  the 
tragic  events  to  which  their  history  is  attached.  Their 
whole  interest  lies  in  their  situation  —  in  the  unap- 
proachable altitude  of  their  thrones.  But  considered 
with  a  reference  to  their  human  qualities,  scarcely  one 
in  the  whole  series  can  be  viewed  with  a  human 
interest  apart  from  the  circumstances  of  his  position. 
'  Pass  like  shadows,  so  depart ! '  The  reason  for  this 
defect  of  all  personal  variety  of  interest  in  these  enor- 
mous potentates,  must  be  sought  in  the  constitution  of 
their  power  and  the  very  necessities  of  their  office. 
Even  the  greatest  among  them,  those  who  by  way  of 
distinction  were  called  the  Great,  as  Constantine  and 


THE  CiESARS. 


181 


Theodosius,  were  not  great,  for  they  were  not  mag- 
nanimous ;  nor  could  they  be  so  under  their  te*nure  of 
powder,  which  made  it  a  duty  to  be  suspicious,  and,  by 
fastening  upon  all  varieties  of  original  temper  one  dire 
necessity  of  bloodshed,  extinguished  under  this  monot- 
onous cloud  of  cruel  jealousy  and  everlasting  panic 
every  characteristic  feature  of  genial  human  nature, 
that  would  else  have  emerged  through  so  long  a  train 
of  princes.  There  is  a  remarkable  story  told  of  Aprip- 
pina,  that,  upon  some  occasions,  when  a  wizard  an- 
nounced to  her,  as  truths  which  he  had  read  in  the 
heavens,  the  two  fatal  necessities  impending  over  her 
son,  —  one  that  he  should  ascend  to  empire,  the  other 
that  he  should  murder  herself,  she  replied  in  these 
stern  and  memorable  words  —  Occidat  dum  imperet. 
Upon  which  a  continental  writer  comments  thus : 
'  Never  before  or  since  have  three  such  words  issued 
from  the  lips  of  woman  ;  and  in  truth,  one  knows  not 
which  most  to  abominate  or  admire  —  the  aspiring 
princess,  or  the  loving  mother.  Meantime,  in  these 
few  words  lies  naked  to  the  day,  in  its  whole  hideous 
deformity,  the  very  essence  of  Romanism  and  the 
imperatorial  power,  and  one  might  here  consider  the 
mother  of  Nero  as  the  impersonation  of  that  monstrous 
condition.' 

This  is  true  :  Occidat  dum  imperet,  was  the  watch- 
wovd  and  very  cognizance  of  the  Roman  imperator. 
But  almost  equally  it  was  his  watchword  —  Occidatur 


182 


THE  C^SARS. 


du7n  imperet.  Doing  or  suffering,  the  Caesars  were 
ftlmost  equally  involved  in  bloodshed  ;  very  few  that 
were  not  murderers,  and  nearly  all  were  themselves 
murdered. 

The  empire,  then,  must  be  regarded  as  the  primary 
object  of  our  interest ;  and  it  is  in  this  way  only  that 
any  secondary  interest  arises  for  the  emperors.  Now, 
with  respect  to  the  empire,  the  first  question  which 
presents  itself  is,  —  Whence,  that  is,  from  what  causes 
and  from  what  era,  we  are  to  date  its  decline  ?  Gib- 
bon, as  we  all  know,  dates  it  from  the  reign  of  Corn- 
modus  ;  but  certainly  upon  no  sufficient,  or  even 
plausible  grounds.  Our  own  opinion  we  shall  state 
boldly  ;  the  empire  itself,  from  the  very  era  of  its 
establishment,  was  one  long  decline  of  the  Roman 
power.  A  vast  monarchy  had  been  created  and  con- 
solidated by  the  all-conquering  instincts  of  a  republic  — 
cradled  and  nursed  in  wars,  and  essentially  warlike  by 
means  of  all  its  institutions^^  and  by  the  habits  of  the 
people.  This  monarchy  had  been  of  too  slow  a  growth- 
—  too  gradual,  and  too  much  according  to  the  regular 
stages  of  nature  herself  in  its  development,  to  have  any 
chance  of  being  other  than  well  cemented :  the  cohe- 
Bion  of  its  parts  was  intense  ;  seven  centuries  of  growth 
demand  one  or  two  at  least  for  palpable  decay  ;  and  it 
is  only  for  harlequin  empires  like  that  of  Napoleon, 
run  up  with  the  rapidity  of  pantomime,  to  fall  asundei 
under  the  instant  re-action  of  a  few  false  moves  in 


THE  C^SARS. 


183 


politics,  or  a  single  unfortunate  campaign.  Hence  it 
was,  and  from  the  prudence  of  Augustus  acting  through 
a  very  long  reign,  sustained  at  no  very  distant  interval 
by  the  personal  inspection  and  revisions  of  Hadrian, 
that  for  some  time  the  Roman  power  seemed  to  be 
stationary.  What  else  could  be  expected  ?  The  mere 
strength  of  the  impetus  derived  from  the  republican 
institutions  could  not  but  propagate  itself,  and  cause 
even  a  motion  in  advance,  for  some  time  after  those 
institutions  had  themselves  given  way.  And,  besides, 
the  military  institutions  survived  all  others ;  and  the 
army  continued  very  much  the  same  in  its  discipline 
and  composition,  long  after  Rome  and  all  its  civic  in- 
stitutions had  bent  before  an  utter  revolution.  It  was 
very  possible  even  that  emperors  should  have  arisen 
with  martial  propensities,  and  talents  capable  of  mask- 
ing, for  many  years,  by  specious  but  transitory  con- 
quests, the  causes  that  were  silently  sapping  the  foun- 
dations of  Roman  supremacy ;  and  thus  by  accidents  of 
personal  character  and  taste,  an  empire  might  even 
have  expanded  itself  in  appearance,  which,  by  all  its 
permanent  and  real  tendencies,  was  even  then  shrink- 
ing within  narrower  limits,  and  travelling  downsvards 
to  dissolution.  In  reality  one  such  emperor  there  was. 
Trajan,  v^^hether  by  martial  inclinations,  or  (as  is 
supposed  by  some)  by  dissatisfaction  with  his  own 
position  at  Rome,  when  brought  into  more  immediate 
Connection  with  the  senate,  was  driven  into  needless 


184 


THE  CjESARS. 


war  ;  and  he  achieved  conquests  in  the  direction  oi 
Dacia  as  well  as  Parthia.  But  that  these  conquests 
were  not  substantial,  —  that  they  were  connected  by 
no  true  cement  of  cohesion  with  the  existing  empire,  is 
evident  from  the  rapidity  with  which  they  were  aban- 
doned. In  the  next  reign,  the  empire  had  already 
recoiled  within  its  former  limits  ;  and  in  two  reigns 
further  on,  under  Marcus  xlntoninus,  though  a  prince 
of  elevated  character  and  warlike  in  his  policy,  we  find 
such  concessions  of  territory  made  to  the  Marcomanni 
and  others,  as  indicate  too  plainly  the  shrinking  ener- 
gies of  a  waning  empire.  In  reality,  if  we  consider 
the  polar  opposition,  in  point  of  interest  and  situation, 
between  the  great  officers  of  the  republic  and  the 
Augustus  or  Caesar  of  the  empire,  we  cannot  fail  to  see 
the  immense  effect  which  that  difference  must  have 
had  upon  the  permanent  spirit  of  conquest.  Caesar  was 
either  adopted  or  elected  to  a  situation  of  infinite  luxury 
and  enjoyment.  He  had  no  interests  to  secure  by 
fighting  in  person  ;  and  he  had  a  powerful  interest  in 
preventing  others  from  fighting  ;  since  in  that  way  only 
he  could  raise  up  competitors  to  himself,  and  dangerous 
seducers  of  the  army.  A  consul,  on  the  other  hand, 
or  great  lieutenant  of  the  senate,  had  nothing  to  enjoy 
or  to  hope  for,  when  his  term  of  office  should  have 
expired,  unless  according  to  his  success  in  creating 
military  fame  and  influence  for  himself.  Those 
Coesars  who  fought  whilst  the  empire  was  or  seemed  tc 


THE  C^SARS. 


185 


be  stationary,  as  Trajan,  did  so  from  personal  taste. 
Those  who  fought  in  after  centuries,  when  the  decay 
became  apparent,  and  dangers  drew  nearer,  as  Aure- 
lian,  did  so  from  the  necessities  of  fear  ;  and  undei 
neither  impulse  w^ere  they  likely  to  make  durable 
conquests.  The  spirit  of  conquest  having  therefore 
departed  at  the  very  time  when  conquest  would  have 
become  more  difficult  even  to  the  republican  energies, 
both  from  remoteness  of  ground  and  from  the  martial 
character  of  the  chief  nations  which  stood  beyond  the 
frontier,  —  it  was  a  matter  of  necessity  that  with  the 
republican  institutions  should  expire  the  whole  principle 
of  territorial  aggrandizement ;  and  that,  if  the  empire 
seemed  to  be  stationary  for  some  time  after  its  estab- 
lishment by  Julius,  and  its  final  settlement  by  Augustus, 
this  was  through  no  strength  of  its  own,  or  inherent  in 
its  own  constitution,  but  through  the  continued  action 
of  that  strength  which  it  had  inherited  from  the  repub- 
lic. In  a  philosophical  sense,  therefore,  it  may  be 
affirmed,  that  the  empire  of  the  Caesars  was  always  in 
decline  ;  ceasing  to  go  forward,  it  could  not  do  other 
than  retrograde ;  and  even  the  first  appearances  of  de- 
cline can,  with  no  propriety,  be  referred  to  the  reign  of 
Commodus.  His  vices  exposed  him  to  public  contempt 
and  assassination ;  but  neither  one  nor  the  other  had 
imy  effect  upon  the  strength  of  the  empire.  Here, 
therefore,  is  one  just  subject  of  complaint  against 
Cribbon,  that  he  has  dated  the  declension  of  the  Roman 


186 


THE  CJESAHS. 


power  from  a  commencement  arbitrarily  assumed  *, 
another,  and  a  heavier,  is,  that  he  has  failed  to  notice 
the  steps  and  separate  indications  of  decline  as  they 
arose,  —  the  moments  (to  speak  in  the  language  of 
dynamics)  through  which  the  decline  travelled  onwards 
to  its  consummation.  '  It  is  also  a  grievous  offence  as 
regards  the  true  purposes  of  history,  —  and  one  which, 
in  a  complete  exposition  of  ihe  imperial  history,  we 
should  have  a  right  to  insist  on,  —  that  Gibbon  brings 
forward  only  such  facts  as  allow  of  a  scenical  treatment, 
and  seems  everywhere,  by  the  glancing  style  of  his 
allusions,  to  presuppose  an  acquaintance  with  that  very 
history  which  he  undertakes  to  deliver.  Our  immedi- 
ate purpose,  however,  is  simply  to  characterize  the 
office  of  emperor,  and  to  notice  such  events  and  changes 
as  operated  for  evil,  and  for  a  final  effect  of  decay,  upon 
the  Caesars  or  their  empire.  As  the  best  means  of 
realizing  it,  we  shall  rapidly  review  the  history  of  both, 
premising  that  we  confine  ourselves  to  the  true  Caesars, 
and  the  true  empire  of  the  West. 

The  first  overt  act  of  weakness  —  the  first  expres- 
sion of  conscious  declension,  as  regarded  the  foreign 
enemies  of  Rome,  occurred  in  the  reign  of  Hadrian  ; 
for  it  is  a  very  different  thing  to  forbear  making  con^ 
quests,  and  to  renounce  them  when  made.  It  is 
possible,  however,  that  the  cession  then  made  of 
Mesopotamia  and  Armenia,  however  sure  to  be  inter- 
or€ted  into  the  language  of  fear  by  the  enemy,  did 


THE  CJblSARS. 


187 


Imply  any  such  principle  in  this  emperor.  He 
was  of  a  civic  and  paternal  spirit,  and  anxious  foi 
the  substantial  welfare  of  the  empire  rather  than  its 
ostentatious  glory.  The  internal  administration  of 
affairs  had  very  much  gone  into  neglect  since  the 
times  of  Augustus ;  and  Hadrian  was  perhaps  right  in 
supposing  that  he  could  effect  more  public  good  by  an 
extensive  progress  through  the  empire,  and  by  a  per- 
^icrnal  correction  of  abuses,  than  by  any  military  enter- 
prise. It  is,  besides,  asserted,  that  he  received  an 
indemnity  in  money  for  the  provinces  beyond  the 
Euphrates.  But  still  it  remains  true,  that  in  his  reign 
the  God  Terminus  made  his  first  retrograde  motion ; 
and  this  emperor  became  naturally  an  object  of  public 
obloquy  at  Rome,  and  his  name  fell  under  the  super- 
stitious ban  of  a  fatal  tradition  connected  with  the 
foundation  of  the  capital.  The  two  Antonines,  Titus 
and  Marcus,  who  came  next  in  succession,  were  truly 
good  and  patriotic  princes  ;  perhaps  the  only  princes  in 
the  whole  series  who  combined  the  virtues  of  private 
and  of  public  life.  In  their  reigns  the  frontier  line  was 
maintained  in  its  integrity,  and  at  the  expense  of  some 
severe  fighting  under  Marcus,  who  was  a  strenuous 
general  at  the  same  time  that  he  was  a  severe  student. 
It  is,  however,  true,  as  we  observed  above,  that,  by 
allowing  a  settlement  within  the  Roman  frontier  to  a 
barbarous  people,  Marcus  Aurelius  raised  the  first 
ominous  precedent  in  favor  of  those  Gothic,  Vandal, 

t 


188 


THE  C^SARS, 


and  Frankish  hives,  who  were  as  yet  hidden  behind  £ 
cloud  of  years.  Homes  had  been  obtained  by  Trans- 
Danubian  barbarians  upon  the  sacred  territory  of  Rome 
and  Caesar  :  that  fact  remained  upon  tradition  :  whilst 
the  terms  upon  which  they  had  been  obtained,  how 
much  or  how  little  connected  with  fear,  necessarily 
became  liable  to  doubt  and  to  oblivion.  Here  we  pause 
to  remark,  that  the  first  twelve  Caesars,  together  with 
Nerva,  Trajan,  Hadrian,  and  the  two  Antonines, 
making  seventeen  emperors,  compose  the  first  of  four 
nearly  equal  groups,  who  occupied  the  throne  in  suc- 
cession until  the  extinction  of  the  Western  Empire. 
And  at  this  point  be  it  observed,  —  that  is,  at  the 
termination  of  the  first  group,  —  we  take  leave  of  all 
genuine  virtue.  In  no  one  of  the  succeeding  princes, 
if  we  except  Alexander  Severus,  do  we  meet  with  any 
goodness  of  heart,  or  even  amiableness  of  manners. 
The  best  of  the  future  emperors,  in  a  public  sense, 
were  harsh  and  repulsive  in  private  character. 

The  second  group,  as  we  have  classed  them,  termi- 
nating with  Philip  the  Arab,  commences  with  Commo- 
dus.  This  unworthy  prince,  although  the  son  of  the 
excellent  Marcus  Antoninus,  turned  out  a  monster  of 
debauchery.  At  the  moment  of  his  father's  death,  he 
was  present  in  person  at  the  head- quarters  of  the  army 
on  the  Danube,  and  of  necessity  partook  in  many  of 
their  hardships.  This  it  was  which  furnished  his  evil 
counsellors  with  their  sole  argument  for  urging  hip 


THE   C^SARS.  189 

departure  to  the  capital.  A  council  having  been  con- 
vened, the  faction  of  court  sycophants  pressed  upon 
his  attention  the  inclemency  of  the  climate,  contrasting 
it  with  the  genial  skies  and  sunny  fields  of  Italy ;  and 
the  season,  which  happened  to  be  winter,  gave  strength 
to  their  representations.  What !  would  the  emperor 
be  content  for  ever  to  hew  out  the  frozen  water  with  an 
'axe  before  he  could  assuage  his  thirst  ?  And,  again, 
the  total  want  of  fruit-trees  —  did  that  recommend  theii; 
present  station  as  a  fit  one  for  the  imperial  court? 
Commodus,  ashamed  to  found  his  objections  to  the 
station  upon  grounds  so  unsoldierly  as  these,  aff'ected 
to  be  moved  by  political  reasons :  some  great  senatorial 
house  might  take  advantage  of  his  distance  from  home, 
—  might  seize  the  palace,  fortify  it,  and  raise  levies  in 
Italy  capable  of  sustaining  its  pretensions  to  the  throne. 
These  arguments  were  combated  by  Pompeianus,  who, 
besides  his  personal  weight  as  an  officer, 'had  married 
the  eldest  sister  of  the  young  emperor.  Shame  pre- 
vailed for  the  present  with  Commodus,  and  he  dis- 
missed the  council  with  an  assurance  that  ha  would 
think  farther  of  it.  The  sequel  was  easy  to  foresee. 
Oi  ders  were  soon  issued  for  the  departure  of  the  court 
to  Rome,  and  the  task  of  managing  the  barbarians  of 
Dacia  was  delegated  to  lieutenants.  The  system  upon 
which  these  officers  executed  their  commission  was  a 
;  mixed  one  of  terror  and  persuasion.  Some  they  defeat- 
'^d  in  battle ;  and  these  were  the  majority  ;  for  Herodian 

I 


190 


THE  C^SAllS. 


Bays,  irXetaTOV^;  rayv  ^ap/Sapiou  ottAois  ep^etpwcravro  :  others 
they  bribed  into  peace  by  large  suras  of  money.  And 
no  doubt  this  last  article  in  the  policy  of  Commodua 
was  that  which  led  Gibbon  to  assign  to  this  reign  the 
first  rudiments  of  the  Roman  declension.  But  it  should 
be  remembered,  that,  virtually,  this  policy  was  but  the 
further  prosecution  of  that  which  had  already  been 
adopted  by  Marcus  Aurelius.  Concessions  and  temper- 
aments of  any  sort  or  degree  showed  that  the  Pannonian 
frontier  was  in  too  formidable  a  condition  to  be  treated 
with  uncompromising  rigor.  To  ajmepifjivoy  MvovjUL^vo^;, 
purchasing  an  immunity  from  all  further  anxiety,  Corn- 
modus  (as  the  historian  expresses  it)  iravTa  kSiSov  ra 
alrovjuieva  —  conceded  all  demands  whatever.  His  jour- 
ney to  Rome  was  one  continued  festival :  and  the  whole 
population  of  Rome  turned  out  to  welcome  him.  At 
this  period  he  was  undoubtedly  the  darling  of  the 
people :  his  personal  beauty  was  splendid ;  and  he  was 
connected  by  blood  with  some  of  the  greatest  nobility. 
Over  this  flattering  scene  of  hope  and  triumph  clouds 
soon  gathered  ;  with  the  mob,  indeed,  there  is  reason 
to  think  that  he  continued  a  favorite  to  the  last ;  but 
the  respectable  part  of  the  citizens  were  speedily 
disgusted  with  his  self- degradation,  and  came  to  hate 
him  even  more  than  ever  or  by  any  class  he  had  been 
loved.  The  Roman  pride  never  shows  itself  more 
conspicuously  throughout  all  history,  than  in  the  aliena- 
tion of  heart  which  inevitably  followed  any  great  and 


THE  C^SARS. 


191 


continued  outrages  upon  his  own  majesty,  committed 
by  their  emperor.  Cruelties  the  most  atrocious,  acts  of 
vengeance  the  most  bloody,  fatricide,  parricide,  all  were 
viewed  with  more  toleration  than  oblivion  of  his  own 
inviolable  sanctity.  Hence  we  imagine  the  wrath  with 
which  Rome  would  behold  Commodus,  under  the  eyes 
of  four  hundred  thousand  spectators,  making  himself 
a  party  to  the  contests  of  gladiators.  In  his  earlier 
exhibition  as  an  archer,  it  is  possible  that  his  matchless 
dexterity,  and  his  unerring  eye,  would  avail  to  mitigate 
the  censures :  but  when  the  Roman  Imperator  actually 
descended  to  the  arena  in  the  garb  and  equipments  of 
a  servile  prize-fighter,  and  personally  engaged  in  com- 
bat with  such  antagonists,  having  previously  submitted 
to  their  training  and  discipline  —  the  public  indigna- 
tion rose  to  a  height,  which  spoke  aloud  the  language 
of  encouragement  to  conspiracy  and  treason.  These 
were  not  wanting ;  three  memorable  plots  against  his 
life  were  defeated ;  one  of  them  (that  of  Maternus,  the 
robber)  accompanied  with  romantic  circumstances,^^ 
which  we  have  narrated  in  an  earlier  paper  of  this 
series.  Another  was  set  on  foot  by  his  eldest  sister, 
Lucilla ;  nor  did  her  close  relationship  protect  her  from 
capital  punishment.  In  that  instance,  the  immediate 
agent  of  her  purposes,  Quintianus,  a  young  man,  of 
signal  resolution  and  daring,  who  had  attempted  to  stab 
the  emperor  at  the  entrance  of  the  amphitheatre,  though 
baffled  in  his  purpose,  uttered  a  word  which  rang  con- 


192 


THE  C^SARS. 


tinually  in  the  ears  of  Commodus,  and  poisoned  his 
peace  of  mind  for  ever.  His  vengeance,  perhaps,  was 
thus  more  effectually  accomplished  than  if  he  had  at 
once  dismissed  his  victim  from  life.  '  The  senate,'  he 
had  said,  '  send  thee  this  through  me :  '  and  hence- 
forward the  senate  was  the  object  of  unslumbering 
suspicions  to  the  emperor.  Yet  the  public  suspicions 
settled  upon  a  different  quarter  ;  and  a  very  memorable 
scene  must  have  pointed  his  own  in  the  same  direction, 
supposing  that  he  had  been  previously  blind  to  his 
danger. 

On  a  day  of  great  solemnity,  when  Rome  had  as- 
sembled her  myriads  in  the  amphitheatre,  just  at  the 
very  moment  when  the  nobles,  the  magistrates,  the 
priests,  all,  in  short,  that  was  venerable  or  conse- 
crated in  the  State,  with  the  Imperator  in  their  centre, 
had  taken  their  seats,  and  were  waiting  for  the  opening 
of  the  shows,  a  stranger,  in  the  robe  of  a  philosopher, 
bearing  a  staff  in  his  hand,  (which  also  was  the  pro- 
fessional ensign^''  of  a  philosopher,)  stepped  forward, 
and,  by  the  waving  of  his  hand,  challenged  the  atten- 
tion of  Commodus.  Deep  silence  ensued  :  upon  which, 
in  a  few  words,  ominous  to  the  ear  as  the  handwriting 
on  the  wall  to  the  eye  of  Belshazzar,  the  stranger 
unfolded  to  Commodus  the  instant  peril  which  menaced 
both  his  life  and  his  throne,  from  his  great  servant  Pe- 
rennius.  What  personal  purpose  of  benefit  to  himself 
this  stranger  might  have  connected  with  his  public 


THE  C^SARS. 


193 


wainiiig,  or  by  whom  lie  might  have  been  suborned, 
was  never  discovered ;  for  he  was  instantly  arrested 
by  the  agents  of  the  great  officer  whom  he  had  de- 
nounced, dragged  away  to  punishment,  and  put  to  a 
cruel  death.  Commodus  dissembled  his  panic  for  the 
present ;  but  soon  after,  having  received  undeniable 
proofs  (as  is  alleged)  of  the  treason  imputed  to  Peren- 
nius,  in  the  shape  of  a  coin  which  had  been  struck  by 
his  son,  he  caused  the  father  to  be  assassinated  ;  and, 
on  the  same  day,  by  means  of  forged  letters,  before 
this  news  could  reach  the  son,  who  commanded  the 
Illyrian  armies,  he  lured  him  also  to  destruction,  under 
the  belief  that  he  was  obeying  the  summons  of  his 
father  to  a  private  interview  on  the  Italian  frontier. 
So  perished  those  enemies,  if  enemies  they  really 
were.  But  to  these  tragedies  succeeded  others  far 
more  comprehensive  in  their  mischief,  and  in  more 
continuous  succession  than  is  recorded  upon  any  other 
page  of  universal  history.  Rome  was  ravaged  by  a 
pestilence  —  by  a  famine  —  by  riots  amounting  to  a 
civil  war  —  by  a  dreadful  massacre  of  the  unarmed 
mob  —  by  shocks  of  earthquake  —  and,  finally,  by  a 
fire  which  consumed  the  national  bank,^^  and  the  most 
sumptuous  buildings  of  the  city.  To  these  horrors, 
with  a  rapidity  characteristic  of  the  Roman  depravity, 
and  possibly  only  under  the  most  extensive  demorali- 
zation of  the  public  mind,  succeeded  festivals  of  gor- 
geous pomp,  and  amphi theatrical  exhibitions,  upon  a 
13 


194 


THE  CuESARb 


scale  of  grandeur  absolutely  unparalleled  by  all  formei 
attempts.  Then  were  beheld,  and  familiarized  to  the 
eyes  of  the  Roman  mob  —  to  children  —  and  to  women, 
animals  as  yet  known  to  us,  says  Herodian,  only  in 
pictures.  Whatever  strange  or  rare  animal  could  be 
drawn  from  the  depths  of  India,  from  Siam  and  Pegu, 
or  from  the  imvisited  nooks  of  Ethiopia,  w^ere  now 
brought  together  as  subjects  for  the  archery  of  the 
universal  lord/^  Invitations  (and  the  invitations  of 
kings  are  commands)  had  been  scattered  on  this  occa- 
sion profusely  ;  not,  as  heretofore,  to  individuals  or  to 
families  —  but,  as  was  in  proportion  to  the  occasion 
where  an  emperor  was  the  chief  performer,  to  nations. 
People  were  summoned  by  circles  of  longitude  and 
latitude  to  come  and  see  \^OeaadfJi€voL  a  {jltj  Trporepov  /x7^r€ 
iwpaKarav  fx-qre  aKrjKoeio-av  —  things  that  eye  had  not 
seen  nor  ear  heard  of]  the  specious  mmicles  of  nature 
brought  together  from  arctic  and  from  tropic  deserts, 
putting  forth  their  strength,  their  speed,  or  their  beauty, 
and  glorifying  by  their  deaths  the  matchless  hand  of 
the  Roman  king.  There  was  beheld  the  lion  from 
Bilidulgerid,  and  the  leopard  from  Hindostan  —  the 
rein-deer  from  polar  latitudes  —  the  antelope  from  the 
Zaara  —  and  the  leigh,  or  gigantic  stag,  from  Britain. 
Thither  came  the  buffalo  and  the  bison,  the  white  bull 
of  Northumberland  and  Galloway,  the  imicorn  from 
the  regions  of  Nepaul  or  Thibet,  the  rhinoceros  and 
the  river-horse  from  Senegal,  w'th  the  elephant  of 


THE  C-5:SAES. 


Ceylon  or  Siam.  The  ostrich  and  the  cameleopard. 
the  wild  ass  and  the  zehra,  the  chamois  and  the  ibex 
of  Angora,  —  all  brought  their  tributes  of  beauty  or 
deformity  to  these  vast  aceldamas  of  Home  :  their 
savage  voices  ascended  in  tumultuous  uproar  to  the 
chambers  of  the  capitol  :  a  million  of  spectators  sat 
round  them :  standing  in  the  centre  Vv^as  a  single  statu- 
esque figure  —  the  imperial  sagittary,  beautiful  as  an 
Antinous,  and  majestic  as  a  Jupiter,  whose  hand  was 
so  steady  and  whose  eye  so  true,  that  he  was  never 
known  to  miss,  and  who,  in  this  accomplishment  at 
least,  was  so  absolute  in  his  excellence,  that,  as  we  are 
assured  by  a  writer  not  disposed  to  flatter  him,  the 
very  foremost  of  the  Parthian  archers  and  of  the  Mau- 
ri tanian  lancers  [_IlapOvaLO)v  ol  to^lktjv  aKpifBovvre^^  kol 
'^lavpovaLoiv  ol  aKovTit^eiv  a/^tcrrot]  were  not  able  to  con- 
tend with  him.  Juvenal,  in  a  well  known  passage  upon 
the  disproportionate  endings  of  illustrious  careers,  draw- 
ing one  of  his  examples  from  Marius,  says  that  he  ought, 
for  his  own  glory,  and  to  make  his  end  correspondent 
to  his  life,  to  have  died  at  the  moment  when  he  de- 
scended from  his  triumphal  chariot  at  the  portals  of 
the  capitol.  And  of  Commodus,  in  like  manner,  it 
may  be  affirmed,  that,  had  he  died  in  the  exercise  of 
his  peculiar  art,  with  a  hecatomb  of  victims  rendering 
homage  to  his  miraculous  skill,  by  the  regularity  of 
the  files  which  they  presented,  as  they  lay  stretched 
;ut  dymg  or  dead  upon  the  arena,  —  he  would  have 


196 


THE  CJESARS. 


left  a  splendid  and  characteristic  impression  of  him* 
self  upon  that  nation  of  spectators  who  had  witn  essed 
his  performance.  He  was  the  nohlest  artist  in  his 
own  profession  that  the  world  had  seen  —  in  archery 
he  was  the  Robin  Hood  of  Rome  ;  he  was  in  the  very 
meridian  of  his  youth  ;  and  he  was  the  most  beautiful 
man  of  his  own  times  [rtov  /ca^'  lavrov  avOpiDiriDV  KaWei 
£V7r/>€7reWaros].  He  would  therefore  have  looked  the 
part  admirably  of  the  dying  gladiator;  and  he  would 
have  died  in  his  natural  vocation.  But  it  was  ordered 
otherwise  ;  his  death  was  destined  to  private  malice, 
and  to  an  ignoble  hand.  And  much  obscurity  still 
rests  upon  the  motives  of  the  assassins,  though  its  cir- 
cumstances are  reported  with  unusual  minuteness  of 
detail.  One  thing  is  evident,  that  the  public  and 
patriotic  motives  assigned  by  the  perpetrators  as  the 
remote  causes  of  their  conspiracy,  cannot  have  been 
the  true  ones. 

The  grave  historian  may  sum  up  his  character  of 
Commodus  by  saying  that,  however  richly  endowed 
with  natural  gifts,  he  abused  them  all  to  bad  purposes ; 
that  he  derogated  from  his  noble  ancestors,  and  dis- 
avowed the  obligations  of  his  illustrious  name ;  and, 
as  the  climax  of  his  offences,  that  he  dishonored  the 
purple  —  alaxpoh  eTrtT-^Sev/xacrtv  —  by  the  baseness  of 
his  pursuits;  All  that  is  true,  and  more  than  that.  But 
these  considerations  were  not  of  a  nature  to  affect  his 
parasitical  attendants  very  nearly  or  keenly.    Yet  the 


THE  C^SAKS. 


197 


Btory  runs —  that  Marcia,  his  privileged  mistress,  deeply 
RfFected  by  the  anticipation  of  some  further  outrages 
upon  his  high  dignity  which  he'  was  then  meditating, 
had  carried  the  importunity  of  her  deprecations  too  far  ; 
that  the  irritated  emperor  had  consequently  inscribed 
her  name,  in  company  with  others,  (whom  he  had 
reason  to  tax  with  the  same  offence,  or  whom  he  sus- 
pected of  similar  sentiments,)  in  his  little  black  book, 
or  pocket  souvenir  of  death ;  that  this  book,  being  left 
under  the  cushion  of  a  sofa,  had  been  conveyed  into 
the  hands  of  Marcia  by  a  little  pet  boy,  called  Philo- 
Commodus,  who  was  caressed  equally  by  the  emperor 
and  by  Marcia ;  that  she  had  immediately  called  to  her 
aid,  and  to  the  participation  of  her  plot,  those  who 
participated  in  her  danger;  and  that  the  proximity  of 
their  own  intended  fate  had  prescribed  to  them  an 
immediate  attempt;  the  circumstances  of  which  were 
these.  At  mid-day  the  emperor  was  accustomed  to 
bathe,  and  at  the  same  time  to  take  refreshments.  On 
this  occasion,  Marcia,  agreeably  to  her  custom,  pre- 
sented him  with  a  goblet  of  wine  medicated  with 
poison.  Of  this  winb,  having  just  returned  from  the 
fatigues  of  the  chase,  Commodus  drank  freely,  and 
almost  immediately  fell  into  heavy  slumbers ;  from 
which,  however,  he  was  soon  aroused  by  deadly  sick- 
ness. That  was  a  case  which  the  conspirators  had  not 
taken  into  their  calculations ;  and  they  now  began  to 
tear  that  the  violent  vomiting  which  succeeded  jnight 


198 


THE  CJESARS. 


throw  off  the  poison.  There  was  no  time  to  be  lost : 
and  the  barbarous  Marcia,  who  had  so  often  slept  m 
the  arms  of  the  young  emperor,  was  the  person  to 
propose  thai  he  should  now  be  strangled.  A  young 
gladiator,  named  Narcissus,  was  therefore  introduced 
into  the  room;  what  passed  is  not  known  circumstan- 
tially :  but,  as  the  emperor  was  young  and  athletic, 
though  off  his  guard  at  the  moment,  and  under  the 
disadvantage  of  sickness,  and  as  he  had  himself  been 
regularly  trained  in  the  gladiatorial  discipline,  there 
can  be  little  doubt  that  the  vile  assassin  would  meet 
with  a  desperate  resistance.  And  thus,  after  all,  there 
is  good  reason  to  think  that  the  emperor  resigned  his 
life  in  the  character  of  a  dying  gladiator.^^ 

So  perished  the  eldest  and  sole  surviving  son  of  the 
great  Marcus  Antoninus  ;  and  the  crown  passed  into 
the  momentary  possession  of  two  old  men,  who  reigned 
in  succession  each  for  a  few  weeks.  The  first  of  these 
was  Pertinax,  an  upright  man,  a  good  officer,  and  an 
unseasonable  reformer ;  unseasonable  for  those  times, 
but  more  so  for  himself.  Lsetus,  the  ringleader  in  the 
assassination  of  Commodus,  had  been  at  that  time  the 
prsetorian  prefect  —  an  office  which  a  German  writer 
considers  as  best  represented  to  modern  ideas  by  the 
Turkish  post  of  grand  vizier.  Needing  a  protector  at 
this  moment,  he  naturally  fixed  his  eyes  upon  Pertinax 
—  as  then  holding  the  powerful  command  of  city  pre- 
fect (or  governor  of  Rome).    Him  therefore  he  recom- 


THE  C^SARS. 


199 


mended  to  the  soldiery  —  that  is,  to  the  prietoriun 
cohorts.  The  soldiery  had  no  particular  objection  to 
the  old  general,  if  he  and  they  could  agree  upon 
terms ;  his  age  being  doubtless  appreciated  as  a  first- 
rate  recommendation,  in  a  case  where  it  insured  a 
speedy  renewal  of  the  lucrative  bargain. 

The  only  demur  arose  with  Pertinax  himself:  he 
had  been  leader  of  the  troops  in  Britain,  then  superin- 
tendent of  the  police  in  Rome,  thirdly  proconsul  in 
Africa,  and  finally  consul  and  governor  of  Rome.  In 
these  great  official  stations  he  stood  near  enough  to  the 
throne  to  observe  the  dangers  with  which  it  was  sur- 
rounded ;  and  it  is  asserted  that  he  declined  the  offered 
dignity.  But  it  is  added,  that,  finding  the  choice 
allowed  him  lay  between  immediate  death  and  ac- 
ceptance, he  closed  with  the  proposals  of  the  praetorian 
cohorts,  at  the  rate  of  about  ninety-six  pounds  per 
man ;  which  largess  he  paid  by  bringing  to  sale  the 
rich  furniture  of  the  last  emperor.  The  danger  which 
usually  threatened  a  Roman  Caesar  in  such  cases  was 
—  lest  he  should  not  be  able  to  fulfil  his  contract. 
But  in  the  case  of  Pertinax  the  danger  began  from  the 
moment  when  he  had  fulfilled  it.  Conceiving  himself 
to  be  now  released  from  his  dependency,  he  com- 
menced his  reforms,  civil  as  well  as  military,  with  a 
zeal  which  alarmed  all  those  who  had  an  interest  in 
Tnaintaining  the  old  abuses.  To  two  great  factions  he 
thus  made  himself  especially  obnoxious  —  to  the  prae- 


200 


THE  C^SARS. 


toriau  cohorts,  and  to  the  courtiers  under  the  last 
reign.  The  connecting  link  between  these  t\^  o  parties 
was  Laetus,  who  belonged  personally  to  the  last,  and 
still  retained  his  influence  with  the  first.  Possibly  his 
fears  were  alarmed ;  but,  at  all  events,  his  cupidity 
was  not  satisfied.  He  conceived  himself  to  have  been 
ill  rewarded ;  and,  immediately  resorting  to  the  same 
weapons  which  he  had  used  against  Commodus,  he 
stimulated  the  praetorian  guards  to  murder  the  empe- 
ror. Three  hundred  of  them  pressed  into  the  palace : 
Eertinax  attempted  to  harangue  them,  and  to  vindicate 
himself;  but  not  being  able  to  obtain  a  hearing,  he 
folded  his  robe  about  his  head,  called  upon  Jove  the 
Avenger,  and  was  immediately  dispatched. 

The  throne  was  again  empty  after  a  reign  of  about 
eighty  days ;  and  now  came  the  memorable  scandal  of 
putting  up  the  empire  to  auction.  There  were  two 
bidders,  Sulpicianus  and  Didius^^  Julianus.  The  first, 
however,  at  that  time  governor  of  Rome,  lay  under  a 
weight  of  suspicion,  being  the  father-in-law  of  Per- 
tinax,  and  likely  enough  to  exact  vengeance  for  his 
murder.  He  was  besides  outbid  by  Julianus.  Sulpi- 
cian  offered  about  one  hundred  and  sixty  pounds  a 
man  to  the  guards  ;  his  rival  offered  two  hundred,  and 
fissured  them  besides  of  immediate  payment;  'for/ 
said  he,  '  I  have  the  money  at  home,  without  need- 
ing to  raise  it  from  the  possessions  of  the  crown.' 
Upon  this  the   empire   was  knocked  down  to  the 


i 


THE  CJESARS. 


201 


highest  bidder.  So  shocking,  however,  was  this  ar- 
rangement to  the  Roman  pride,  that  the  guards  durst 
not  leave  their  new  creation  without  military  pi  otec- 
tion.  The  resentment  of  an  unarmed  mob,  however, 
soon  ceased  to  be  of  foremost  importance  ;  this  resent- 
ment extended  rapidly  to  all  the  frontiers  of  the  em- 
pire, where  the  armies  felt  that  the  praetorian  cohorts 
had  no  exclusive  title  to  give  away  the  throne,  and 
their  leaders  felt,  that,  in  a  contest  of  this  nature,  their 
own  claims  were  incomparably  superior  to  those  of  the 
present  occupant.  Three  great  candidates  therefore 
started  forward  —  Septimius  Severus,  who  commanded 
the  armies  in  Illyria,  Pescennius  Niger  in  Syria,  and 
Albinus  in  Britain.  Severus,  as  the  nearest  to  Rome, 
marched  and  possessed  himself  of  that  city.  Ven- 
geance followed  upon  all  parties  concerned  in  the^  late 
murder.  Julianus,  unable  to  complete  his  bargain,  had 
already  been  put  to  death,  as  a  deprecatory  offering 
to  the  approaching  army.  Severus  himself  inflicted 
death  upon  Laetus,  and  dismissed  the  praetorian  cohorts. 
Thence  marching  against  his  Syrian  rival,  Niger,  who 
had  formerly  been  his  friend,  and  who  was  not  want- 
ing in  military  skill,  he  overthrew  him  in  three  great 
battles.  Niger  fled  to  Antioch,  the  seat  of  his  late 
government,  and  was  there  decapitated.  Meantime 
Albinus,  the  British  commander-in-chief,  had  already 
been  won  over  by  the  title  of  Caesar,  or  adopted  heii 
U)  the  new  Augustus.    But  the  hollowness  of  this  bribe 

I 


202 


THE  C.5i:SAIlS. 


Boon  became  apparent,  and  the  two  competitors  mei 
to  decide  their  pretensions  at  Lyons.  In  the  great 
battle  which  followed,  Severus  fell  from  his  horse,  and 
was  at  first  supposed  to  be  dead.  But  recovering,  he 
defeated  his  rival,  who  immediately  committed  suicide. 
Severus  displayed  his  ferocious  temper  sufficiently  by 
sending  the  head  of  Albinus  to  Rome.  Other  expres- 
sions of  his  natural  character  soon  followed  :  he  sus- 
pected strongly  that  Albinus  had  been  favored  by  the 
senate  ;  forty  of  that  body,  with  their  wives  and  chil- 
dren, were  immediately  sacrificed  to  his  wrath  :  but 
he  never  forgave  the  rest,  nor  endured  to  live  upon 
terms  of  amity  amongst  them.  Quitting  Eome  in  dis- 
gust, he  employed  himself  first  in  making  war  upon  the 
Parthians,  who  had  naturally,  from  situation,  befriended 
his  Syrian  rival.  Their  capital  cities  he  overthrew  ; 
and  afterwards,  by  way  of  employing  his  armies,  made 
war  in  Britain.  At  the  city  of  York  he  died  ;  and  to 
his  two  sons,  Geta  and  Caracalla,  he  bequeathed,  as 
his  dying  advice,  a  maxim  of  policy,  which  sufficiently 
indicates  the  situation  of  the  empire  at  that  period ;  it 
was  this  — '  To  enrich  the  soldiery  at  any  price,  and 
to  regard  the  rest  of  their  subjects  as  so  many  ciphers.* 
But,  as  a  critical  historian  remarks,  this  was  a  short- 
sighted and  self-destroying  policy  ;  since  in  no  way  is 
the  subsistence  of  the  soldier  made  more  insecure, 
than  by  diminishing  the  general  security  of  rights  and 
property  to  those  who  are  not  soldiers,  from  whom. 


THE  CJESARS. 


203 


after  all,  the  funds  must  be  sought,  by  which  the 
Eoldier  himself  is  to  be  paid  and  nourished.  The 
:.wo  sons  of  Severus,  whose  bitter  enmity  is  so  memo- 
rably put  on  record  by  their  actions,  travelled  simul- 
taneously to  Rome  ;  bat  so  mistrustful  of  each  other, 
that  at  every  stage  the  two  princes  took  up  theii 
quarters  at  different  houses.  Geta  has  obtained  the 
sympathy  of  historians,  because  he  happened  to  be 
the  victim  ;  but  there  is  reason  to  think,  that  each  of 
the  brothers  was  conspiring  against  the  other.  The 
weak  credulity,  rather  than  the  conscious  innocence, 
of  Geta,  led  to  the  catastrophe  ;  he  presented  himself 
at  a  meeting  with  his  brother  in  the  presence  of  their 
common  mother,  and  was  murdered  by  Caracalla  in 
his  mother's  arms.  He  was,  however,  avenged ;  the 
horrors  of  that  tragedy,  and  remorse  for  the  twenty 
thousand  murders  which  had  followed,  never  forsook 
the  guilty  Caracalla.  Quitting  Rome,  but  pursued  into 
every  region  by  the  bloody  image  of  his  brother,  the 
emperor  henceforward  led  a  wandering  life  at  the 
head  of  his  legions  ;  but  never  was  there  a  better  illus- 
tration of  the  poet's  maxim  that 

*  Remorse  is  as  the  mind  in  which  it  grows  : 
If  that  be  gentle,'  &c. 

For  the  remorse  of  Caracalla  put  on  no  shape  of 
repentance.  On  the  contrary,  he  carried  anger  and 
oppression  wherever  he  moved  ;  ?.nd  protected  him- 
self from  plots  only  by  living  in  the  very  centre  of  a 


204 


THE  C^SAKS. 


nomadic  camp.  Six  years  had  passed  away  in  Ihis 
manner,  when  a  mere  accident  led  to  his  assassination. 
For  the  sake  of  security,  the  office  of  praetorian  prefect 
had  been  divided  between  two  commissioners,  one  for 
military  affairs,  the  other  for  civil.  The  latter  of  these 
two  officers  was  Opilius  Macrinus.  This  man  has,  by 
some  historians,  been  supposed  to  have  harbored  no 
bad  intentions  ;  but,  unfortunately,  an  astrologer  had 
foretold  that  he  was  destined  to  the  throne.  The 
prophet  was  laid  in  irons  at  Rome,  and  letters  were 
dispatched  to  Caracalla,  apprising  him  of  the  case. 
These  letters,  as  yet  unopened,  were  transferred  by 
the  emperor,  then  occupied  in  witnessing  a  race,  to 
Macrinus,  who  thus  became  acquainted  with  the  whole 
grounds  of  suspicion  against  himself,  —  grounds  which, 
to  the  jealousy  of  the  emperor,  he  well  knew  would 
appear  substantial  proofs.  Upon  this  he  resolved  to 
anticipate  the  emperor  in  the  work  of  murder.  The 
head-quarters  were  then  at  Edessa ;  and  uj)on  his 
instigation,  a  disappointed  centurion,  named  Martialis, 
animated  also  by  revenge  for  the  death  of  his  brother, 
undertook  to  assassinate  Caracalla.  An  opportunity 
soon  offered,  on  a  visit  which  the  prince  made  to  the 
celebrated  temple  of  the  moon  at  Carrhse.  The  attempt 
was  successful :  the  emperor  perished  ;  but  Martialis 
paid  the  penalty  of  his  crime  in  the  same  hour,  being 
ihot  by  a  Scythian  archer  of  the  body-guard. 

Macrinus,    after   three    days'  interregnum,  beirg 


THE  CtESARS. 


205 


elected  emperor,  began  his  reign  by  purchasing  a 
peace  from  the  Parthians  What  the  empire  chiefly 
needed  at  this  moment,  is  evident  from  the  next  step 
taken  by  this  emperor.  He  labored  to  restore  the 
ancient  disoipline  of  the  armies  in  all  its  rigor.  He 
was  aware  of  the  risk  he  ran  in  this  attempt ;  and  that 
he  was  so,  is  the  best  evidence  of  the  strong  necessity 
which  existed  for  reform.  Perhaps,  however,  he  might 
have  surmounted  his  difficulties  and  dangers,  had  he 
met  with  no  competitor  round  whose  person  the  military 
malcontents  could  rally.  But  such  a  competitor  soon 
arose  ;  and,  to  the  astonishment  of  all  the  world,  in  the 
person  of  a  Syrian.  The  Emperor  Severus,  on  losing 
his  first  wife,  had  resolved  to  strengthen  the  pretensions 
of  his  family  by  a  second  marriage  with  some  lady 
having  a  regal  '  genesis,'  that  is,  whose  horoscope 
promised  a  regal  destiny.  Julia  Domna,  a  native  of 
Syria,  offered  him  this  dowry,  and  she  became  the 
mother  of  Geta.  A  sister  of  this  Julia,  called  Moesa, 
had,  through  two  different  daughters,  two  grandsons  — 
Heliogabalus  and  Alexander  Severus.  The  mutineers 
of  the  army  rallied  around  the  first  of  these ;  a  battle 
was  fought ;  and  Macrinus,  with  his  son  Diadumeni- 
anus,  whom  he  had  adopted  to  the  succession,  were 
captured  and  put  to  death.  Heliogabalus  succeeded, 
and  reigned  in  the  monstrous  manner  which  has  ren- 
dered his  name  infamous  in  history.  In  what  way, 
however,  he  lost  the  affections  of  the  army,  has  never 


206 


THE  C^SARS. 


been  explained.  His  mother,  Sooemias,  the  eldest 
daughter  of  Moesa,  had  represented  herself  as  the 
concubine  of  Caracalla;  and  Heliogabalus,  being  thus 
jtccredited  as  the  son  of  that  emperor,  whose  memory 
was  dear  to  the  soldiery,  had  enjoyed  the.  full  benefit 
<jf  that  descent,  nor  can  it  be  readily  explained  how  he 
came  to  lose  it. 

Here,  in  fact,  we  meet  with  an  instance  of  that 
dilemma  which  is  so  constantly  occurring  in  the  history 
of  the  Ceesars.  If  a  prince  is  by  temperament  dis- 
posed to  severity  of  manners,  and  naturally  seeks  to 
impress  his  own  spirit  upon  the  composition  and  disci- 
pline of  the  army,  we  are  sure  to  find  that  he  was  cut 
off  in  his  attempts  by  private  assassination  or  by  public 
rebellion.  On  the  other  hand,  if  he  wallows  in  sen- 
suality, and  is  careless  about  all  discipline,  civil  or 
military,  we  then  find  as  commonly  that  he  loses  the 
esteem  and  affections  of  the  army  to  some  rival  of 
severer  habits.  And  in  the  midst  of  such  oscillations, 
and  with  examples  of  such  contradictory  interpretation, 
we  cannot  wonder  that  the  Roman  princes  did  not 
oftener  take  warning  by  the  misfortunes  of  their  pre- 
decessors. In  the  present  instance,  Alexander,  the 
cousin  of  Heliogabalus,  without  intrigues  of  his  own, 
and  simply  (as  it  appears)  by  the  purity  and  sobriety 
of  his  conduct,  had  alienated  the  affections  of  the  array 
from  the  reigning  prince.  Either  jealousy  or  prudence 
had  led  Heliogabalus  to  make  an  attempt  upon  his 


THE  CJESARS. 


207 


rival's  life  ;  and  this  attempt  had  nearly  cost  him  his 
own  through  the  mutiny  which  it  caused.  In  a  second 
uproar,  produced  by  some  fresh  intrigues  of  the  em- 
peror against  his  cousin,  the  soldiers  became  unman- 
ageable, and  they  refused  to  pause  until  they  had 
massacred  Heliogabalus,  together  with  his  mother,  and 
raised  his  cousin  Alexander  to  the  throne. 

The  reforms  of  this  prince,  who  reigned  under  the 
name  of  Alexander  Severus,  were  extensive  and  search- 
ing ;  not  only  in  his  court,  which  he  purged  of  all 
notorious  abuses,  but  throughout  the  economy  of  the 
army.  He  cashiered,  upon  one  occasion,  an  entire 
legion ;  he  restored,  as  far  as  he  was  able,  the  ancient 
discipline ;  and,  above  all,  he  liberated  the  provinces 
from  military  spoliation.  'Let  the  soldier,'  said  he, 
'  be  contented  with  his  pay ;  and  whatever  more  he 
wants,  let  him  obtain  it  by  victory  from  the  enemy, 
not  by  pillage  from  his  fellow-subject.'  But  whatever 
might  be  the  value  or  extent  of  his  reforms  in  the 
marching  regiments,  Alexander  could  not  succeed  in 
binding  the  praetorian  guards  to  his  yoke.  Under  the 
guardianship  of  his  mother  Mammsea,  the  conduct  of 
state  affairs  had  been  submitted  to  a  council  of  sixteen 
persons,  at  the  head  of  which  stood  the  celebrated 
Ulpian.  To  this  minister  the  praetorians  imputed  the 
reforms,  and  perhaps  the  whole  spirit  of  reform;  for 
they  pursued  him  with  a  vengeance  which  is  else  hardly 
lO  be  explained.    Many  days  was  Ulpian  protected  by 


208 


THE  C^SARS. 


the  citizens  of  Rome,  until  the  whole  city  was  threat- 
ened with  conflagration ;  he  then  fled  to  the  palace  of 
the  young  emperor,  who  in  vain  attempted  to  save  him 
ficm  his  pursuers  under  the  shelter  of  the  imperial 
purple.  Ulpian  was  murdered  before  his  eyes  ;  nor 
was  it  found  possible  to  punish  the  ringleader  in  this 
foul  conspiracy,  until  he  had  been  removed  by  some- 
thing like  treachery  to  a  remote  government. 

Meantime,  a  great  revolution  and  change  of  dynasty 
had  been  effected  in  Parthia;  the  line  of  the  Arsacidar 
was  terminated ;  the  Parthian  empire  was  at  an  end ; 
and  the  sceptre  of  Persia  was  restored  under  the  new 
race  of  the  Sassanides.  Artaxerxes,  the  first  prince 
of  this  race,  sent  an  embassy  of  four  hundred  select 
knights,  enjoining  the  Roman  emperor  to  content  him- 
self with  Europe,  and  to  leave  Asia  to  the  Persians. 
In  the  event  of  a  refusal,  the  ambassadors  were  in- 
structed to  offer  a  defiance  to  the  Roman  prince.  Upon 
such  an  insult,  Alexander  could  not  do  less,  with  either 
safety  or  dignity,  than  to  prepare  for  war.  It  is  prob- 
able, indeed,  that,  by  this  expedition,  which  drew  off 
the  minds  of  the  soldiery  from  brooding  upon  the  re- 
forms which  offended  them,  the  life  of  Alexander  was 
prolonged.  But  the  expedition  itself  was  mismanaged, 
or  was  unfortunate.  This  result,  however,  does  not 
seem  chargeable  upon  Alexander.  All  the  preparations 
were  admirable  on  the  mai'ch,  and  up  to  the  enemy's 
frontier.    The  invasion  it  was,  which,  in  a  strategic 


THE  CiESARS. 


209 


sense,  seems  to  "have  been  ill  combined.  Three  armies 
were  to  have  entered  Persia  simultaneously  ;  one  of 
these,  which  was  destined  to  act  on  a  flank  of  the 
general  line,  entangled  itself  in  the  marshy  grounds 
near  Babylon,  and  was  cut  off  by  the  archery  of  an 
enemy  whom  it  could  not  reach.  The  other  wing, 
acting  upon  ground  impracticable  for  the  manoeuvres 
of  the  Persian  cavalry,  and  supported  by  Chosroes  the 
king  of  Armenia,  gave  great  trouble  to  Artaxerxes, 
and,  with  adequate  support  from  the  other  armies, 
would  doubtless  have  be'en  victorious.  But  the  central 
army,  under  the  conduct  of  Alexander  in  person, 
discouraged  by  the  destruction  of  one  entire  wing, 
remained  stationary  in  Mesopotamia  throughout  the 
summer,  and,  at  the  close  of  the  campaign,  was  with- 
drawn to  Antioch,  re  infectd.  It  has  been  observed 
that  great  mystery  hangs  over  the  operations  and  issue 
of  this  short  war.  Thus  much,  however,  is  evident, 
that  nothing  but  the  previous  exhaustion  of  the  Persian 
king  saved  the  Roman  armies  from  signal  discomfiture  ; 
and  even  thus  there  is  no  ground  for  claiming  a  vic- 
tory (as  most  historians  do)  to  the  Roman  arms.  Any 
termination  of  the  Persian  war,  however,  whether 
glorious  or  not,  was  likely  to  be  personally  injurious 
to  Alexander,  by  allowing  leisure  to  the  soldiery  for 
recurring  to  their  grievances.  Sensible,  no  doubt,  of 
this,  Alexander  was  gratified  by  the  occasion  which 
then  arose  for  repressing  the  hostile  movements  of  the 
U 

I 


210 


THE  C^SARS. 


Germans.  He  led  his  army  off  upon  this  expedition  ; 
but  their  temper  was  gloomy  and  threatening  ;  and  at 
length,  after  reaching  the  seat  of  war,  at  Mentz,  an 
open  mutiny  broke  out  under  the  guidance  of  Maximin, 
which  terminated  in  the  murder  of  the  emperor  and 
his  mother.  By  Herodian  the  discontents  of  the  army 
are  referred  to  the  ill  management  of  the  Persian 
campaign,  and  the  unpromising  commencement  of  the 
new  war  in  Germany.  But  it  seems  probable  that  a 
dissolute  and  wdcked  army,  like  that  of  Alexander,  had 
not  murmured  under  the  too  little,  but  the  too  much 
of  military  service  ;  not  the  buying  a  truce  with  gold 
seems  to  have  offended  them,  but  the  having  led  them 
at  all  upon  an  enterprise  of  danger  and  hardship. 

Maximin  succeeded,  whose  feats  of  strength,  when 
he  first  courted  the  notice  of  the  Emperor  Severus, 
have  been  described  by  Gibbon.  He  was  at  that 
period  a  Thracian  peasant;  since  then  he  had  risen 
gradually  to  high  offices ;  but,  according  to  historians, 
he  retained  his  Thracian  brutality  to  the  last.  That 
may  have  been  true  ;  but  one  remark  must  be  made 
upon  this  occasion ;  Maximin  was  especially  opposed 
to  the  senate  ;  and,  w^herever  that  w^as  the  case,  no 
justice  was  done  to  an  emperor.  Why  it  was  that 
Maximin  would  not  ask  for  the  confirmation  of  his 
election  from  the  senate,  has  never  been  explained ;  it 
is  said  that  he  anticipated  a  rejection.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  it  seems  probable  that  the  senate  supposed 


THE  C^SAHS. 


211 


its  sanction  to  be  despised.  Nothing,  apparently,  but 
this  reciprocal  reserve  in  making  approaches  to  each 
other,  was  the  cause  of  all  the  bloodshed  which  fol- 
lowed. The  two  Gordians,  who  commanded  in  Africa, 
were  set  up  by  the  senate  against  the  new  emperor ; 
and  the  consternation  of  that  body  must  have  been 
great,  when  these  champions  were  immediately  over- 
thrown and  killed.  They  did  not,  however,  despair : 
substituting  the  two  governors  of  Rome,  Pupienus  and 
Balbinus,  and  associating  to  them  the  younger  Gor- 
dian,  they  resolved  to  make  a  stand ;  for  the  severities 
of  Maximin  had  by  this  time  manifested  that  it  was  a 
contest  of  extermination.  Meantime,  Maximin  had 
broken  up  from  Sirmium,  the  capital  of  Pannonia,  and 
had  advanced  to  Aquileia,  —  that  famous  fortress, 
which  in  every  invasion  of  Italy  was  the  first  object  of 
attack.  The  senate  had  set  a  price  upon  his  head ; 
but  there  was  every  probability  that  he  would  have 
triumphed,  had  he  not  disgusted  his  army  by  immod- 
erate severities.  It  was,  however,  but  reasonable  that 
those,  who  would  not  support  the  strict  but  equitable 
discipline  of  the  mild  Alexander,  should  suffer  under 
the  barbarous  and  capricious  rigor  of  Maximin.  That 
rigor  was  his  ruin :  sunk  and  degraded  as  the  senate 
was,  and  now  but  the  shadow  of  a  mighty  name,  it 
was  found  on  this  occasion  to  have  long  arms  when 
supported  by  the  frenzy  of  its  opponent.  Whatever 
liiight  be  the  real  weakness  of  this  body,  the  rude 


212 


THE  CiESARS. 


Boldiers  yet  felt  a  blind  traditionary  veneration  for  its 
sanction,  when  prompting  them  as  patriots  to  an  act 
vvhich  their  own  multiplied  provocations  had  but  too 
much  recommended  to  their  passions.  A  party  entered 
the  tent  of  Maximin,  and  dispatched  him  with  the  same 
unpityiiig  haste  which  he  had  shown  under  similar 
circumstances  to  the  gentle-minded  Alexander.  Aqui- 
leia  opened  her  gates  immediately,  and  thus  made  it 
evident  that  the  war  had  been  personal  to  Maximin. 

A  scene  followed  within  a  short  time  which  is  in 
the  highest  degree  interesting.  The  senate,  in  creating 
two  emperors  at^  once  (for  the  boy  Gordian  was  prob- 
ably associated  to  them  only  by  way  of  masking  their 
experiment),  had  made  it  evident  that  their  purpose 
was  to  restore  the  republic  and  its  two  consuls.  This 
was  their  meaning ;  and  the  experiment  had  now  been 
twice  repeated.  The  army  saw  through  it ;  as  to  the 
double  number  of  emperors,  that  was  of  little  conse- 
quence, farther  than  as  it  expressed  their  intention,  viz. 
by  bringing  back  the  consular  government,  to  restore 
the  power  of  the  senate,  and  to  abrogate  that  of  the 
army.  The  praetorian  troops,  who  were  the  most 
deeply  interested  in  preventing  this  revolution,  watched 
their  opportunity,  and  attacked  the  two  emperors  in 
|he  palace.  The  deadly  feud,  which  had  already 
arisen  between  them,  led  each  to  suppose  himself  under 
assault  from  the  other.  The  mistake  was  not  of  long 
Juration.    Carried  into  the  streets  of  Rome,  they  wete 


THE  C^SARS. 


213 


both  put  to  death,  and  treated  with  monstrous  indigni- 
ties. The  young  Gordian  was  adopted  by  the  soldiery. 
It  seems  odd  that  even  thus  far  the  guards  should 
sanction  the  choice  of  the  senate,  having  the  purposes 
which  they  had  ;  but  perhaps  Gordian  had  recom- 
mended himself  to  their  favor  in  a  degree  which  might 
outweigh  what  they  considered  the  original  vice  of  his 
appointment,  and  his  youth  promised  them  an  imme- 
diate impunity.  This  prince,  however,  like  so  many 
of  his  predecessors  soon  came  to  an  unhappy  end. 
Under  the  guardianship  of  the  upright  Misitheus,  for 
a  time  he  prospered  ;  and  preparations  were  made 
upon  a  great  scale  for  the  energetic  administration  of 
a  Persian  war.  But  Misitheus  died,  perhaps  by  poison, 
in  the  course  of  the  campaign  ;  and  to  him  succeeded, 
as  praetorian  prefect,  an  Arabian  officer,  called  Philip. 
The  innocent  boy,  left  without  friends,  was  soon  re- 
moved by  murder  ;  and  a  monument  was  afterwai'ds 
erected  to  his  memory,  at  the  junction  of  the  Aboraa 
and  the  Euphrates.  Great  obscurity,  however,  clouds 
this  part  of  history  ;  nor  is  it  so  much  as  known  in 
what  way  the  Persian  war  was  conducted  or  termi- 
nated. 

Philip,  having  made  himself  emperor,  celebrated, 
upon  his  arrival  in  Rome,  the  secular  games,  in  tha 
yeai  247  of  the  Christian  era  —  that  being  the  comple- 
tion of  a  thousand  years*^^  from  the  foundation  of  Rome, 
PMt  Nemesis  was  already  on  his  steps.    An  insurrec- 


214 


THE  C^SAHS. 


tion  had  broken  out  amongst  the  legions  stationed  in 
Moesia  ;  and  they  had  raised  to  the  purple  some  officei 
of  low  rank.  Philip,  having  occasion  to  notice  this 
affair  in  the  senate,  received  for  answer  from  Decius, 
that  probably,  the  pseudo-imperator  would  prove  i 
mere  evanescent  phantom.  This  conjecture  was  con- 
firmed ;  and  Philip  in  consequence  conceived  a  high 
opinion  of  Decius,  whom  (as  the  insurrection  still  con- 
tinued) he  judged  to  be  the  fittest  man  for  appeasing 
it.  Decius  accordingly  went,  armed  with  the  proper 
authority.  But  on  his  arrival,  he  found  himself 
compelled  by  the  insurgent  army  to  choose  between 
empire  and  death.  Thus  constrained,  he  yielded  to 
the  wishes  of  the  troops  ;  and  then  hastening  with  a 
vereran  army  into  Italy,  he  fought  the  battle  of 
Verona,  where  Philip  was  defeated  and  killed,  whilst 
the  son  of  Philip  was  murdered  at  Rome  by  the  praeto- 
rian guards. 

With  Philip,  ends,  according  to  our  distribution, 
the  second  series  of  the  Caesars,  comprehending 
Commodus,  Pertinax,  Didius  Julianus,  Septimius, 
Severus,  Caracalla  and  Geta,  Macrinus,  Heliogabalus, 
Alexander  Severus,  Maximin,  the  two  Gordians, 
Pupienus  and  Balbinus,  the  third  Gordian.  and  Philip 
the  Arab. 

In  looking  back  at  this  series  of  Caesars,  we  are 
horror-struck  at  the  blood-stained  picture.  Well  might 
a  foreign  writer,  in  reviewing  the  same  succession. 


THE  CiESAKS. 


215 


declare,  that  it  is  like  passing  into  a  new  world  when 
the  transition  is  made  from  this  chapter  of  the  human 
history  to  that  of  modern  Europe.  From  Commodus 
to  Decius  are  sixteen  names,  which,  spread  through 
a  space  of  fifty-nine  years,  assign  to  each  Csesar  a 
reign  of  less  than  four  years.  And  Casaubcn  remarks, 
that,  in  one  period  of  160  years,  there  were  seventy 
persons  who  assumed  the  Roman  purple  ;  which  gives 
to  each  not  much  more  than  two  years.  On  the  other 
hand,  in  the  history  of  France,  we  find  that,  through 
a  period  of  1200  years,  there  have  been  no  more  than 
sixty-four  kings :  upon  an  average,  therefore,  each 
king  appears  to  have  enjoyed  a  reign  of  nearly  nine- 
teen years.  This  vast  difierence  in  security  is  due  to 
two  great  principles,  —  that  of  primogeniture  as  be- 
tween son  and  son,  and  of  hereditary  succession  as 
between  a  son  and  every  other  pretender.  Well  may 
we  hail  the  principle  of  hereditary  right  as  realizing 
the  praise  of  Burke  applied  to  chivalry,  viz.,  that  it  is 
'  the  cheap  defence  of  nations ;  '  for  the  security  which 
is  thus  obtained,  be  it  recollected,  does  not  regard  a 
a  small  succession  of  princes,  but  the  whole  rights  and 
interests  of  social  man  :  since  the  contests  for  the 
rights  of  belligerent  rivals  do  not  respect  them.selves 
only,  but  very  often  spread  ruin  and  proscription 
j  amongst  all  orders  of  men.  The  principle  of  hered- 
tary  succession,  says  one  writer,  had  it  been  a  dis- 
\  covery  of  any  one  individual,  would  deserve  to  be 

I 


216 


THE  C^SARS. 


considered  as  the  very  greatest  ever  made;  and  he 
adds  acutely,  in  answer  to  the  obvious,  but  shallow 
objection  to  it  (viz.,  its  apparent  assumption  of  equal 
ability  for  reigning  in  father  and  son  for  ever),  that  it 
is  like  the  Copernican  system  of  the  heavenly  bodies, 
—  contradictory  to  our  sense  and  first  impressions,  but 
true  notwithstanding. 


THE  CiESAHS. 


217 


CHAPTER  VI. 


To  return,  however,  to  our  sketch  of  the  Caesars. 
At  the  head  of  the  third  series  we  place  Decius.  He 
came  to  the  throne  at  a  moment  of  great  public  embar- 
rassment. The  Goths  were  now  beginning  to  press 
southwards  upon  the  empire.  Dacia  they  had  ravaged 
for  some  time ;  '  and  here,'  says  a  German  writer, 
'  observe  the  short-sightedness  of  the  Emperor  Trajan. 
Had  he  left  the  Dacians  in  possession  of  their  indepen- 
dence, they  would,  under  their  native  kings,  have 
made  head  against  the  Goths.  But,  being  compelled 
to  assume  the  character  of  Roman  citizens,  they  had 
lost  their  warlike  qualities.'  From  Dacia  the  Goths 
had  descended  upon  Moesia  ;  and,  passing  the  Danube, 
they  laid  siege  to  Marcianopolis,  a  city  built  by  Trajan 
in  honor  of  his  sister.  The  inhabitants  paid  a  heavy 
ransom  for  their  town ;  and  the  Goths  were  persuaded 
for  the  present  to  return  home.  But  sooner  than  was 
expected,  they  returned  to  Mcesia,  under  their  king, 
Kniva  ;  and  they  were  already  engaged  in  the  siege  of 
Nicopolis,  when  Decius  came  in  sight  at  the  head  of 
the  Roman  army.  The  Goths  retired,  but  it  was  to 
Thrace  ;  and,  in  the  conquest  of  Philippopolis,  they 
found  an  ample  indemnity  for  their  forced  retreat  and 


218 


THE  CJESARS. 


disappointment.  Decius  pursued,  but  the  king  of  the 
Goths  turned  suddenly  upon  him  ;  the  emperor  was 
obliged  to  fly  ;  the  Roman  camp  was  plundered  ; 
Philippopolis  was  taken  by  storm  ;  and  its  whole 
population,  reputed  at  more  than  a  hundred  thousand 
souls,  destroyed. 

Such  was  the  first  great  irruption  of  the  barbarians 
into  the  Roman  territory  :  and  panic  was  diffused  on 
the  wings  of  the  wind  over  the  whole  empire. .  Pecius, 
however,  was  firm,  and  made  prodigious  eff'orts  to 
restore  the  balance  of  power  to  its  ancient  condition. 
For  the  moment  he  had  some  partial  successes.  He 
cut  off  several  detachments  of  Goths,  on  their  road  to 
reinforce  the  enemy  ;  and  he  strengthened  the  for- 
tresses and  garrisons  of  the  Danube.  But  his  last 
success  was  the  means  of  his  total  ruin.  He  came  up 
with  the  Goths  at  Forum  Terebronii,  and,  having  sur- 
rounded their  position,  their  destruction  seemed  inevi- 
table. A  great  battle  ensued,  and  a  mighty  victory  to 
the  Goths.  Nothing  is  now  known  of  the  circum- 
stances, except  that  the  third  line  of  the  Romans  was 
entangled  inextricably  in  a  morass  (as  had  happened 
in  the  Persian  expedition  of  Alexander).  Decius 
perished  on  this  occasion  —  nor  was  it  possible  to  find 
his  dead  body.  This  great  defeat  naturally  raised  the 
authority  of  the  senate,  in  the  same  proportion  as  it 
depressed  that  of  the  army  ;  and  by  the  will  of  that 
body,  Hostilianus,  a  son  of  Decius,  was  raised  to  tho 


THE  C^SARS. 


219 


empire  ;  and  ostensibly  on  account  of  his  youth,  but 
I'eally  with  a  view  to  their  standing  policy  of  restoring 
the  consulate,  and  the  whole  machinery  of  the  republic, 
Gallus,  an  experienced  commander,  was  associated  in 
the  empire.  But  no  skill  or  experience  could  avail  to 
retrieve  the  sinking  power  of  Rome  upon  the  Illyrian 
frontier.  The  Roman  army  was  disorganized,  panic- 
stricken,  reduced  to  skeleton  battalions.  Without  an 
army,  what  could  be  done  ?  And  thus  it  may  really 
have  been  no  blame  to  Gallus,  that  he  made  a  treaty 
with  the  Goths  more  degrading  than  any  previous  act 
in  the  long  annals  of  Rome.  By  the  terms  of  this 
infamous  bargain,  they  were  allowed  to  carry  off  an 
immense  booty,  amongst  which  was  a  long  roll  of 
distinguished  prisoners  ;  and  Caesar  himself  it  was  — 
not  any  lieutenant  or  agent  that  might  have  been  after- 
wards disavowed  —  who  volunteered  to  purchase  their 
future  absence  by  an  annual  tribute.  The  very  army 
which  had  brought  their  emperor  into  the  necessity  of 
submitting  to  such  abject  concessions,  were  the  first  to 
be  offended  with  this  natural  result  of  their  own  failures. 
Gallus  was  already  ruined  in  public  opinion,  when  fur- 
ther accumulations  arose  to  his  disgrace.  It  was  now 
supposed  to  have  been  discovered,  that  the  late  dread- 
ful defeat  of  Forum  Terebronii  was  due  to  his  bad 
advice  ;  and,  as  the  young  Hostilianus  happened  to  die 
ftbout  this  time  of  a  contagious  disorder,  Gallus  wa^ 
charged  with  his  murder.    Even  a  ray  of  prosperity, 


220 


THE  C^SAHS. 


which  just  now  gleamed  upon  the  Homan  arms,  aggra- 
vated the  disgrace  of  Gallus,  and  was  instantly  made 
the  handle  of  his  ruin,  ^milianus,  the  governor  of 
Moesia  and  Pannonia,  inflicted  some  check  or  defeat 
upon  the  Goths  ;  and  in  the  enthusiasm  of  sudden 
pride,  upon  an  occasion  which  contrasted  so  advan- 
tageously for  himself  with  the  military  conduct  of 
Decius  and  Gallus,  the  soldiers  of  his  own  legion  raiised 
u^Emilianus  to  the  purple.  No  time  was  to  be  lost. 
Summoned  by  the  troops,  ^milianus  marched  into 
Italy  ;  and  no  sooner  had  he  made  his  appearance 
there,  than  the  praetorian  guards  murdered  the  Emperor 
Gallus  and  his  son  Volusianus,  by  way  of  confirming 
the  election  of  ^milianus.  The  new  emperor  offered 
to  secure  the  frontiers,  both  in  the  east  and  on  the 
Danube,  from  the  incursions  of  the  barbarians.  This 
offer  may  be  regarded  as  thrown  out  for  the  conciliation 
of  all  classes  in  the  empire.  But  to  the  senate  in  par- 
ticular he  addressed  a  message,  which  forcibly  illus- 
trates the  political  position  of  that  body  in  those  times, 
^milianus  proposed  to  resign  the  whole  civil  adminis- 
tration into  the  hands  of  the  senate^  reserving  to  himself 
the  only  unenviable  burthen  of  the  military  interests. 
His  hope  was,  that  in  this  way  making  himself  in  part 
the  creation  of  the  senate,  he  might  strengthen  his  title 
against  competitors  at  Rome,  whilst  the  entire  military 
administration  going  on  under  his  own  eyes,  exclusively 
direct<=»d  to  that  one  object,  would  give  him  some  chance 


THE  CJESAHS. 


221 


defeating  the  hasty  and  tumultuary  competitions  so 
apt  to  arise  amongst  the  legions  upon  the  frontier.  We 
notice  the  transaction  chiefly  as  indicating  the  anoma- 
lous situation  of  the  senate.  Without  power  in  a 
proper  sense,  or  no  more,  however,  than  the  indirect 
power  of  wealth,  that  ancient  body  retained  an  immense 
auctoritas  —  that  is,  an  influence  built  upon  ancient 
reputation,  which,  in  their  case,  had  the  strength  of  a 
religious  superstition  in  all  Italian  minds.  This  influ- 
ence the  senators  exerted  with  efl^ect,  whenever  the 
course  of  events  had  happened  to  reduce  the  power  of 
the  army.  And  never  did  they  make  a  more  continu- 
ous and  sustained  efl"ort  for  retrieving  their  ancient 
power  and  place,  together  with  the  whole  system  of 
the  republic,  than  during  the  period  at  which  we  are 
now  arrived.  From  the  time  of  Maximin,  in  fact,  to 
the  accession  of  Aurelian,  the  senate  perpetually  inter- 
posed their  credit  and  authority,  like  some  Deus  ex 
macliina  in  the  dramatic  art.  And  if  this  one  fact  were 
all  that  had  survived  of  the  public  annals  at  this  period, 
we  might  suflSciently  collect  the  situation  of  the  two 
other  parties  in  the  empire  —  the  army  and  the  impe- 
rator ;  the  weakness  and  precarious  tenure  of  the  one, 
and  the  anarchy  of  the  other.  And  hence  it  is  that 
we  can  explain  the  hatred  borne  to  the  senate  by 
rigorous  emperors,  such  as  Aurelian,  succeeding  to  a 
long  course  of  weak  and  troubled  reigns.  Such  an 
'emperor  presumed  in  the  senate,  and  not  without 


222 


THE  C^SARS. 


reason,  the  same  spirit  jf  domineering  interference  as 
ready  to  manifest  itself,  upon  any  opportunity  offered, 
against  himself,  which,  in  his  earlier  days,  he  had 
witnessed  so  repeatedly  in  successful  operation  upon 
the  fates  and  prospects  of  others. 

The  situation  indeed  of  the  world  —  that  is  to  say,  of 
that  great  centre  of  civilization,  which,  running  round 
the  Mediterranean  in  one  continuous  belt  of  great 
breadth,  still  composed  the  Roman  Empire,  was  at  this 
time  most  profoundly  interesting.  The  crisis  had 
Arrived.  In  the  East,  a  new  dynasty  (the  Sassanides) 
had  remoulded  ancient  elements  into  a  new  form,  and 
breathed  a  new  life  into  an  empire,  which  else  was 
gradually  becoming  crazy  of  age,  and  which,  at  any 
rate,  by  losing  its  unity,  must  have  lost  its  vigor  as  an 
offensive  power.  Parthia  was  languishing  and  droop- 
ing as  an  anti-Roman  state,  when  the  last  of  the  Arsa- 
cidae  expired.  A  perfect  Palingenesis  was  wrought 
by  the  restorer  of  the  Persian  empire,  which  pretty 
nearly  re-occupied  (and  gloried  in  re-occupying)  the 
rery  area  that  had  once  composed  the  empire  of  Cyrus. 
Even  this  Palingenesis  might  have  terminated  in  a 
divided  empire :  vigor  might  have  been  restored,  but 
in  the  shape  of  a  polyarchy  (such  as  the  Saxons  estab- 
lished in  England),  rather  than  a  monarchy ;  and  in 
reality,  at  one  moment  that  appeared  to  be  a  probable 
event.  Now,  had  this  been  the  course  of  the  revolu- 
tion, an  alliance  with  one  of  these  kingdoms  would 


THE  CiESARS. 


nave  tended  to  balance  the  hostility  of  another  (as  was 
in  fact  the  case  when  Alexander  Severus  saved  himself 
from  the  Persian  power  by  a  momentary  alliance  with 
Armenia).  But  all  the  elements  of  disorder  had  in 
that  quarter  re- combined  themselves  into  severe  unity  : 
and  thus  was  Rome,  upon  her  eastern  frontier,  laid 
open  to  a  new  power  of  juvenile  activity  and  vigor, 
just  at  the  period  when  the  languor  of  the  decaying 
Parthian  had  allowed  the  Roman  discipline  to  fail  into 
a  corresponding  declension.  Such  was  the  condition  of 
Rome  upon  her  oriental  frontier.^*  On  the  northern, 
it  was  much  worse.  Precisely  at  the  crisis  of  a  great 
revolution  in  Asia,  which  demanded  in  that  quarter 
more  than  the  total  strength  of  the  empire,  and  threat- 
ened to  demand  it  for  ages  to  come,  did  the  Goths, 
under  their  earliest  denomination  of  GetcE^  with  many 
other  associate  tribes,  begin  to  push  with  their  horns 
against  the  northern  gates  of  the  empire ;  the  whole 
line  of  the  Danube,  and,  pretty  nearly  about  the 
same  time,  of  the  Rhine,  (upon  which  the  tribes 
from  Swabia,  Bavaria,  and  Franconia,  were  beginning 
10  descend,)  now  became  insecure ;  and  these  two 
rivers  ceased  in  effect  to  be  the  barriers  of  Rome. 
Taking  a  middle  point  of  time  between  the  Parthian 
revolution  and  the  fatal  overthrow  of  Forum  Tere- 
bronii,  we  may  fix  upon  the  reign  of  Philip  the  Arab 
[who  naturalized  himself  in  Rome  by  the  appellation 
Marcus  Julius]  as  the  epoch  from  which  the  Roman 


I 


224 


THE  CJESARS. 


empire,  already  sapped  and  undermined  by  changes 
from  within,  began  to  give  way,  and  to  dilapidate  from 
without.  And  this  reign  dates  itself  in  the  series  by 
those  ever-memorable  secular  or  jubilee  games,  which 
celebrated  the  completion  of  the  thousandth  year  from 
the  foundation  of  Rome.*^^ 

Resuming  our  sketch  of  the  Imperial  history,  we 
may  remark  the  natural  embarrassment  which  must 
have  possessed  the  senate,  when  two  candidates  for 
the  purple  were  equally  earnest  in  appealing  to  tliem^ 
and  their  deliberate  choice,  as  the  best  foundation  for 
a  valid  election.  Scarcely  had  the  ground  been  cleared 
for  ^milianus  by  the  murder  of  Gallus  and  his  son, 
when  Valerian,  a  Roman  senator,  of  such  eminent 
merit,  and  confessedly  so  much  the  foremost  noble  in 
all  the  qualities  essential  to  the  very  delicate  and  com- 
prehensive functions  of  a  Censor,^^  that  Decius  had 
revived  that  office  expressly  in  his  behalf,  entered  Italy 
at  the  head  of  the  army  from  Gaul.  He  had  been 
summoned  to  his  aid  by  the  late  emperor,  Gallus ;  but 
arriving  too  late  for  his  support,  he  determined  to 
avenge  him.  Both  ^mili anus  and  Valerian  recognized 
the  authority  of  the  senate,  and  professed  to  act  under 
that  sanction ;  but  it  was  the  soldiery  who  cut  the  knot, 
as  usual,  by  the  sword,  ^milianus  was  encamped  at 
Spoleto ;  but  as  the  enemy  drew  near,  his  soldiers, 
shrinking  no  doubt  from  a  contest  with  veteran  troops, 
\nade  their  peace  by  murdering  the  new  emperor,  and 


THE  CiESARS. 


225 


X'alerian  was  elected  in  his  stead.  The  prince  was 
ah'eady  an  old  man  at  the  time  of  his  election  ;  but  he 
lived  long  enough  to  look  back  upon  the  day  of  his 
inauguration  as  the  blackest  in  his  life.  Memorable 
were  the  calamities  which  fell  upon  himself,  and  upon 
the  empire,  during  his  reign.  He  began  by  associating 
to  himself  his  son  Gallienus ;  partly,  perhaps,  for  his 
own  relief,  party  to  indulge  the  senate  in  their  steady 
plan  of  dividing  the  imperial  authority.  The  two 
emperors  undertook  the  military  defence  of  the  empire, 
Gallienus  proceeding  to  the  German  frontier.  Valerian 
to  the  eastern.  Under  Gallienus,  the  Franks  began 
first  to  make  themselves  heard  of.  Breaking  into  Gaul, 
they  passed  through  that  country  and  Spain  ;  captured 
Tarragona  in  their  route ;  crossed  over  to  Africa,  and 
conquered  Mauritania.  At  the  same  time,  the  Ale- 
manni,  who  had  been  in  motion  since  the  time  of  Cara- 
calla,  broke  into  Lombardy,  across  the  Rhsetian  Alps. 
The  senate,  left  without  aid  from  either  emperors,  were 
obliged  to  make  preparations  for  the  common  defence 
against  this  host  of  barbarians.  Luckily,  the  very 
magnitude  of  the  enemy's  success,  by  overloading  him 
with  booty,  made  it  his  interest  to  retire  without  fight- 
ing ;  and  the  degraded  senate,  hanging  upon  the  traces 
of  their  retiring  footsteps,  without  fighting,  or  daring 
to  fight,  claimed  the  honors  of  a  victory.  Even  then, 
however,  they  did  more  than  was  agreeable  to  the 

jealousies  of  Gallienus,  who,  by  an  edict,  publicly 
15 


£26 


THE  CJESAES. 


rebuked  their  presumption,  and  forbade  them  in  future 
to  appear  amongst  the  legions,  or  to  exercise  an} 
military  functions.  He  himself,  meanwhile,  could 
devise  no  better  way  of  providing  for  the  public  se- 
curity, than  by  marrying  the  daughter  of  his  chief 
enemy,  the  king  of  the  Marcomanni.  On  this  side  of 
Europe,  the  barbarians  were  thus  quieted  for  the  pres- 
ent ;  but  the  Goths  of  the  Ukraine,  in  three  marauding 
expeditions  of  unprecedented  violence,  ravaged  the 
wealthy  regions  of  Asia  Minor,  as  well  as  the  islands 
of  the  Archipelago  :  and  at  length,  under  the  guidance 
of  deserters,  landed  in  the  port  of  the  Pyraeus.  Ad- 
vancing from  this  point,  after  sacking  Athens  and  the 
chief  cities  of  Greece,  they  marched  upon  Epirus,  and 
began  to  threaten  Italy.  But  the  defection  at  this  crisis 
of  a  conspicuous  chieftain,  and  the  burden  of  their 
booty,  made  these  wild  marauders  anxious  to  provide 
for  a  safe  retreat ;  the  imperial  commanders  in  Moesia 
listened  eagerly  to  their  offers  :  and  it  set  the  seal  to 
the  dishonors  of  the  State,  that,  after  having  traversed 
so  vast  a  range  of  territory  almost  without  resistance, 
these  blood-stained  brigands  were  now  suffered  to  re- 
tire under  the  very  guardianship  of  those  whom  they 
had  just  visited  with  military  execution. 

Such  were  the  terms  upon  which  the  Emperor 
Gallienus  purchased  a  brief  respite  from  his  haughty 
enemies.  For  the  moment,  however,  he  did  enjoy 
security     Far  otherwise  was  the  destiny  of  his  un* 


THE  CjESARS. 


227 


happy  father.  Sapor  now  ruled  in  Persia  ;  the  throne 
of  Armenia  had  vainly  striven  to  maintain  its  inde* 
pendencj  against  his  armies,  and  the  daggers  of  his 
hired  assassins.  This  revolution,  which  so  much  en 
feebled  the  Roman  means  of  war,  exactly  in  that 
proportion  increased  the  necessity  for  it.  War,  and 
that  instantly,  seemed  to  offer  the  only  chance  for 
maintaining  the  Roman  name  or  existence  in  Asia. 
Carrhse  and  Nisibis,  the  two  potent  fortresses  in  Meso- 
potamia, had  fallen  ;  and  the  Persian  arms  were  now 
triumphant  on  both  banks  of  the  Euphrates.  Valerian 
was  not  of  a  character  to  look  with  indifference  upon 
such  a  scene,  terminated  by  such  a  prospect ;  prudence 
and  temerity,  fear  and  confidence,  all  spoke  a  common 
language  in  this  great  emergency  ;  and  Valerian 
marched  towards  the  Euphrates  with  a  fixed  purpose 
of  driving  the  enemy  beyond  that  river.  By  whose 
mismanagement  the  records  of  history  do  not  enable 
us  to  say,  some  think  of  Macrianus,  the  praetorian 
prefect,  some  of  Valerian  himself,  but  doubtless  by  the 
j  treachery  of  guides  co-operating  with  errors  in  the 
general,  the  Roman  army  was  entangled  in  marshy 
grounds  ;  partial  actions  followed  and  skirmishes  of 
cavalry,  in  which  the  Romans  became  direfully  aware 
of  their  situation  ;  retreat  was  cut  off,  to  advance  was 
j|  impossible  ;  and  to  fight  was  now  found  to  be  without 
"  hope.  In  these  circumstances,  they  offered  to  capitu- 
late    But  the  haughty  Sapor  would  hear  of  nothing 


228 


THE  C^SARS. 


but  unconditional  surrender ;  and  to  that  course  the 
unhappy  emperor  submitted.  Various  traditions  ^ 
have  been  preserved  by  history  concerning  the  fate  of 
Valerian ;  all  agree  that  he  died  in  misery  and  captiv- 
ity ;  but  some  have  circumstantiated  this  general  state- 
ment by  features  of  excessive  misery  and  degradation, 
which  possibly  were  added  afterwards  by  scenical  ro- 
mancers, in  order  to  heighten  the  interest  of  the  tale,  or 
by  ethical  writers,  in  order  to  point  and  strengthen  the 
moral.  Gallienus  now  ruled  alone,  except  as  regarded 
the  restless  efforts  of  insurgents,  thirty  of  whom  are 
said  to  have  arisen  in  his  single  reign.  This,  however, 
is  probably  an  exaggeration.  Nineteen  such  rebels 
are  mentioned  by  name  :  of  whom  the  chief  were  Cal- 
purnius  Piso,  a  Roman  senator  ;  Tetricus,  a  man  of 
rank  who  claimed  a  descent  from  Pompey,  Crassus, 
and  even  from  Numa  Pompilius,  and  maintained  him- 
self some  time  in  Gaul  and  Spain  ;  Trebellianus,  who 
founded  a  republic  of  robbers  in  Isauria  which  survived 
himself  by  centuries  ;  and  Odenathus,  the  Syrian^ 
Others  were  mere  Terrce  Jilii,  or  adventurers,  who 
flourished  and  decayed  in  a  few  days  or  weeks,  of 
whom  the  most  remarkable  was  a  working  armorer 
named  Marius.  Not  one  of  the  whole  number  event- 
ually prospered,  except  Odenathus  ;  and  he,  though 
originally  a  rebel,  yet,  in  consideration  of  services 
performed  against  Persia,  was  suffered  to  retain  his 
power,  and  to  transmit  his  kingdom  of  Palmyra^  to  his 


THE  C^SAHS. 


229 


widow  Zenobia.  He  was  even  complimented  with  ttie 
title  of  Augustus.  All  the  rest  perished.  Their  rise, 
however,  and  local  prosperity  at  so  many  different 
points  of  the  empire,  showed  the  distracted  condition 
of  the  State,  and  its  internal  weakness.  That  again 
proclaimed  its  external  peril.  No  other  cause  had 
called  forth  this  diffusive  spirit  of  insurrection  than 
the  general  consciousness,  so  fatally  warranted,  of  the 
debility  which  had  emasculated  the  government,  and 
its  incompetency  to  deal  vigorously  with  the  public 
enemies.^^  The  very  granaries  of  Rome,  Sicily  and 
Egypt,  were  the  seats  of  continued  distractions ;  in 
Alexandria,  the  second  city  of  the  empire,  there  was 
even  a  civil  war  which  lasted  for  twelve  years.  Weak- 
ness,  dissension  and  misery,  were  spread  like  a  cloud 
over  the  whole  face  of  the  empire. 

The  last  of  the  rebels  who  directed  his  rebellion 
personally  against  Gallienus  was  Aureolus.  Passing 
the  Rheetian  Alps,  this  leader  sought  out  and  defied  the 
emperor.  He  was  defeated,  and  retreated  upon  Milan ; 
but  Gallienus,  in  pursuing  him,  was  lured  into  an  am- 
buscade, and  perished  from  the  wound  inflicted  by  an 
archer.  With  his  dying  breath  he  is  said  to  have 
recommended  Claudius  to  the  favor  of  the  senate  ;  and 
at  all  events  Claudius  it  was  who  succeeded.  Scarcely 
was  the  new  emperor  installed,  before  he  was  sum- 
moned to  a  trial  not  only  arduous  in  itself,  but  terrific 
by  the  very  name  of  the  enemy.    The  Goths  of  the 


230 


THE  CMSA-US. 


Ukraine,  in  a  new  armament  of  six  thousand  vessels, 
had  again  descended  by  the  Bosphorus  into  the  south, 
and  had  sat  down  before  Thessalonica,  the  capital  of 
Macedonia.  Claudius  marched  against  them  with  the 
determination  to  vindicate  the  Roman  name  and  honor : 
'Know/  said  he,  writing  to  tlie  senate,  '  that  320,000 
Goths  have  set  foot  upon  the  Roman  soil.  Should  I 
conquer  them,  your  gratitude  wdll  be  my  reward. 
Should  I  fall,  do  not  forget  who  it  is  that  I  have  suc- 
ceeded ;  and  that  the  republic  is  exhausted.'  No  sooner 
did  the  Goths  hear  of  his  approach,  than,  with  trans- 
ports of  ferocious  joy,  they  gave  up  the  siege,  and 
hurried  to  annihilate  the  last  pillar  of  the  empire.  The 
mighty  battle  which  ensued,  neither  party  seeking  to 
evade  it,  took  place  at  Naissas.  At  one  time  the 
legions  were  giving  way,  when  suddenly,  by  some 
happy  manoeuvre  of  the  emperor,  a  Roman  corps  found 
its  way  to  the  rear  of  the  enemy.  The  Goths  gave 
way,  and  their  defeat  was  total.  According  to  most 
accounts  they  left  50,000  dead  upon  the  field.  The 
campaign  still  lingered,  however,  at  other  points,  until 
at  last  the  emperor  succeeded  in  driving  back  the  relics 
of  the  Gothic  host  into  the  fastnesses  of  the  Balkan  ; 
and  there  the  greater  part  of  them  died  of  hunger  and 
pestilence.  These  great  services  performed,  within 
two  years  from  his  accession  to  the  throne,  by  the 
r&rest  of  fates,  the  Emperor  Claudius  died  in  his  bed 
\t  Sirmium,  the  capital  of  Pannonia.    His  brother 


THE  C^SARS. 


231 


Quiutilius,  wlio  had  a  great  command  at  Aquileia,  im- 
mediately resumed  the  purple  ;  but  his  usurpation  lasted 
only  seventeen  days,  for  the  last  emperor,  with  a  single 
eye  to  the  public  good,  had  recommended  Aurelian  as 
his  successor,  guided  by  his  personal  knowledge  of  that 
general's  strategic  qualities.  The  army  of  the  Danube 
confirmed  the  appointment ;  and  Quintilius  committed 
suicide.  Aurelian  was  of  the  same  harsh  and  forbid- 
ding character  as  the  Emperor  Severus :  he  had,  how- 
ever, the  qualities  demanded  by  the  times  ;  energetic 
and  not  amiable  princes  were  required  by  the  exi- 
gencies of  the  state.  The  hydra-headed  Goths  were 
again  in  the  field  on  the  lUyrian  quarter  :  Italy  itself 
was  invaded  by  the  Alemanni ;  and  Tetricus,  the  rebel, 
still  survived  as  a  monument  of  the  weakness  of  Gal- 
lienus.  All  these  enemies  were  speedily  repressed, 
or  vanquished,  by  Aurelian.  But  it  marks  the  real 
declension  of  the  empire,  a  declension  which  no  per- 
sonal vigor  in  the  emperor  was  now  Bufficient  to  dis- 
guise, that,  even  in  the  midst  of  victory,  Aurelian 
found  it  necessary  to  make  a  formal  surrender,  by 
treaty,  of  that  Dacia  which  Trajan  had  united  with  so 
much  ostentation  to  the  empire.  Europe  was  now 
again  in  repose  ;  and  Aurelian  found  himself  at  liberty 
to  apply  his  powers  as  a  re-organizer  and  restorer  to 
the  East.  In  that  quarter  of  the  world  a  marvellous 
revolution  had  occurred.  The  little  oasis  of  Palmyra, 
from  a  Roman  colony,  had  grown  into  the  leading 


232 


THE  CjESARS. 


province  of  a  great  empire.  This  island  of  the  desert, 
together  with  Syria  and  Egypt,  formed  an  independent 
monarchy  under  the  sceptre  of  Zenobia/^  After  two 
battles  lost  in  Syria,  Zenobia  retreated  to  Palmyra. 
With  great  difficulty  Aurelian  pursued  her  ;  and  with 
still  greater  difficulty  he  pressed  the  siege  of  Palmyra. 
Zenobia  looked  for  relief  from  Persia;  but  at  that 
moment  Sapor  died,  and  the  Queen  of  Palmyra  fled 
upon  a  dromedary,  but  was  pursued  and  captured. 
Palmyra  surrendered  and  was  spared ;  but  unfortu- 
nately, with  a  folly  w^hich  marks  the  haughty  spirit  of 
the  place  unfitted  to  brook  submission,  scarcely  had 
the  conquering  army  retired  when  a  tumult  arose,  and 
the  Roman  garrison  was  slaughtered.  Little  knowledge 
could  those  have  had  of  Aurelian's  character,  w^ho 
tempted  him  to  acts  but  too  welcome  to  his  cruel 
nature  by  such  an  outrage  as  this.  The  news  over- 
took the  emperor  on  the  Hellespont.  Instantly,  without 
pause,  '  like  Ate  hot  from  hell,'  Aurelian  retraced 
his  steps  —  reached  the  guilty  city  —  and  consigned  it, 
with  all  its  population,  to  that  utter  destruction  from 
which  it  has  never  since  risen.  The  energetic  admin- 
istration of  Aurelian  had  now  restored  the  empire  — 
not  to  its  lost  vigor,  that  was  impossible  —  but  to  a 
condition  of  repose.  That  was  a  condition  more  agree- 
able to  the  empire  than  to  the  emperor.  Peace  was 
Vateful  to  Aurelian ;  and  he  sought  for  war,  where  it 
Dould  seldom  be  sought  in  vain,  upon  the  Persian 


THE  CiESARS. 


238 


frontier.  But  he  was  not  destined  to  reach  the  Eu- 
phrates ;  and  it  is  worthy  of  notice,  as  a  providential 
ordinance,  that  his  own  unmerciful  nature  was  the 
ultimate  cause  of  his  fate.  Anticipating  the  emperor's 
severity  in  punishing  some  errors  of  his  own,  Mucassor, 
a  general  officer,  in  whom  Aurelian  placed  especial 
confidence,  assassinated  him  between  Byzantium  and 
Heraclea.  An  interregnum  of  eight  months  succeeded, 
during  which  there  occurred  a  contest  of  a  memorable 
nature.  Some  historians  have  described  it  as  strange 
and  surprising.  To  us,  on  the  contrary,  it  seems  that 
no  contest  could  be  more  natural.  Heretofore  the 
great  strife  had  been  in  what  way  to  secure  the  re- 
version or  possession  of  that  great  dignity  ;  whereas 
now  the  rivalship  lay  in  declining  it.  But  surely  such 
a  competition  had  in  it,  under  the  circumstances  of 
the  empire,  little  that  can  justly  surprise  us.  Always 
a  post  of  danger,  and  so  regularly  closed  by  assassina- 
tion, that  in  a  course  of  two  centuries  there  are  hardly 
to  be  found  three  or  four  cases  of  exception,  the  im- 
peratorial  dignity  had  now  become  burdened  with 
a  public  responsibility  which  exacted  great  military 
talents,  and  imposed  a  perpetual  and  personal  activity. 
Formerly,  if  the  emperor  knew  himself  to  be  sur- 
rounded with  assassins,  he  might  at  least  make  his 
throne,  so  long  as  he  enjoyed  it,  the  couch  of  a 
'  voluptuary.  The  '  ave  imperaior ! '  was  then  the 
[   summons,  if  to  the  supremacy  in  passive  danger,  so 

\ 


234 


THE  Ujii^SARS. 


also  to  the  supremacy  in  poAver,  and  honor,  and 
enjo]  ment.  But  now  it  was  a  summons  to  never- 
ending  tumults  and  alarms  ;  an  injunction  to  that  sort 
of  vigilance  without  intermission,  whi,ch,  even  from 
the  poor  sentinel,  is  exacted  only  when  on  duty.  Not 
Rome,  but  the  frontier;  not  the  aurea  domus,  but  a 
camp,  was  the  imperial  residence.  Power  and  rank, 
whilst  in  that  residence,  could  be  had  in  no  larger 
measure  by  Caesar  as  Caesar,  than  by  the  same  indi- 
vidual as  a  military  commander-in-chief ;  and,  as  to 
enjoyment,  that  for  the  Roman  imperator  was  now 
extinct.  Rest  there  could  be  none  for  him.  Battle 
was  the  tenure  by  which  he  held  his  office ;  and  be- 
yond the  range  of  his  trumpet's  blare,  his  sceptre  was 
%  broken  reed.  The  office  of  Caesar  at  this  tinie  re- 
sembled the  situation  (as  it  is  sometimes  described  in 
romances)  of  a  knight  who  had  achieved  the  favor  of 
some  capricious  lady,  with  the  present  possession  of 
her  castle  and  ample  domains,  but  which  he  holds 
under  the  known  and  accepted  condition  of  meeting 
all  challenges  whatsoever  offered  at  the  gate  by  wan- 
dering strangers,  and  also  of  jousting  at  any  moment 
with  each  and  all  amongst  the  inmates  of  the  castle, 
as  often  as  a  wish  may  arise  to  benefit  by  the  chances 
in  disputing  his  supremacy. 

It  is  a  circumstance,  moreover,  to  be  noticed  in  the 
aspect  of  the  Roman  monarchy  at  this  period,  that  the 
pressure  of  the  evils  we  are  now  considering,  applied 


THE  CJESARS. 


235 


to  this  particular  age  of  the  empire  beyond  all  others, 
as  being  an  age  of  transition  from  a  greater  to  an 
inferior  power.  Had  the  power  been  either  greater  or 
conspicuously  less,  in  that  proportion  would  the  pres- 
sure have  been  easier,  or  none  at  all.  Being  greater, 
for  example,  the  danger  would  have  been  repelled  to 
a  distance  so  great  that  mere  remoteness  would  have 
disarmed  its  terrors,  or  otherwise  it  would  have  been 
violently  overawed.  Being  less,  on  the  other  hand, 
and  less  in  an  eminent  degree,  it  would  have  disposed 
all  parties,  as  it  did  at  an  after  period,  to  regular  and 
formal  compromises  in  the  shape  of  fixed  annual  trib- 
utes. At  present  the  policy  of  the  barbarians  along 
the  vast  line  of  the  northern  frontier,  was,  to  tease  and 
irritate  the  provinces  which  they  were  not  entirely 
able,  or  prudentially  unwilling,  to  dismember.  Yet,  as 
the  almost  annual  irruptions  were  at  every  instant 
ready  to  be  converted  into  coup- de-mains  upon  Aquileia 
—  upon  Verona  —  or  even  upon  Rome  itself,  unless 
vigorously  curbed  at  the  outset,  —  each  emperor  at  this 
period  found  himself  under  the  necessity  of  standing  in 
the  attitude  of  a  champion  or  propugnator  on  the  fron- 
tier line  of  his  territory  —  ready  for  all  comers  —  and 
with  a  pretty  certain  prospect  of  having  one  pitched 
battle  at  the  least  to  fight  in  every  successive  summer. 
There  were  nations  abroad  at  this  epoch  in  Europe 
who  did  not  migrate  occasionally,  or  occasionally  pro- 
ject themselves  upon  the  civilized  portion  of  the  globe, 


236 


THE  C^SARS. 


but  who  made  it  their  steady  regular  occupation  to  do 
so,  and  lived  for  no  other  purpose.  For  seven  hundred 
years  the  Roman  Republic  might  be  styled  a  republic 
militant ;  for  about  one  century  further  it  was  an 
empire  triumphant ;  and  now,  long  retrograde,  it  had. 
reached  that  point  at  which  again,  but  in  a  different 
sense,  it  might  be  styled  an  empire  militant.  Originally 
it  had  militated  for  glory  and  power ;  now  its  militancy 
was  for  mere  existence.  War  was  again  the  trade  of 
Rome,  as  it  had  been  once  before ;  but  in  that  earlier 
period  war  had  been  its  highest  glory  ;  now  it  was  its 
dire  necessity. 

Under  this  analysis  of  the  Roman  condition,  need  we 
wonder,  with  the  crowd  of  unreflecting  historians,  that 
the  senate,  at  the  era  of  Aurelian's  death,  should  dis- 
pute amongst  each  other  —  not  as  once,  for  the  pos- 
session of  the  sacred  purple,  but  for  the  luxury  and 
safety  of  declining  it?  The  sad  pre-eminence  was 
finally  imposed  upon  Tacitus,  a  senator  who  traced 
his  descent  from  the  historian  of  that  name,  who  had 
reached  an  age  of  seventy-five  years,  and  who  pos- 
sessed a  fortune  of  three  millions  sterling.^^  Vainly  did 
the  agitated  old  senator  open  his  lips  to  decline  the 
perilous  honor ;  five  hundred  voices  insisted  upon  the 
necessity  of  his  compliance  ;  and  thus,  as  a  foreign 
writer  observes,  was  the  descendant  of  him,  whose 
glory  it  had  been  to  signalize  himself  as  the  hater  of 
despotism,  under  the  absolute  necessity  of  becoming, 
VQ  his  own  person,  a  despot. 


THE  C-aiSAKS. 


237 


The  aged  senator  then  was  compelled  to  be  emperor, 
and  forced,  in  spite  of  his  vehement  reluctance,  to  quit 
the  comforts  of  a  palace,  which  he  was  never  to  revisit, 
for  the  hardships  of  a  distant  camp.  His  first  act  was 
gtrikingly  illustrative  of  the  Roman  condition,  as  we 
have  just  described  it.  Aurelian  had  attempted  to 
disarm  one  set  of  enemies  by  turning  the  current  of 
their  fury  upon  another.  The  Alani  were  in  search 
of  plunder,  and  strongly  disposed  to  obtain  it  from 
Roman  provinces.  '  But  no,'  said  Aurelian  ;  '  if  you 
do  that  I  shall  unchain  my  legions  upon  you.  Be 
better  advised  :  keep  those  excellent  dispositions  of 
mind,  and  that  admirable  taste  for  plunder,  until  you 
come  whither  I  will  conduct  you.  Then  discharge 
your  fury  and  welcome  ;  besides  which,  I  will  pay 
you  wages  for  your  immediate  abstinence  ;  and  on  the 
other  side  the  Euphrates  you  shall  pay  yourselves.' 
Such  was  the  outline  of  the  contract  ;  and  the  Alani 
had  accordingly  held  themselves  in  readiness  to  accom- 
pany Aurelian  from  Europe  to  his  meditated  Persian 
campaign.  Meantime,  that  emperor  had  perished  by 
treason  ;  and  the  Alani  were  still  waiting  for  his  suc- 
cessor on  the  throne  to  complete  his  engagements  with 
themselves,  as  being  of  necessity  the  successor  also 
to  his  wars  and  to  his  responsibilities.  It  happened, 
from  the  state  of  the  empire,  as  we  have  sketched  it 
above,  that  Tacitus  really  did  succeed  to  the  military 
plans  of  Aurelian.    The  Persian  expedition  was  or* 


238 


THE  C^SAES. 


dained  to  go  forward  ;  and  Tacitus  began,  as  a  pre- 
liminary step  in  that  expedition,  to  look  about  for  his 
good  allies  the  barbarians.  Where  might  they  be,  and 
how  employed  ?  Naturally,  they  had  long  been  weary 
of  waiting.  The  Persian  booty  might  be  good  aftei- 
its  kind ;  but  it  was  far  away  ;  and,  en  attendant. 
Roman  booty  was  doubtless  good  after  its  kind.  And 
so,  throughout  the  provinces  of  Cappadocia,  Pontus, 
&;c.,  as  far  as  the  eye  could  stretch,  nothing  was  to  be 
seen  but  cities  and  villages  in  flames.  The  Koman 
army  hungered  and  thirsted  to  be  unmuzzled  and 
slipped  upon  these  false  friends.  But  this,  for  the 
present,  Tacitus  would  not  allow.  He  began  by  punc- 
tually fulfilling  all  the  terms  of  Aurelian's  contract,  — 
a  measure  which  barbarians  inevitably  construed  into 
the  language  of  fear.  But  then  came  the  retribution. 
Having  satisfied  public  justice,  the  emperor  now 
thought  of  vengeance  ;  he  unchained  his  legions  :  a 
brief  space  of  time  sufficed  for  a  long  course  of  ven- 
geance :  and  through  every  outlet  of  Asia  Minor  the 
Alani  fled  from  the  wrath  of  the  Boman  soldier.  Here, 
however,  terminated  the  military  labors  of  Tacitus  : 
he  died  at  Tyana  in  Cappadocia,  as  some  say,  from 
che  effects  of  the  climate  of  the  Caucasus,  co-operating 
with  irritations  from  the  insolence  of  the  soldiery  :  but, 
as  Zosimus  and  Zonoras  expressly  assure  us,  under  the 
murderous  hands  of  his  own  troops.  His  brothel 
Florianus  at  first  usurped  the  purple,  by  the  aid  of  the 


THE  CJESAHS. 


239 


Illyrian  army  ;  but  the  choice  of  other  armies,  after- 
wards confirmed  by  the  senate,  settled  upon  Probus, 
a  general  already  celebrated  under  Aurelian.  The 
two  competitors  drew  near  to  each  other  for  the  usual 
decision  by  the  sword,  when  the  dastardly  supporters 
of  Florian  offered  up  their  chosen  prince  as  a  sacrifice 
to  his  antagonist.  Probus,  settled  in  his  seat,  addressed 
himself  to  the  regular  business  of  those  times,  —  to  the 
reduction  of  insurgent  provinces,  and  the  liberation 
of  others  from  hostile  molestations.  Isauria  and  Egypt 
he  visited  in  the  character  of  a  conqueror,  Gaul  in  the 
character  of  a  deliverer.  From  the  Gaulish  provinces 
he  chased  in  succession  the  Franks,  the  Burgundians, 
and  the  Lygians.  He  pursued  the  intruders  far  into 
their  German  thickets  ;  and  nine  of  the  native  German 
princes  came  spontaneously  into  his  camp,  subscribed 
such  conditions  as  he  thought  fit  to  dictate,  and  com- 
plied with  his  requisitions  of  tribute  in  horses  and  pro- 
visions. This,  however,  is  a  delusive  gleam  of  Roman 
energy,  little  corresponding  with  the  true  condition  of 
the  Roman  power,  and  entirely  due  to  the  personal 
qualities  of  Probus.  Probus  himself  showed  his  sense 
of  the  true  state  of  affairs,  by  carrying  a  stone  wall, 
of  considerable  height,  from  the  Danube  to  the  Neckar. 
He  made  various  attempts  also  to  effect  a  better  distri- 
bution cf  barbarous  tribes,  by  dislocating  their  settle- 
ments, and  making  extensive  translations  of  their  clans, 
according  to  the  circumstances  of  those  tinaes.  These 


240 


THE  C^SARS. 


arrangements,  however,  suggested  often  by  short- 
sighted  views,  and  carried  into  effect  by  mere  violence, 
were  sometimes  defeated  visibly  at  the  time,  and, 
doubtless,  in  very  few  cases  accomplished  the  ends 
proposed.  In  one  instance,  where  a  party  of  Franks 
had  been  transported  into  the  Asiatic  province  of  Pon- 
tus,  as  a  column  of  defence  against  the  intrusive  Alani, 
being  determined  to  revisit  their  own  country,  they 
swam  the  Hellespont,  landed  on  the  coasts  of  Asia 
Minor  and  of  Greece,  plundered  Syracuse,  steered  for 
the  Straits  of  Gibraltar,  sailed  along  the  shores  of  Spain 
and  Gaul,  passing  finally  through  the  English  Channel 
and  the  German  Ocean,  right  onwards  to  the  Frisic 
and  Batavian  coasts,  where  they  exultingly  rejoined 
their  exulting  friends.  Meantime,  all  the  energy  and 
military  skill  of  Probus  could  not  save  him  from  the 
competition  of  various  rivals.  Indeed,  it  must  then 
have  been  felt,  as  by  us  who  look  back  on  those  times 
it  is  now  felt,  that,  amidst  so  continued  a  series  of  ba:ief 
reigns,  interrupted  by  murders,  scarcely  an  idea 
could  arise  answering  to  our  modern  ideas  of  treason 
and  usurpation.  For  the  ideas  of  fealty  and  allegiance, 
as  to  a  sacred  and  anointed  monarch,  could  have  no 
time  tn  take  root.  Candidates  for  the  purple  must 
have  been  viewed  rather  as  military  rivals  than  as 
traitors  to  the  reigning  Caesar.  And  hence  the  reason 
for  the  right  resistance  which  was  often  experienced 
by  the  seducers  of  armies.    Probus,  however,  as  acci- 


THE  CJESAES. 


241 


dent  m  his  case  ordered  it,  subdued  all  his  personal 
opponents,  —  Saturninus  in  the  East,  Proculus  and 
Bonoses  in  Gaul.  For  these  victories  he  triumphed  in 
the  year  281.  But  his  last  hour  was  even  then  at 
hand.  One  point  of  his  military  discipline,  which  he 
brought  back  from  elder  days,  was,  to  suffer  no  idle- 
ness in  his  camps.  He  it  was  who,  by  military  labor, 
transferred  to  Gaul  and  to  Hungary  the  Italian  vine,  to 
the  great  indignation  of  the  Italian  monopolist.  The 
culture  of  vineyards,  the  laying  of  military  roads,  the 
draining  of  marshes,  and  similar  labors,  perpetually 
employed  the  hands  of  his  stubborn  and  contumacious 
troops.  On  some  work  of  this  nature  the  army  hap- 
pened to  be  employed  near  Sirmium,  and  Probus  was 
looking  on  from  a  tower,  when  a  sudden  frenzy  of 
disobedience  seized  upon  the  men :  a  party  of  the 
mutineers  ran  up  to  the  emperor,  and  with  a  hundred 
wounds  laid  him  instantly  dead.  We  are  told  by  some 
writers  that  the  army  was  immediately  seized  with  re- 
morse for  its  own  act ;  which,  if  truly  reported,  rather 
tends  to  confirm  the  image,  otherwise  impressed  upon  us 
of  the  relations  between  the  army  and  Caesar,  as  pretty 
closely  corresponding  with  those  between  some  fierce 
wild  beast  and  its  keeper ;  the  keeper,  if  not  uniformly 
ngilant  as  an  argus,  is  continually  liable  to  fall  a 
sacrifice  to  the  wild  instincts  of  the  brute,  mastering 
at  intervals  the  reverence  and  fear  under  which  it  has 
been  habitually  trained.  In  this  case,  both  the  murder* 
16 


THE  CJESARS* 


ing  impulse  and  the  remorse  seem  alike  the  effects  of 
a  brute  instinct,  and  to  have  arisen  under  no  guidance 
of  rational  purpose  or  reflection.  The  person  who 
profited  by  this  murder  was  Cams,  the  captain  of  the 
guard,  a  man  of  advanced  years,  and  a  soldier,  both 
by  experience  and  by  his  propensities.  He  was  pro- 
claimed emperor  by  the  army;  and  on  this  occasion 
there  was  no  further  reference  to  the  senate,  than  b}" 
a  dry  statement  of  the  facts  for  its  information.  Troub- 
ling himself  little  about  the  approbation  of  a  body 
not  likely  in  any  way  to  affect  his  purposes  (which 
were  purely  martial,  and  adapted  to  the  tumultuous 
state  of  the  empire),  Carus  made  immediate  prepara- 
tions for  pursuing  the  Persian  expedition,  —  so  long 
promised,  and  so  often  interrupted.  Having  provided 
for  the  security  of  the  Illyrian  frontier  by  a  bloody 
victory  over  the  Sarmatians,  of  whom  we  now  hear 
for  the  first  time,  Carus  advanced  towards  the  Eu- 
phrates ;  and  from  the  summit  of  a  mountain  he  point- 
ed the  eyes  of  his  eager  army  upon  the  rich  provinces 
of  the  Persian  empire.  Varanes,  the  successor  of 
Artaxerxes,  vainly  endeavored  to  negotiate  a  peace. 
From  some  unknown  cause,  the  Persian  armies  were 
not  at  this  juncture  disposable  against  Carus  :  it  has 
been  conjectured  by  some  writers  that  they  were 
Engaged  in  an  Indian  war.  Carus,  it  is  certain,  met 
with  little  resistance.  He  insisted  on  having  the  Roman 
lupremacy  acknowledged   as  a  preliminary  to  any 


THE  C^SARS. 


243 


treaty ;  and,  having  threatened  to  make  Persia  as  bare 
as  his  own  skull,  he  is  supposed  to  have  kept  his  word 
with  regard  to  Mesopotamia.  The  great  cities  of 
Ctesiphon  and  Seleucia  he  took  ;  and  vast  expectations 
were  formed  at  Rome  of  the  events  which  stood  next 
in  succession,  when,  on  Christmas  day,  283,  a  sudden 
and  mysterious  end  overtook  Carus  and  his  victorious 
advance.  The  story  transmitted  to  Kome  was,  that 
a  great  storm,  and  a  sudden  darkness,  had  surprised 
the  camp  of  Carus ;  that  the  emperor,  previously  ill, 
and  reposing  in  his  tent,  was  obscured  from  sight ;  that 
at  length  a  cry  had  arisen,  —  '  The  emperor  is  dead  ! ' 
and  that,  at  the  same  moment,  the  imperial  tent  had 
taken  fire..  The  fire  was  traced  to  the  confusion  of 
his  attendants ;  and  this  confusion  was  imputed  by 
themselves  to  grief  for  their  master's  death.  In  all 
this  it  is  easy  to  read  pretty  circumstantially  a  murder 
committed  on  the  emperor  by  corrupted  servants,  and 
an  attempt  afterwards  to  conceal  the  indications  of 
murder  by  the  ravages  of  fire.  The  report  propagated 
through  the  army,  and  at  that  time  received  with  credit, 
was,  that  Carus  had  been  struck  by  lightning  :  and  that 
omen,  according  to  the  Roman  interpretation,  implied 
^  necessity  of  retiring  from  the  expedition.  So  that, 
apparently,  the  whole  was  a  bloody  intrigue,  set  on 
foot  for  the  purpose  of  counteracting  the  emperor's 
resolution  to  prosecute  the  war.    His  son  Numerian 

,   uicceeded  to  the  rank  of  emperor  by  the  choice  of  the 

i' 

I 


244 


THE  C^SARS. 


army.  But  the  mysterious  faction  of  murderers  were 
still  at  work.  After  eight  months'  march  from  the 
Tigris  to  the  Thracian  Bosphorus,  the  army  halted  at 
Chalcedon.  At  this  point  of  time  a  report  arose  sud- 
denly, that  the  Emperor  Numerian  was  dead.  The 
impatience  of  the  soldiery  would  brook  no  uncertainty  ; 
they  rushed  to  the  spot ;  satisfied  themselves  of  the 
fact ;  and,  loudly  denouncing  as  the  murderer  Aper, 
the  captain  of  the  guard,  committed  him  to  custody, 
and  assigned  to  Dioclesian,  whom  at  the  same  time 
they  invested  with  the  supreme  power,  the  duty  of 
investigating  the  case.  Dioclesian  acquitted  himself 
of  this  task  in  a  very  summary  way,  by  passing  his 
sword  through  the  captain  before  he  could  say  a  word 
in  his  defence.  It  seems  that  Dioclesian,  having  been 
promised  the  empire  by  a  prophetess  as  soon  as  he 
should  have  killed  a  wild  boar  [Aper],  was  anxious  to 
realize  the  omen.  The  whole  proceeding  has  been 
taxed  with  injustice  so  manifest,  as  not  even  to  seek 
a  disguise.  Meantime,  it  should  be  remembered  that, 
first,  Aper,  as  the  captain  of  the  guard,  was  answer- 
able for  the  emperor's  safety ;  secondly,  that  his 
anxiety  to  profit  by  the  emperor's  murder  was  a  sure 
.4ign  that  he  had  participated  in  that  act ;  and,  thirdly, 
that  the  assent  of  the  soldiery  to  the  open  and  public 
act  of  Dioclesian,  implies  a  conviction  on  their  part 
of  Aper's  guilt.  Here  let  us  pause,  having  now 
arrived  at  the  fourth  and  last  group  of  the  Caesars,  to 


THE  C^SARS. 


245 


notice  the  changes  which  had  been  wrought  by  time, 
co-operating  with  political  events,  in  the  very  nature 
and  constitution  of  the  imperial  office. 

If  it  should  unfortunately  happen,  that  the  palace  of 
the  Vatican,  with  its  thirteen  thousand  chambers, 
were  to  take  fire  —  for  a  considerable  space  of  time 
the  fire  would  be  retarded  by  the  mere  enormity  of 
extent  which  it  would  have  to  traverse.  But  there 
would  come  at  length  a  critical  moment,  at  which  the 
maximum  of  the  retarding  efi*ect  having  been  attained, 
the  bulk  and  volume  of  the  flaming  mass  would  thence- 
forward assist  the  flames  in  the  rapidity  of  their  pro- 
gress. Such  was  the  eflect  upon  the  declension  of  the 
Roman  empire  from  the  vast  extent  of  its  territory. 
For  a  very  long  period  that  very  extent,  which  finally 
became  the  overwhelming  cause  of  its  ruin,  served  to 
retard  and  to  disguise  it.  A  small  encroachment, 
made  at  any  one  point  upon  the  integrity  of  the  em- 
pire was  neither  much  regarded  at  Rome,  nor  perhaps 
in  and  for  itself  much  deserved  to  be  regarded.  But  a 
very  narrow  belt  of  enchroachments,  made  upon  almost 
every  part  of  so  enormous  a  circumference,  was  suffi- 
cient of  itself  to  compose  something  of  an  antagonist 
force.  And  to  these  external  dilapidations,  we  must 
add  the  far  more  important  dilapidations  from  within, 
afl'ecting  all  the  institutions  of  the  State,  and  all  the 
forces,  whether  moral  or  political,  which  had  originally 
raised  it  or  maintained  it.    Causes  which  had  been 


246 


THE  CJESARS. 


latent  in  the  public  arrangements  ever  since  the  time 
of  Augustus,  and  had  been  silently  preying  upon  its 
vitals,  had  now  reached  a  height  which  would  no  longer 
brook  concealment.  The  fire  which  had  smouldered 
through  generations  had  broken  out  at  length  into  aii 
open  conflagration.  Uproar  and  disorder,  and  Ihe 
anarchy  of  a  superannuated  empire,  strong  only  to 
punish  and  impotent  to  defend,  were  at  this  time  con- 
vulsing the  provinces  in  every  point  of  the  compass* 
Rome  herself  had  been  menaced  repeatedly.  And  a 
still  more  awful  indication  of  the  coming  storm  had 
been  felt  far  to  the  south  of  Rome.  One  long  wave 
of  the  great  German  deluge  had  stretched  beyond  the 
Pyrenees  and  the  Pillars  of  Hercules,  to  the  very 
soil  of  Ancient  Carthage.  Victorious  banners  were 
already  floating  on  the  margin  of  the  Great  Desert, 
and  they  were  not  the  banners  of  Csesar.  Some  vig- 
orous hand  was  demanded  at  this  moment,  or  else  the 
funeral  knell  of  Rome  was  on  the  point  of  sounding. 
Indeed,  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that,  had  the 
imbecile  Carinus  (the  brother  of  Numerian)  succeed- 
ed to  the  command  of  the  Roman  armies  at  this 
time,  or  any  other  than  Dioclesian,  the  Empire  of  the 
West  would  have  fallen  to  pieces  within  the  next  ten 
years. 

Dioclesian  was  doubtless  that  man  of  iron  whom 
tne  times  demanded ;  and  a  foreign  writer  has  gone  so 
&r  as  to  class  him  amongst  the  greatest  of  men,  if  he 


THE  CiESARS. 


247 


were  not  even  himself  the  greatest.  But  the  position 
of  Dioclesian  was  remarkable  beyond  all  precedent, 
and  was  alone  sufficient  to  prevent  his  being  the 
greatest  of  men,  by  making  it  necessary  that  he  should 
be  the  most  selfish.  For  the  case  stood  thus  :  If  Rome 
were  in  danger,  much  more  so  was  Caesar.  If  the 
condition  of  the  empire  were  such  that  hardly  any 
energy  or  any  foresight  was  adequate  to'  its  defence, 
for  the  emperor,  on  the  other  hand,  there  was  scarcely 
a  possibility  that  he  should  escape  destruction.  The 
chances  were  in  an  overbalance  against  the  empire ; 
but  for  the  emperor  there  was  no  chance  at  all.  He 
shared  in  all  the  hazards  of  the  empire ;  and  had 
others  so  peculiarly  pointed  at  himself,  that  his  assas- 
sination was  now  become  as  much  a  matter  of  certain 
calculation,  as  seed  time  or  harvest,  summer  or  winter, 
or  any  other  revolution  of  the  seasons.  The  problem, 
therefore,  for  Dioclesian  was  a  double  one,  —  so  to 
provide  for  the  defence  and  maintenance  of  the  em- 
j^ire,  as  simultaneously  (and,  if  possible,  through  the 
very  same  institution)  to  provide  for  the  personal 
security  of  Caesar.  This  problem  he  solved,  in  some 
imperfect  degree,  by  the  only  expedient  perhaps  open 
to  him  in  that  despotism,  and  in  those  times.  But  it  is 
remarkable,  that,  by  the  revolution  which  he  effected, 
.he  office  «f  Iloman  Imperator  was  completely  altered, 
and  Caesar  became  henceforwards  an  Oriental  Sultan 
or  Padishah.   Augustus,  when  moulding  for  his  future 


248 


THE  CiESARS. 


purposes  the  form  and  constitution  of  that  supremacy 
which  he  had  obtained  by  inheritance  and  by  arms, 
proceeded  with  so  much  caution  and  prudence,  that 
even  the  style  and  title  of  his  office  was  discussed  in 
council  as  a  matter  of  the  first  moment.  The  principle 
of  his  policy  was  to  absorb  into  his  own  functions  all 
those  high  offices  which  conferred  any  real  power  to  bal- 
ance or  to  control  his  own.  For  this  reason  he  appro- 
priated the  tribunitian  power;  because  that  was  a 
popular  and  representative  office,  which,  as  occasions 
arose,  would  have  given  some  opening  to  democratic 
influences.  But  the  consular  office  he  left  untouched ; 
because  all  its  power  was  transferred  to  the  imperator, 
by  the  entire  command  of  the  army,  and  by  the  new 
organization  of  the  provincial  governments.^^  And  in 
all  the  rest  of  his  arrangements,  Augustus  had  pro- 
ceeded on  the  principle  of  leaving  as  many  openings 
to  civic  influences,  and  impressing  upon  all  his  insti- 
tutions as  much  of  the  old  Roman  character,  as  was 
compatible  with  the  real  and  substantial  supremacy 
established  in  the  person  of  the  emperor.  Neither  is 
it  at  all  certain,  as  regarded  even  this  aspect  of  the 
imperatorial  office,  that  Augustus  had  the  purpose,  or 
^0  much  as  the  wish,  to  annihilate  all  collateral  power, 
and  to  invest  the  chief  magistrate  with  absolute  irre- 
sponsibility. For  himself,  as  called  upon  to  restore  a 
shattered  government,  and  out  of  the  anarchy  of  civil 
wars  to  recombine  the  elements  of  power  into  some 


THE  C^SARS. 


249 


shape  better  fitted  for  duration  (and,  by  consequence, 
for  insuring  peace  and  protection  to  the  world)  than 
the  extinct  republic,  it  might  be  reasonable  to  seek 
such  an  irresponsibility.  But,  as  regarded  his  succes- 
sors, considering  the  great  pains  he  took  to  discourage 
all  manifestations  of  princely  arrogance,  and  to  devel- 
ope,  by  education  and  example,  the  civic  virtues  of 
patriotism  and  affability  in  their  whole  bearing  towards 
the  people  of  Rome,  there  is  reason  to  presume  that  he 
wished  to  remove  them  from  popular  control,  without, 
therefore,  removing  them  from  popular  influence. 

Hence  it  was,  and  from  this  original  precedent  of 
Augustus,  aided  by  the  constitution  which  he  had  given 
to  the  office  of  imperator,  that  up  to  the  era  of  Diocle- 
sian,  no  prince  had  dared  utterly  to  neglect  the  senate, 
or  the  people  of  Rome.  He  might  hate  the  senate, 
like  Severus,  or  Aurelian  ;  he  might  even  meditate 
their  extermination,  like  the  brutal  Maximin.  But  this 
arose  from  any  cause  rather  than  from  contempt.  He 
hated  them  precisely  because  he  feared  them,  or  be- 
cause he  paid  them  an  involuntary  tribute  of  supersti- 
tious reverence,  or  because  the  malice  of  a  tyrant 
interpreted  into  a  sort  of  treason  the  rival  influence  of 
the  senate  over  the  minds  of  men.  But,  before  Dio- 
clesian,  the  undervaluing  of  the  senate,  or  the  harshest 
treatment  of  that  body,  had  arisen  from  views  which 
keie  personal  to  the  individual  Caesar.  It  was  now 
made  to  arise  from  the  very  constitution  of  the  office 


250 


THE  C^SARS. 


and  the  mode  of  the  appointment.  To  defend  tho 
empire,  it  was  the  opinion  of  Diocletian  that  a  single 
emperor  was  not  sufficient.  And  it-  struck  him,  at  the 
Bame  time,  that  by  the  very  institution  of  a  plurality  of 
emperors,  which  was  now  destined  to  secure  the  integ- 
rity of  the  empire,  ample  provision  might  be  made  for 
the  personal  security  of  each  emperor.  He  carried  his 
plan  into  immediate  execution,  by  appointing  an  asso- 
ciate to  his  own  rank  of  Augustus  in  the  person  of 
Maximian  —  an  experienced  general ;  whilst  each  of 
them  in  effect  multiplied  his  own  office  still  farther  by 
severally  appointing  a  Csesar,  or  hereditary  prince. 
And  thus  the  very  same  partition  of  the  public  author- 
ity, by  means  of  a  duality  of  emperors,  to  which  the 
senate  had  often  resorted  of  late,  as  the  best  means  of 
restoring  their  own  republican  aristocracy,  was  now 
adopted  by  Dioclesian  as  the  simplest  engine  for  over- 
throwing finally  the  power  of  either  senate  or  army  to 
interfere  with  the  elective  privilege.  This  he  endeav- 
ored to  centre  in  the  existing  emperors  ;  and,  at  the 
same  moment,  to  discourage  treason  or  usurpation 
generally,  whether  in  the  party  choosing  or  the  party 
chosen,  by  securing  to  each  emperor,  in  the  case  of 
his  own  assassination,  an  avenger  in  the  person  of  his 
surviving  associate,  as  also  in  the  persons  of  the  two 
Caesars,  or  adopted  heirs  and  lieutenants.  The  asso- 
ciate empeior,  Maximian,  together  with  the  two  Caesars 
—  Galerius  appointed   by  himself,  and  Constantius 


THE  CiESARS, 


251 


Chlorus  by  Maximiaii  —  were  all  bound  to  himself  by 
ties  of  gratitude  ;  all  owing  their  stations  ultimately 
to  his  own  favor.  And  these  ties  he  endeavored  to 
strengthen  by  other  ties  of  affinity ;  each  of  the 
Augusti  having  given  his  daughter  in  marriage  to  his 
own  adopted  Caesar.  And  thus  it  seemed  scarcely 
possible  that  an  usurpation  should  be  successful  against 
so  firm  a  league  of  friends  and  relations. 

The  direct  purposes  of  Dioclesian  were  but  imper- 
fectly attained  ;  the  internal  peace  of  the  empire  lasted 
only  during  his  own  reign ;  and  with  his  abdication  of 
the  empire  commenced  the  bloodiest  civil  wars  which 
has  desolated  the  world  since  the  contests  of  the  great 
triumvirate.  But  the  collateral  blow,  which  he  medi- 
tated against  the  authority  of  the  senate,  was  entirely 
successful.  Never  again  had  the  senate  any  real  influ- 
ence on  the  fate  of  the  world.  And  with  the  power 
of  the  senate  expired  concurrently  the  weight  and 
influence  of  Rome.  Dioclesian  is  supposed  never  to 
have  seen  Rome,  except  on  the  single  occasion  when 
he  entered  it  for  the  ceremonial  purpose  of  a  triumph. 
Even  for  that  purpose  it  ceased  to  be  a  city  of  resort ; 
for  Dioclesian' s  was  the  final  triumph.  And,  lastly, 
even  as  the  chief  city  of  the  empire  for  business  or 
for  pleasure,  it  ceased  to  claim  the  homage  of  man- 
kind ;  the  Caesar  was  already  born  whose  destiny  it 
was  to  cashier  the  metropolis  of  the  world,  and  to 
appoint  her  successor.    This  also  may  be  regarded  in 


1 


252 


THE  CJESARS. 


effect  as  the  ordinance  of  Dioclesian  ,  for  he,  by  bis 
long  residence  at  Nicomedia,  expressed  his  opinion 
pretty  plainly,  that  Rome  was  not  central  enough  to 
perform  the  functions  of  a  capital  to  so  vast  an  empire ; 
that  this  was  one  cause  of  the  declension  now  become 
so  visible  in  the  forces  of  the  State  ;  and  that  some 
city,  not  very  far  from  the  Hellespont  or  the  iEgean 
Sea,  would  be  a  capital  better  adapted  by  position  to 
the  exigencies  of  the  times. 

But  the  revolutions  effected  by  Dioclesian  did  not 
stop  here.  The  simplicity  of  its  republican  origin  had 
so  far  affected  the  external  character  and  expression 
of  the  imperial  office,  that  in  the  midst  of  luxury  the 
most  unbounded,  and  spite  of  all  other  corruptions,  a 
majestic  plainness  of  manners,  deportment,  and  dress, 
had  still  continued  from  generation  to  generation,  char- 
acteristic of  the  Roman  imperator  in  his  intercourse 
with  his  subjects.  All  this  was  now  changed  ;  and 
for  the  Roman  was  substituted  the  Persian  dress,  the 
Persian  style  of  household,  a  Persian  court,  and  Per- 
sian manners.  A  diadem,  or  tiara  beset  with  pearls, 
now  encircled  the  temples  of  the  Roman  Augustus; 
his  sandals  were  studded  with  pearls,  as  in  the  Persian 
court ;  and  the  other  parts  of  his  dress  were  in  har- 
mony with  these.  The  prince  w^as  instructed  no  longer 
to  make  himself  familiar  to  the  eyes  of  men.  He 
sequestered  himself  from  his  subjects  in  the  recesses 
of  his  palace.    None,  who  sought  him,  could  any 


THE  CJESARS. 


253 


longer  gain  easy  admission  to  his  presence.  It  was  a 
point  of  his  new  duties  to  be  difficult  of  access  ;  and 
they  who  were  at  length  admitted  to  an  audience, 
found  him  surrounded  by  eunuchs,  and  were  expected 
to  make  their  approaches  by  genuflexions,  by  servile 
'  adorations,'  and  by  real  acts  of  worship  as  to  a  visible 
god. 

It  is  strange  that  -a  ritual  of  court  ceremonies,  so 
elaborate  and  artificial  as  this,  should  first  have  been 
introduced  by  a  soldier,  and  a  warlike  soldier  like 
Dioclesian.  This,  however,  is  in  part  explained  by  his 
education  and  long  residence  in  Eastern  countries. 
But  the  same  eastern  training  fell  to  the  lot  of  Con- 
stantino, who  was  in  effect  his  successor ;  and  the 
Oriental  tone  and  standard  established  by  these  two 
emperors,  though  disturbed  a  little  by  the  plain  and 
military  bearing  of  Julian,  and  one  or  two  more  em- 
perors of  the  same  breeding,  finally  re-established  itself 
with  undisputed  sway  in  the  Byzantine  court. 

Meantime  the  institutions  of  Dioclesian,  if  they  had 
destroyed  Rome  and  the  senate  as  influences  upon  the 
course  of  public  affairs,  and  if  they  had  destroyed  the 
Roman  features  of  the  Csesars,  do,  notwithstanding, 
ftppear  to  have  attained  one  of  their  purposes,  in 
limiting  the  extent  of  imperial  murders,  Travelling 
through  the  brief  list  of  the  remaining  Caesars,  we 
perceive  a  little  more  security  for  life ;  and  hence  the 
successions  are  less  rapid.     Constantino,  who  (like 


254 


THE  C^LSARS. 


AaKjn's  rod)  bad  swallowed  up  all  his  competitors 
seriatim,  left  the  empire  to  his  three  sons  ;  and  the 
last  of  these  most  unwillingly  to  Julian.  That  prince's 
Persian  expedition,  so  much  resembling  in  rashness 
and  presumption  the  Russian  campaign  of  Napoleon, 
though  so  much  below  it  in  the  scale  of  its  tragic 
results,  led  to  the  short  reign  of  Jovian  (or  Jovinian), 
which  lasted  only  seven  months.  Upon  his  death 
succeeded  the  house  of  Valentinian,''^  in  whose  de- 
scendant, of  the  third  generation,  the  empire,  properly 
speaking,  expired.  For  the  seven  shadows  who  suc- 
ceeded, from  Avitus  and  Majorian  to  Julius  Nepos  and 
Romulus  Augustulus,  were  in  no  proper  sense  Roman 
emperors,  —  they  were  not  even  emperors  of  the  West, 
—  but  had  a  limited  kingdom  in  the  Italian  peninsula. 
Valentiniaa  the  Third  was,  as  we  have  said,  the  last 
emperor  of  the  West. 

But,  in  a  fuller  and  ampler  sense,  recurring  to  what 
we  have  said  of  Dioclesian  and  the  tenor  of  his  great 
revolutions,  we  may  affirm  that  Probus  and  Carus  were 
the  final  representatives  of  the  majesty  of  Rome:  for 
they  reigned  over  the  w^hole  empire,  not  yet  incapable 
of  sustaining  its  own  unity ;  and  in  them  were  still 
preserved,  not  yet  obliterated  by  oriental  effeminacy, 
those  majestic  features  which  reflected  republican 
consuls,  and,  through  them,  the  senate  and  people  of 
Rome.  That,  which  had  offended  Dioclesian  in  the 
condition  of  the  Roman  emperors,  was  the  grandest 


THE  CiESARS. 


255 


feature  of  their  dignity.  It  is  true  that  the  peril  of 
the  office  had  become  intolerable ;  each  Caesar  sub- 
mitted to  his  sad  inauguration  with  a  certainty,  liable 
even  to  hardly  any  disguise  from  the  delusions  of 
youthful  hope,  that  for  him,  within  the  boundless  em- 
pire which  he  governed,  there  was  no  coast  of  safety, 
no  shelter  from  the  storm,  no  retreat,  except  the  grave, 
from  the  dagger  of  the  assassin.  Gibbon  has  described 
the  hopeless  condition  of  one  who  should  attempt  to 
fly  from  the  wrath  of  the  almost  omnipresent  emperor. 
But  this  dire  impossibility  of  escape  was  in  the  end 
dreadfully  retaliated  upon  the  emperor ;  persecutors 
and  traitors  were  found  everywhere :  and  the  vindic- 
tive or  the  ambitious  subject  found  himself  as  omni- 
present as  the  jealous  or  the  offended  emperor. 

The  crown  of  the  Caesars  was  therefore  a  crown  of 
thorns;  and  it  must  be  admitted,  that  never  in  this 
world  have  rank  and  power  been  purchased  at  so 
awful  a  cost  in  tranquillity  and  peace  of  mind.  The 
steps  of  Caesar's  throne  were  absolutely  saturated  with 
the  blood  of  those  who  had  possessed  it :  and  so  in- 
exorable was  that  murderous  fate  which  overhung  that 
gloomy  eminence,  that  at  length  it  demanded  the  spirit 
of  martyrdom  in  him  who  ventured  to  ascend  it.  In 
these  circumstances,  some  change  was  imperatively 
demanded.  Human  nature  was  no  longer  equal  to 
the  terrors  which  it  was  summoned  to  face.  But  the 
changes  of  Dioclesian  transmuted  that  golden  sceptre 


256 


THE  C^SARS. 


into  a  base  oriental  alloy.  They  left  nothing  behind 
of  what  had  so  much  challenged  the  veneration  of 
man :  for  it  was  in  the  union  of  republican  simplicity 
with  the  irresponsibility  of  illimitable  power  —  it  was 
in  the  antagonism  between  the  merely  human  and  ap- 
proachable condition  of  Caesar  as  a  man,  and  his  divine 
supremacy  as  a  potentate  and  king  of  kings  —  that 
the  secret  lay  of  his  unrivalled  grandeur.  This  per- 
ished utterly  under  the  reforming  hands  of  Dioclesian. 
Caesar  only  it  was  that  could  be  permitted  to  extinguish 
Caesar :  and  a  Roman  imperator  it  was  who,  by  re- 
modelling, did  in  affect  abolish,  by  exorcising  from  its 
foul  terrors,  did  in  effect  disenchant  of  its  sanctity,  that 
imperatorial  dignity,  which  having  once  perished,  could 
have  no  second  existence,  and  which  was  undoubtedly 
the  sublimest  incarnation  of  power,  and  a  monument 
the  mightiest  of  greatness  built  by  human  hands,  which 
upon  this  planet  has  been  suffered  to  appear. 


CICERO. 


In  drawing  attention  to  a  great  question  of  whatso- 
ever nature  connected  with  Cicero,  there  is  no  danger 
of  missing  our  purpose  through  any  want  of  reputed 
interest  in  the  subject.  Nominally^  it  is  not  easy  to 
assign  a  period  more  eventful,  a  revolution  more 
important,  or  a  personal  career  more  dramatic,  than 
that  period  —  that  revolution  —  that  career  —  which 
witji  almost  equal  right,  we  may  describe  as  all  essen- 
tially Ciceronian^  by  the  quality  of  the  interest  which 
they  excite.  For  the  age,  it  was  fruitful  in  great 
men ;  but  amongst  them  all,  if  we  except  the  sublime 
Julian  leader,  none  as  regards  splendor  of  endow- 
ments stood  upon  the  same  level  as  Cicero.  For  the 
revolution,  it  was  that  unique  event  which  brought 
ancient  civilization  into  contact  and  commerce  with 
modern ;  since  if  we  figure  the  two  worlds  of  Pagan- 
ism and  Christianity  under  the  idea  of  two  great 
continents,  it  is  through  the  isthmus  of  Rome  impe- 
rialized  that  the  one  was  virtually  communicated  with 
the  other.  Civil  law  and  Christianity,  the  two  central 
forces  of  modern  civilization,  were  upon  that  isthmus 
of  time  ripened  into  potent  establishments.  And 
through  those  two  establishments,  combined  with  the 
antique  literature,  as  through    so  many  organs  of 


258 


CICERO. 


tnelempsychosis,  did  the  pagan  world  pass  onwards, 
whatever  portion  of  its  own  life  was  fitted  for  sur- 
viving its  own  peculiar  forms.  Yet,  in  a  revolution 
thus  unexani])led  for  grandeur  of  results,  the  only 
great  actor  who  stood  upon  the  authority  of  his  char- 
acter was  Cicero.  All  others,  from  Pompey,  Curio, 
Domitius,  Cato,  down  to  the  final  partisans  at  i^ctium, 
moved  by  the  authority  of  arms  ;  '  tantum  aucto^itata 
valebant,  quantum  milite : '  and  they  could  have 
moved  by  no  other.  Lastly,  as  regards  the  personal 
biography,  although  the  same  series  of  trials,  perils, 
and  calamities,  would  have  been  in  any  case  inter- 
esting for  themselves,  yet  undeniably  they  derive  a 
separate  power  of  affecting  the  mind  from  the  peculiar 
merits  of  the  individual  concerned.  Cicero  is  one  of 
the  very  few  pagan  statesmen  who  can  be  described  as 
a  thoughtfully  conscientious  man. 

It  is  not,  therefore,  any  want  of  splendid  attraction 
in  our  subject  from  which  we  are  likely  to  suffer.  It 
is  of  this  very  splendor  that  we  complain,  as  having 
long  ago  defeated  the  simplicities  of  truth,  and  pre- 
occupied the  minds  of  all  readers  with  ideas  politi- 
cally romantic.  All  tutors,  schoolmasters,  academic 
authorities,  together  with  the  collective  corps  of  edi- 
tors, critics,  commentators,  have  a  natural  bias  in 
behalf  of  a  literary  man,  who  did  so  much  honor  to 
literature,  and  who,  in  all  the  storms  of  this  difficult 
life,  manifested  so  much  attachment  to  the  pure  lit- 
erary interest.  Readers  of  sensibility  acknowledge 
the  effect  from  any  large  influence  of  deep  halcyon 
repose,  when  relieving  the  agitations  of  history ;  as, 
for  example,  that  which  arises  in  our  domestic  annala 
from  interposing   between   two  bloody  reigns,  like 


CICERO. 


259 


those  of  Henry  VIII.  and  his  daughter  Mary,  the 
serene  morning  of  a  childlike  king,  destined  to  an 
early  grave,  yet  in  the  meantime  occupied  with 
benign  counsels  for  propagating  religion  or  for  pro- 
tecting the  poor.  Such  a  repose,  the  same  luxury  of 
rest  for  the  mind,  is  felt  by  all  who  traverse  the  great 
circumstantial  records  of  those  tumultuous  Roman 
times,  viz.  the  Ciceronian  epistolary  correspondence. 
Upon  coming  suddenly  into  deep  lulls  of  angry  pas- 
sions —  here,  upon  some  scheme  for  the  extension  of 
literature  by  a  domestic  history,  or  by  a  comparison  of 
Greek  with  Roman  jurisprudence;  there,  again,  upon 
some  ancient  problem  from  the  quiet  fields  of  philoso- 
phy —  literary  men  are  already  prej  udiced  in  favor  of 
one  who,  in  the  midst  of  belligerent  partisans,  was 
the  patron  of  intellectual  interest.  But  amongst 
Christian  nations  this  prejudice  has  struck  deeper  : 
Cicero  was  not  merely  a  philosopher ;  he  was  one 
who  cultivated  ethics  ;  he  was  himself  the  author  of 
an  ethical  system,  composed  with  the  pious  purpose 
of  training  to  what  he  thought  just  moral  views  his 
only  son.  This  system  survives,  is  studied  to  this 
day,  is  honored  perhaps  extravagantly,  and  has  re- 
peatedly been  pronounced  the  best  practical  theory  to 
which  pagan  principles  were  equal.  Were  it  only 
upon  this  impulse,  it  was  natural  that  men  should 
receive  a  clinamen,  or  silent  bias,  towards  Cicero,  as 
a  moral  authority  amongst  disputants  whose  argu- 
ments were  legions.  The  author  -  of  a  moral  code 
cannot  be  supposed  indifferent  to  the  moral  relations 
of  his  own  party  views.  If  he  erred,  it  could  not  be 
through  want  of  meditation  upon  the  ground  of  judg- 
ment, or  want  of  interest  in  the  results.    So  far 


260 


CICERO. 


Cicero  has  an  advantage.  But  lie  has  more  lively 
advantage  in  the  comparison  by  which  he  benefits,  at 
every  stage  of  his  life,  with  antagonists  whom  the 
reader  is  taught  to  believe  dissolute,  incendiary, 
almost  desperate  citizens.  Verres  in  the  youth  of 
Cicero,  Catiline  and  Clodius  in  his  middle  age,  Mark 
A.ntony  in  his  old  age,  have  all  been  left  to  operate 
on  the  modern  reader's  feelings  precisely  through  that 
masquerade  of  misrepresentation  which  invariably  ac- 
companied the  political  eloquence  of  Kome.  The 
monstrous  caricatures  from  the  forum,  or  the  senate, 
or  the  democratic  rostrum,  which  were  so  confessedly 
distortions,  by  original  design,  for  attaining  the  ends 
of  faction,  have  imposed  upon  scholars  pretty  gen- 
erally as  faithful  portraits.  Keel  use  scholars  are 
rarely  politicians  ;  and  in  the  timid  horror  of  German 
literati,  at  this  day,  when  they  read  .of  real  brickbats 
and  paving-stones,  not  metaphorical,  used  as  figures 
of  speech  by  a  Clodian  mob,  we  British  understand 
the  little  comprehension  of  that  rough  horse-play 
proper  to  the  hustings,  which  can  yet  be  available  for 
the  rectification  of  any  continental  judgment.  ^  Play, 
do  you  call  it } '  says  a  German  commentator ;  '  why 
that  brickbat  might  break  a  man's  leg ;  and  this 
paving -stone  would  be  sufficient  to  fracture  a  skull.' 
Too  true :  they  certainly  might  do  so.  But,  for  all 
that,  our  British  experience  of  electioneering  '  rough- 
^nd-tumbling  '  has  long  blunted  the  edge  of.  our  moral 
ansrer.  Contested  elections  are  unknown  to  the  conti- 
aent  —  hitherto  even  to  those  nations  of  the  continent 
which  boast  of  representative  governments.  And  with 
no  experience  of  their  inconveniences,  they  have  as 
vet  none  of  the  popular  forces  in  which  sucl  contests 


CICEUO. 


201 


originate.  We,  on  the  other  hand,  are  familiar  with 
Buch  scenes.  What  Rome  saw  upon  one  sole  hust- 
ings, we  see  repeated  upon  hundreds.  And  we  all 
know  that  the  bark  of  electioneering  mobs  is  worse 
than  their  bite.  Their  fury  is  without  malice,  and 
their  insurrectionary  violence  is  without  system.  Most 
undoubtedly  the  mobs  and  seditions  of  Clodius  are 
entitled  to  the  same  benefits  of  construction.  And 
with  regard  to  the  graver  charges  against  Catiline 
or  Clodius,  as  men  sunk  irredeemably  into  sensual 
debaucheries,  these  are  exaggerations  which  have  told 
only  from  want  of  attention  to  Roman  habits.  Such 
charges  were  the  standing  material,  the  stock  in  trade 
of  every  orator  against  every  antagonist.  Cicero, 
with  the  same  levity  as  every  other  public  speaker, 
tossed  about  such  atrocious  libels  at  random.  And 
with  little  blame  where  there  was  really  no  discretion 
allowed.  Not  are  they  true  ?  but  will  they  tell  ?  was 
the  question.  Insolvency  and  monstrous  debauchery 
were  the  two  ordinary  reproaches  on  the  Roman  hust- 
ings. No  man  escaped  them  who  was  rich  enough, 
or  had  expectations  notorious  enough,  to  win  for  such 
charges  any  colorable  plausibility.  Those  only  were 
unmolested  in  this  way  who  stood  in  no  man's  path 
of  ambition ;  or  who  had  been  obscure  (that  is  to  say, 
poor)  in  youth ;  or  who,  being  splendid  by  birth  or 
connections,  had  been  notoriously  occupied  in  distant 
campaigns.  The  object  in  such  calumnies  was,  to 
oroduce  a  momentary  effect  upon  the  populace  :  and 
-sometimes,  as  happened  to  Caesar,  the  merest  false- 
hoods of  a  partisan  orator  were  adopted  subsequently 
for  truths  by  the  simple-minded  soldiery.  But  the 
misapprehension  of  these  libels  in  modern  times  origi 


262 


CICERO. 


nates  in  erroneous  appreciation  of  Roman  oratory. 
Scandal  was  its  proper  element.  Senate  or  law- 
tribunal,  forum  or  mob  rostrum,  made  no  difference 
in  the  licentious  practice  of  Roman  eloquence.  And, 
unfortunately,  the  calumnies  survive ;  whilst  the  state 
of  things,  which  made  it  needless  to  notice  them  in 
reply,  has  entirely  perished.  During  the  transitional 
period  between  the  old  Roman  frugality  and  tl^e 
luxury  succeeding  to  foreign  conquest,  a  reproach  of 
this  nature  would  have  stung  with  some  severity  ;  and 
it  was  not  without  danger  to  a  candidate.  But  the 
age  of  growing  voluptuousness  weakened  the  effect 
of  such  imputations ;  and  this  age  may  be  taken  to 
have  commenced  in  the  youth  of  the  Gracchi,  about 
one  hundred  years  before  Pharsalia.  The  change  in 
the  direction  of  men's  sensibilities  since  then,  was  as 
marked  as  the  change  in  their  habits.  Both  changes 
had  matured  themselves  in  Cicero's  days ;  and  one 
natural  result  was,  that  few  men  of  sense  valued 
such  reproaches,  (incapable,  from  their  generality,  of 
specific  refutation,)  whether  directed  against  friends 
or  enemies.  Caesar,  when  assailed  for  the  thousandth 
time  by  the  old  fable  about  Nicomedes  the  sovereign 
of  Bithynia,  no  more  troubled  himself  to  expose  its 
falsehood  in  the  senate,  than  when  previously  dis- 
persed over  Rome  through  the  libellous  facetice  of 
Catullus.  He  knew  that  the  object  of  such  petty 
malice  was  simply  to  tease  him  ;  and  for  himself  to 
lose  any  temper,  or  to  manifest  anxiety,  by  a  labor 
BO  hopeless  as  any  effort  towards  the  refutation  of  an 
unlimited  scandal,  was  childishly  to  collude  with  his 
enemies.  He  treated  the  story,  therefore,  as  if  it 
had  been  true ;  and  showed  that,  even  under  that 


CICERO. 


assumption,  it  would  not  avail  foi  the  purpose  before 
the  house.  Subsequently,  Suetonius,  as  an  express 
collector  of  anecdotage  and  pointed  personalities 
against  great  men,  has  revived  many  of  these  scur- 
rilous jests ;  but  his  authority,  at  the  distance  of  two 
generations,  can  add  nothing  to  the  credit  of  calum- 
nies originally  founded  on  plebeian  envy,  or  the 
jealousy  of  rivals.  We  may  possibly  find  ourselves 
obliged  to  come  back  upon  this  subject.  And  at  this 
point,  therefore,  we  will  not  further  pursue  it  than  by 
remarking,  that  no  one  snare  has  proved  so  fatal  to 
the  sound  judgment  of  posterity  upon  public  men  in 
Rome,  as  this  blind  credulity  towards  the  oratorical 
billingsgate  of  ancient  forensic  license,  or  of 
electioneering.  Libels,  whose  very  point  and  jest  lay 
m  their  extravagance,  have  been  received  for  his- 
torical truth  with  respect  to  many  amongst  Cicero's 
enemies.  And  the  reaction  upon  Cicero's  own  char- 
acter has  been  naturally  to  exaggerate  that  imputed 
purity  of  morals,  which  has  availed  to  raise  him  into 
what  is  called  a  '  pattern  man.' 

The  injurious  effect  upon  biographic  literature  of 
all  such  wrenches  to  the  truth,  is  diffused  everywhere. 
Fenelon,  or  Howard  the  philanthropist,  may  serve  to 
illustrate  the  effect  we  mean,  when  viewed  in  relation 
to  the  stern  simplicity  of  truth.  Both  these  men  have 
long  been  treated  with  such  uniformity  of  dissimulation, 
'  petted  '  (so  to  speak)  with  such  honeyed  falsehoods  as 
beings  too  bright  and  seraphic  for  human  inquisition, 
that  now  their  real  circumstantial  merits,  quite  as  much 
as  their  human  frailties,  have  faded  away  in  this  blaze 
of  fabling  idolatry.  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  again,  for 
about  one  entire  century  since  his  death  in  1727,  waa 

1 


CICERO. 


painted  by  all  biographers  as  a  man  so  saintly  in 
temper  —  so  meek  —  so  detached  from  worldly  interest, 
that  by  mere  strength  of  patent  falsehood,  the  portrait 
had  ceased  to  be  human,  and  a  great  man's  life  fur- 
nished no  interest  to  posterity.  At  length  came  the 
odious  truth,  exhibiting  Sir  Isaac  in  a  character  painful 
to  contemplate,  as  a  fretful,  peevish,  and  sometimes 
even  malicious,  intriguer  ;  traits,  however,  in  Sir  Isaac 
already  traceable  in  the  sort  of  chicanery  attending  his 
subornation  of  managers  in  the  Leibnitz  controversy, 
and  the  publication  of  the  Commercium  EpisioUcum, 
For  the  present,  the  effect  has  been  purely  to  shock 
and  to  perplex.  As  regards  moral  instruction,  the 
lesson  comes  too  late ;  it  is  now  defeated  by  its  incon- 
sistency with  our  previous  training  in  steady  theatrical 
delusion. 

We  do  not  make  it  a  reproach  to  Cicero,  that  his 
reputation  with  posterity  has  been  affected  by  these  or 
similar  arts  of  falsification.  Eventually  this  has  been 
his  misfortune.  Adhering  tQ  the  truth,  his  indiscreet 
eulogists  would  have  presented  to  the  world  a  much 
more  interesting  picture ;  not  so  much  the  representa- 
tion of  '  vir  bonus  cum  maid  fortund  compositus^^  which 
is,  after  all,  an  ordinary  spectacle  for  so  much  of  the 
conflict  as  can  ever  be  made  public  ;  but  that  of  a  man 
generally  upright,  matched  as  in  single  duel  with  a 
standing  temptation  to  error,  growing  out  of  his  public 
position  ;  often  seduced  into  false  principles  by  the 
necessities  of  ambition,  or  by  the  coercion  of  self-con- 
sistency ;  and  often,  as  he  himself  admits,  biased 
finally  in  a  public  question  by  the  partialities  of  friend- 
ship. The  violence  of  that  crisis  was  overwhelming 
to  all  moral  sensibilities ;  no  sense,  no  organ,  remained 


CICERO. 


265 


true  to  the  obligations  of  political  justice  ;  principles 
and  feelings  were  alike  darkened  by  the  extremities  of 
the  political  quarrel  ;  the  feelings  obeyed  the  personal 
engagements  ;  and  the  principles  indicated  only  the 
position  of  the  individual  —  as  between  the  senate 
struggling  for  interests  and  the  democracy  struggling 
for  rights. 

So  far  nothing  has  happened  to  Cicero  which  does 
not  happen  to  all  men  entangled  in  political  feuds. 
There  are  few  cases  of  large  party  dispute  which  do 
not  admit  of  contradictory  delineations,  as  the  mind  is 
previously  swayed  to  this  extreme  or  to  that.  But  the 
peculiarity  in  the  case  of  Cicero  is  —  not  that  he  has 
benefited  by  the  mixed  quality  or  the  doubtfulness  of 
that  cause  which  he  adopted,  but  that  the  very  dubious 
character  of  the  cause  has  benefited  by  him.  Usually 
it  happens,  that  the  individual  partisan  is  sheltered 
under  the  authority  of  his  cause.  But  here  the  whole 
merits  of  the  cause  have  been  predetermined  and  ad- 
judged by  the  authority  of  the  partisan.  Had  Cicero 
been  absent,  or  had  Cicero  practised  that  neutrality  to 
which  he  often  inclined,  the  general  verdict  of  posterity 
on  the  great  Roman  civil  war  would  have  been  essen- 
tially different  from  that  which  we  find  in  history.  At 
present  the  error  is  an  extreme  one  ;  and  we  call  it 
such  without  hesitation,  because  it  has  maintained 
itself  by  imperfect  reading,  even  of  such  documents  as 
survive,  and  by  too  general  an  oblivion  of  the  impor- 
tant fact,  that  these  surviving  documents  (meaning  the 
contemporary  documents)  are  pre  ty  nearly  all  ex 
parfeJ^ 

To  judge  of  the  general  equity  in  the  treatment  of 
Cicero,  considered  as  a  political  partisan,  let  us  turn  to 


266 


CICERO. 


the  most  ciirrent  of  the  regular  biographies.  Amongst 
the  infinity  of  slighter  sketches,  which  naturally  dra\s 
for  their  materials  upon  those  which  are  most  elaborate, 
it  would  be  useless  to  confer  a  special  notice  upon  any. 
We  will  cite  the  two  which  at  this  moment  stand  fore- 
most in  European  literature  —  that  of  Conyers  Middle- 
ton,  now  about  one  century  old,  as  the  memoir  most 
generally  read  ;  that  of  Bernhardt  Abeken,^^  (amongst 
that  limited  class  of  memoirs  which  build  upon  any 
political  principles,)  accidentally  the  latest. 

Conyers  Middleton  is  a  name  that  cannot  be  men- 
tioned without  an  expression  of  disgust.  We  sit  down 
in  perfect  charity,  at  the  same  table,  with  sceptics  in 
every  degree.  To  us,  simply  in  his  social  character, 
and  supposing  him  sincere,  a  sceptic  is  as  agreeable 
as  another.  Anyhow  he  is  better  than  a  craniologist, 
than  a  punster,  than  a  St.  Simonian,  than  a  Jeremy- 
Bentham-cock,  or  an  anti-corn-law  lecturer.  What 
signifies  a  name  ?  Free-thinker  he  calls  himself?  Good 
—  let  him  '  free  think  '  as  fast  as  he  can  ;  but  let  him 
obey  the  ordinary  laws  of  good  faith.  No  sneering 
in  the  first  place,  because,  though  it  is  untrue  that  '  a 
sneer  cannot  be  answered,'  the  answer  too  often  im- 
poses circumlocution.  And  upon  a  subject  which 
makes  wise  men  grave,  a  sneer  argues  so  much  per- 
version of  heart,  that  it  cannot  be  thought  uncandid  to 
infer  some  corresponding  perversion  of  intellect.  Per- 
fect sincerity  never  existed  in  a  professional  sneerer  ; 
secondly,  no  treachery,  no  betrayal  of  the  cause  which 
the  man  is  sworn  and  paid  to  support.  Conyers  Mid- 
dleton held  considerable  preferment  in  the  church  of 
England.  Long  after  he  had  become  an  enemy  to 
that  church,  (not  separately  for  itself,  but  generally  as 


CICERO. 


267 


a  strong  form  of  Christianity,)  he  continued  to  receive 
large  quarterly  cheques  upon  a  bank  in  Lombard-street, 
of  which  the  original  condition  had  been  that  he  should 
defend  Christianity  '  with  all  his  soul  and  with  ail  his 
strength.'  Yet  such  was  his  perfidy  to  this  sacred 
engagement,  that  even  his  private  or  personal  feuds 
grew  out  of  his  capital  feud  with  the  Christian  faith. 
From  the  church  he  drew  his  bread  ;  and  the  labor  of 
his  life  was  to  bring  the  church  into  contempt.  He 
hated  Bentley,  he  hated  Warburton,  he  hated  Water- 
land  ;  and  why  ?  all  alike  as  powerful  champions  of 
that  religion  which  he  himself  daily  betrayed  ;  and 
Waterland,  as  the  strongest  of  these  champions,  he 
hated  most.  But  all  ,these  bye-currents  of  malignity 
emptied  themselves  into  one  vast  cloaca  maxima  of 
rancorous  animosity  to  the  mere  spirit,  temper,  and 
tendencies,  of  Christianity.  Even  in  treason  there  is 
room  for  courage ;  but  Middleton,  in  the  manner,  was 
as  cowardly  as  he  was  treacherous  in  the  matter.  He 
wished  to  have  it  whispered  about  that  he  was  worse 
than  he  seemed,  and  that  he  would  be  a.  fort  esprit  of 
a  high  cast,  but  for  the  bigotry  of  his  church.  It  was 
a  fine  thing,  he  fancied,  to  have  the  credit  of  infidelity, 
without  ])aying  for  a  license ;  to  sport  over  those 
manors  without  a  qualification.  As  a  scholar,  mean- 
time, he  was  trivial  and  incapable  of  labor.  Even  the 
Roman  antiquities,  political  or  juristic,  he  had  studied 
neither  by  research  and  erudition,  nor  by  meditation 
on  their  value  and  analogies.  Lastly,  his  English 
style,  for  which  at  one  time  he  obtained  some  credit 
through  the  caprice  of  a  fashionable  critic,  is  such,, 
that  by  weeding  away  from  it  whatever  is  colloquial, 
vou  would  strip  it  of  all  that  is  characteristic  :  remov« 


268 


CICERO. 


ing  its  idiomatic  vulgarisms,  you  would  remove  its 
principle  of  animation. 

That  man  misapprehends  the  case,  who  fancies 
that  the  infidelity  of  Middleton  can  have  but  a  limited 
operation  upon  a  memoir  of  Cicero.  On  the  contrary, 
because  this  prepossession  was  rather  a  passion  of 
hatred than  any  aversion  of  the  intellect,  it  operated 
as  a  false  bias  universally ;  and  in  default  of  any  suffi- 
cient analogy  between  Roman  politics,  and  the  politics 
of  England  at  Middleton's  time  of  publication,  there 
was  no  other  popular  bias  derived  from  modern  ages, 
which  could  have  been  available.  It  was  the  object  of 
Middleton  to  paint,  in  the  person  of  Cicero,  a  pure 
Pagan  model  of  scrupulous  morality  ;  and  to  show 
that,  in  most  difficult  times,  he  had  acted  with  a  self- 
restraint  and  a  considerate  integrity,  to  which  Christian 
ethics  could  have  added  no  element  of  value.  Now 
this  object  had  the  effect  of,  already  in  the  preconcep- 
tion, laying  a  restraint  over  all  freedom  in  the  execu- 
tion. No  man  could  start  from  the  assumption  of 
Cicero's  uniform  uprightness,  and  afterwards  retain 
any  latitude  of  free  judgment  upon  the  most  momen- 
tous transaction  of  Cicero's  life  :  because,  unlesr  some 
plausible  hypothesis  could  be  framed  for  giving  body 
and  consistency  to  the  pretences  of  the  Pompean 
cause,  it  must,  upon  any  examination,  turn  out  to  have 
been  as  merely  a  selfish  cabal,  for  the  benefit  of  a  few 
ordly  families,  as  ever  yet  has  prompted  a  conspiracy. 
The  slang  words  '  respublica '  and  '  causa,'  are  caught 
up  by  Middleton  from  the  letters  of  Cicero  ;  but  never, 
m  any  one  instance,  has  either  Cicero  or  a  modern 
commentator,  been  able  to  explain  what  general  inter- 
est of  the  Roman  people  was  represented  by  these 


CICERO. 


269 


vague  abstractions.  The  strife,  at  that  era,  was  not 
between  the  conservative  instinct  as  organized  in  the 
upper  classes,  and  the  destroying  instinct  as  concen- 
trated in  the  lowest.  The  strife  was  not  between  the 
property  of  the  nation  and  its  rapacious  pauperism  — 
the  strife  was  not  between  the  honors,  titles,  institu- 
tions, created  by  the  state  and  the  plebeian  malice  of 
levellers,  seeking  for  a  commencement  de  novo,  with 
the  benefits  of  a  general  scramble  —  it  was  a  strife 
between  a  small  faction  of  confederated  oligarchs 
upon  the  one  hand,  and  the  nation  upon  the  other. 
Or,  looking  still  more  narrowly  into  the  nature  of  the 
separate  purposes  at  issue,  it  was,  on  the  Julian  side, 
an  attempt  to  make  such  a  re-distribution  of  constitu- 
tional functions,  as  should  harmonize  the  necessities 
of  the  public  service  with  the  working  of  the  republi- 
can machinery.  Whereas,  under  the  existing  condi- 
tion of  Rome,  through  the  silent  changes  of  time, 
operating  upon  the  relations  of  property  and  upon  the 
character  of  the  populace,  it  had  been  long  evident 
that  armed  supporters  —  nov/  legionary  soldiers,  now 
gladiators  —  enormous  bribery,  and  the  constant  re- 
serve of  anarchy  in  the  rear,  were  become  the  regular 
counters  for  conducting  the  desperate  game  of  the 
more  ordinary  civil  administration.  Not  the  dema- 
gogue only,  but  the  peaceful  or  patriotic  citizen,  and 
the  constitutional  magistrate,  could  now  move  and 
exercise  their  public  functions  only  through  the  dead- 
liest combinations  of  violence  and  fraud.  This  dread- 
ful condition  of  things,  which  no  longer  acted  through 
lhat  salutary  opposition  of  parties,  essential  to  the 
energy  of  free  countries,  but  involved  all  Rome  in  a 
permanent  panic,  was  acceptable  to  the  senate  only  • 


270 


CICERO. 


and  of  the  senate,  in  sincerity,  to  a  very  small  section. 
Some  score  of  great  houses  there  was,  that  by  vigi- 
lance of  intrigues,  by  far-sighted  arrangements  foi 
armed  force  or  for  critical  retreat,  and  by  overwhelm- 
ing command  of  money,  could  always  guarantee  their 
own  domination.  For  this  purpose,  all  that  they 
needed  was  a  secret  understanding  with  each  other, 
and  the  interchange  of  mutual  pledges  by  means  of 
marriage  alliances.  Any  revolution  which  should  put 
an  end  to  this  anarchy  of  selfishness,  must  reduce  the 
exorbitant  power  of  the  paramount  grandees.  They 
naturally  confederated  against  a  result  so  shocking  to 
their  pride.  Cicero,  as  a  new  member  of  this  faction, 
hunself  rich^^  in  a  degree  sufficient  for  the  indefinite 
aggrandizement  of  his  son,  and  sure  of  support  from 
all  the  interior  cabal  of  the  senators,  had  adopted  their 
selfish  sympathies.  And  it  is  probable  enough  that 
all  changes  in  a  system  which  worked  so  well  for 
himself,  to  which  also  he  had  always  looked  up  from 
his  youngest  days  as  the  reward  and  haven  of  his 
toils,  did  seriously  strike  him  as  dreadful  innovations. 
Names  were  now  to  be  altered  for  the  sake  of  things  ; 
forms  for  the  sake  of  substances :  this  already  gave 
some  verbal  power  of  delusion  to  the  senatorial  faction. 
And  a  prospect  still  more  startling  to  them  all,  was 
the  necessity  towards  any  restoration  of  the  old  re- 
public, that  some  one  eminent  grandee  should  hold 
provisionally  a  dictatorial  power  during  the  period  of 
transition. 

Abeken  —  and  it  is  honorable  to  him  as  a  scholar 
of  a  section  not  conversant  with  politics  —  sav/  enough 
into  the  situation  of  Rome  at  that  time,  to  be  sure  that 
Cicero  was  profoundly  in  error  upon  the  capital  point 


CICEIIO. 


271 


of  the  dispute  ;  that  is,  in  mistaking  a  cabal  for  the 
commonwealth,  and  the  narrowest  of  intrigues  for  a 
pubKc  '  cause.'  Abeken,  like  an  honest  man,  had 
sought  for  any  national  interest  cloaked  by  the  wordy 
pretences  of  Pompey,  and  he  bad  found  none.  He 
had  seen  the  necessity  towards  any  regeneration  of 
Rome,  that  Caesar,  or  some  leader  pursuing  the  same 
objects,  should  be  armed  for  a  time  with  extraordinary 
power.  In  that  way  onlyliad  both  Marius  and  Sylla 
each  in  the  same  general  circumstances,  though  with 
different  feelings,  been  enabled  to  preserve  Rome 
from  total  anarchy.  We  give  Abeken's  express  words 
that  we  may  not  seem  to  tax  him  with  any  responsi- 
bility beyond  what  he  courted.  At  p.  342,  (8th  sect.) 
he  owns  it  as  a  rule  of  the  sole  conservative  policy 
possible  for  Rome  :  — '  Dass  Caesar  der  einzige  war, 
der  ohne  weitere  stuerme,  Rom  zu  dem  ziele  zu  faeh- 
ren  vermochte,  welchem  es  seit  einem  jahrhundert 
sich  zuwendete  ; '  that  Caesar  was  the  sole  man  who 
had  it  in  his  power,  without  further  convulsions,  to 
lead  Rome  onwards  to  that  final  mark,  towards  which, 
in  tendency,  she  had  been  travelling  throughout  one 
whole  century.  Neither  could  it  be  of  much  conse- 
quence whether  Caesar  shoidd  personally  find  it  safe 
to  imitate  the  example  of  Sylla  in  laying  down  his 
authority,  provided  he  so  matured  the  safeguards  of  the 
reformed  constitution,  that,  on  the  withdrawal  of  this 
temporary  scaffolding,  the  great  arch  was  found  ca- 
pable of  self-support.  Thus  far,  as  an  ingenious 
student  of  Cicero's  correspondence,  Abeken  gains  a 
glimpse  of  the  truth  which  has  been  so  constantly  ob- 
icured  by  historians.  But,  with  the  natural  incapacity 
for  practical  politics  which  besieges  all  Germans,  he 


272 


CICERO. 


fails  in  most  of  ilie  subordinate  cases  to  decipher  the 
intrigues  at  work,  and  ofttimes  finds  special  palliation 
for  Cicero's  conduct,  where,  in  reality,  it  was  but  a 
reiteration  of  that  selfish  policy  in  which  he  had  united 
j;himself  with  Pompey. 

"  By  way  of  slightly  reviewing  this  policy,  as  it  ex* 
pressed  itself  in  the  acts  or  opinions  of  Pompey,  we 
will  pursue  it  through  the  chief  stages  of  the  con- 
test. Where  was  it  that  Cicero  first  heard  the  appalling 
news  of  a  civil  war  inevitable  ?  It  was  at  Ephesus  ; 
at  the  moment  of  reaching  that  city  on  his  return 
homewards  from  his  proconsular  government  in 
Cilicia,  and  the  circumstances  of  his  position  were 
these.  On  the  last  day  of  July,  703,  Ah  Urh,  Cond., 
Ke  had  formally  entered  on  that  office.  On  the  last 
day  but  one  of  the  same  month  in  704,  he  laid  it 
down.  The  conduct  of  Cicero  in  this  command  was 
meritorious.  And,  if  our  purpose  had  been  generally 
to  examine  his  merits,  we  could  show  cause  for  making 
a  higher  estimate  of  those  merits  than  has  been  off'ered 
by  his  professional  eulogists.  The  circumstances, 
however,  in  the  opposite  scale,  ought  not  to  be  over- 
looked. He  knew  himself  to  be  under  a  jealous  super- 
vision from  the  friends  of  Verres,  or  all  who  might 
have  the  same  interest.  This  is  one  of  the  two  facts 
which  may  be  pleaded  in  abatement  of  his  disinter- 
ested merit.  The  other  is,  that,  after  all,  he  did 
undeniably  pocket  a  large  sum  of  money  (more  than 
twenty  thousand  pounds)  upon  his  year's  administra- 
4on  ;  whilst,  on  the  other  hand,  the  utmost  extent  of 
that  sum  by  which  he  refused  to  profit  was  not  large. 
This  at  least  we  are  entitled  to  say  with  regard  to  the 
only  specific  sum  brought  under  our  notice,  as  certainly 
awaiting  his  private  disposal. 


CICERO. 


273 


Here  occurs  a  very  important  error  of  Middletoii's. 
The  question  of  money  very  much  will  turn  upon  the 
specific  amount.  An  abstinence  which  is  exemplary 
may  be  shown  in  resisting  an  enormous  gain  ;  whereas 
under  a  slight  temptation  the  abstinence  may  ^e  little 
or  none.  Middleton  makes  the  extravagant,  almost 
maniacal,  assertion,  that  the  sum  available  by  custom 
as  a  perquisite  to  Cicero's  suite  was  '  eight  hundred 
thousand  pounds  sterling.'  Not  long  after  the  period 
in  which  Middleton  wrote,  newspapers  and  the  in- 
creased facilities  for  travelling  in  England,  had  begun 
to  operate  powerfully  upon  the  character  of  our  Eng- 
lish universities.  Rectors  and  students,  childishly 
ignorant  of  the  world,  (such  as  Parson  Adams  and  the 
Vicar  of  Wakefield,)  became  a  rare  class.  Possibly 
Middleton  was  the  last  clergyman  of  that  order  ; 
though,  in  any  good  sense,  having  little  enough  of 
guileless  simplicity.  In  our  own  experience  we  have 
met  with  but  one  similar  case  of  heroic  ignorance. 
This  occurred  near  Caernarvon.  A  poor  Welsh  woman, 
leaving  home  to  attend  an  annual  meeting  of  the  Meth- 
odists, replied  to  us  who  had  questioned  her  as  to  the 
numerical  amount  of  members  likely  to  assemble  ?  — 
'  That  perhaps  there  would  be  a  matter  of  four  mil- 
lions ! '  This  in  little  Caernarvon,  that  by  no  possi- 
bility could  accommodate  as  many  thousands !  Yet,  in 
justice  to  the  poor  cottager,  it  should  be  said  that 
she  spoke  doubtingly,  and  with  an  anxious  look, 
whereas  Middleton  announces  this  little  honus  of  eight 
hundred  thousand  pounds  with  a  glib  fluency  that  de- 
monstrates him  to  have  seen  nothing  in  the  amount 
worth  a  comment.  Let  the  reader  take  with  him  these 
little  adjuncts  of  the  case.  First  of  all,  the  money 
18 


274 


CICERO. 


was  a  mere  surplus  arising  on  the  public  expendiluie, 
and  resigned  in  any  case  to  the  suite  of  the  governor, 
only  under  the  presumption  that  it  must  be  too  trivial 
to  call  for  any  more  deliberate  appropriation.  Sec- 
ondly, it  was  the  surplus  of  a  single  year's  expendi- 
ture. Thirdly,  the  province  itself  was  chiefly  Grecian 
in  the  composition  of  its  population  ;  that  is,  poor,  in 
a  degree  not  understood  by  most  Englishmen,  frugally 
penurious  in  its  habits.  Fourthly,  the  public  service 
was  of  the  very  simplest  nature.  The  administration 
of  justice,  and  the  military  application  of  about  eight 
thousand  regular  troops  to  the  local  seditions  of  the 
Isaurian  freebooters,  or  to  the  occasional  sallies  from 
the  Parthian  frontier  —  these  functions  of  the  procon- 
sul summed  up  his  public  duties.  To  us  the  marvel 
is,  how  there  could  arise  a  surplus  even  equal  to  eight 
thousand  pounds,  which  some  copies  countenance. 
Eight  pounds  we  should  have  surmised.  But  to  justify 
Middleton,  he  ought  to  have  found  in  the  text  '  millies ' 
—  a  reading  which  exists  nowhere.  Figures,  in  such 
cases,  are  always  so  suspicious  as  scarcely  to  warrant 
more  than  a  slight  bias  to  the  sense  which  they  estab- 
lish :  and  words  are  little  better,  since  they  may 
always  have  been  derived  from  a  previous  authority 
in  figures.  -  Meantime,  simply  as  a  blunder  in  accurate 
scholarship,  we  should  think  it  unfair  to  have  pressed 
it.  But  it  is  in  the  light  of  an  evidence  against  Mid- 
dleton's  good  sense  and  thoughtfulness  that  we  regard 
it  as  capital.  The  man  who  could  believe  that  a  sum 
not  far  from  a  million  sterling  had  arisen  in  the  course 
of  twelve  months,  as  a  little  bagatelle  of  office,  a  po^- 
de-vin,  mere  customary  fees,  payable  to  the  discretional 
allotment  of  one  who  held  the  most  fleeting  relation  to 


CICERO. 


275 


the  province,  is  not  entitled  to  an  opinion  upon  any 
question  of  doubtful  tenor.  Had  this  been  the  scale 
of  regular  profits  upon  a  poor  province,  why  should 
any  Verres  create  risk  for  himself  by  an  arbitrary 
scale  ? 

In  cases,  therefore,  where  the  merit  turns  upon 
money,  unavoidably  the  ultimate  question  will  turn 
upon  the  amount.  And  the  very  terms  of  the  transac- 
tion, as  they  are  reported  by  Cicero,  indicating  that 
the  sum  was  entirely  at  his  own  disposal,  argue  its 
trivial  value.  Another  argument  implies  the  same 
construction.  Former  magistrates,  most  of  whom  took 
such  offices  with  an  express  view  to  the  creation  of  a 
fortune  by  embezzlement  and  by  bribes,  had  estab- 
lished the  precedent  of  relinquishing  this  surplus  to 
their  official  '  family.'  This  fact  of  itself  shows  that 
the  amount  must  have  been  uniformly  trifling :  being 
at  all  subject  to  fluctuations  in  the  amount,  most  cer- 
tainly it  would  have  been  made  to  depend  for  its 
appropriation  upon  the  separate  merits  of  each  annual 
case  as  it  came  to  be  known.  In  this  particular  case, 
Cicero's  suite  grumbled  a  little  at  his  decision  :  he 
ordered  that  the  money  should  be  carried  to  the  credit 
of  the  public.  But,  had  a  sum  so  vast  as  Middleton's 
been  disposable  in  mere  perquisites,  proli  deum  atque 
hominum  jidem  !  the  honorable  gentlemen  of  the  suite 
would  have  taken  unpleasant  liberties  with  the  procon- 
sular throat.  They  would  have  been  entitled  to  divide 
on  the  average  forty  thousand  pounds  a  man  :  and  they 
would  have  married  into  senatorian  houses.  Because 
%  score  or  so  of  monstrous  fortunes  existed  in  Rome, 
we  must  not  forget  that  in  any  age  of  the  Republic  a 
sum  of  twenty-five  thousand  pounds  would  have  con- 


276 


CICERO. 


Btituted  a  most  respectable  fortune  for  a  man  not 
embarked  upon  a  public  career  ;  and  with  sufficient 
connections  it  would  furnish  the  early  costs  even  for 
Buch  a  career. 

We  have  noticed  this  affair  with  some  minutecess, 
both  from  its  importance  to  the  accuser  of  V erres,  and 
because  we  shall  here  have  occasion  to  insist  on  this 
very  case,  as  amongst  those  which  illustrate  the  call 
for  political  revolution  at  Rome.  Returning  from 
Cicero  the  governor  to  Cicero  the  man,  we  may  re- 
mark, that,  although  his  whole  life  had  been  adapted 
to  purposes  of  ostentation,  and  d  fortiori  this  particu- 
lar provincial  interlude  was  sure  to  challenge  from  his 
enemies  a  vindictive  scrutiny,  still  we  find  cause  to 
think  Cicero  very  sincere  in  his  purity  as  a  magistrate. 
Many  of  his  acts  were  not  mere  showy  renunciations 
of  doubtful  privileges ;  but  were  connected  with  pain- 
ful circumstances  of  offence  to  intimate  friends.  In- 
directly we  may  find  in  these  cases  a  pretty  ample 
violation  of  the  Roman  morals.  Pretended  philoso- 
phers in  Rome  who  prated  in  set  books  about  '  virtue  * 
and  the  '  summum  bonum,'  made  no  scruple,  in  the 
character  of  magistrates,  to  pursue  the  most  extensive 
plans  of  extortion,  through  the  worst  abuses  of  military 
license  ;  some,  as  the  '  virtuous '  Marcus  Brutus,  not 
stopping  short  of  murder  —  a  foul  case  of  this  descrip- 
tion had  occurred  in  the  previous  year  under  the  sanc- 
tion of  Brutus,  and  Cicero  had  to  stand  his  friend  in 
nobly  refusing  to  abet  the  further  prosecution  of  the 
very  same  atrocity.  Even  in  the  case  of  the  perqui- 
sites, as  stated  above,  Cicero  had  a  more  painful  duty 
than  that  of  merely  sacrificing  a  small  sum  of  money  : 
he  was  summoned  by  his  conscience  to  offend  those 


CICERO. 


men  with  whom  he  lived,  as  a  modern  prince  oi 
ambassador  lives  amongst  the  members  of  his  official 
'  family.'  Naturally  it  could  be  no  trifle  to  a  gentle- 
hearted  man,  that  he  was  creating  for  himself  a  neces- 
sity of  encountering  frowns  from  those  who  surrounded 
him,  and  who  might  think,  with  some  reason,  that  in 
bringing  them  to  a  distant  land,  he  had  aiithorized 
them  to  look  for  all  such  remunerations  as  precedent 
had  established.  Right  or  wrong  in  the  casuistical 
point  —  we  believe  him  to  have  been  wrong  —  Cicero 
was  eminently  right  when  once  satisfied  by  arguments, 
sound  or  not  sound  as  to  the  point  of  duty,  in  pursuing 
that  duty  through  all  the  vexations  w^hich  it  entailed. 
This  justice  we  owe  him  pointedly  in  a  review  which 
has  for  its  general  object  the  condemnation  of  his 
political  conduct. 

Never  was  a  child,  torn  from  its  mother's  arms  to 
an  odious  school,  more  homesick  at  this  moment  than 
was  Cicero.  He  languished  for  Eome  ;  and  when  he 
stood  before  the  gates  of  Rome,  about  five  months 
later,  not  at  liberty  to  enter  them,  he  sighed  profound- 
ly after  the  vanished  peace  of  mind  w^hich  he  had 
enjoyed  in  his  wild  mountainous  province.  '  Quaesivit 
lucem  —  ingemuitque  repertam.'  Vainly  he  flattered 
himself  that  he  could  compose,  by  his  single  mediation, 
the  mighty  conflict  which  had  now  opened.  As  he 
pursued  his  voyage  homewards,  through  the  months 
of  August,  September,  October,  and  November,  he 
was  met,  at  every  port  where  he  touched  for  a  few 
days'  repose,  by  reports,  more  and  more  gloomy,  of 
^-he  impending  rupture  between  the  great  partisan 
leaders.  These  reports  ran  along,  like  the  undulations 
of  an  earthquake,   to  the  last  recesses  of  the  east. 


278 


CICERO. 


Every  king  and  every  people  had  been  canvassed  foi 
the  coming  conflict ;  and  many  had  been  already  associ- 
ated by  pledges  to  the  one  side  or  the  other.  The  fancy 
faded  away  from  Cicero's  thoughts  as  he  drew  nearer 
to  Italy,  that  any  effect  could  now  be  anticipated  for 
mediatorial  counsels.  The  controversy,  indeed,  was 
still  pursued  through  diplomacy  ;  and  the  negotiations 
had  not  reached  an  ultimatu7n  from  either  side.  But 
Cicero  was  still  distant  from  the  parties  ;  and,  before 
it  was  possible  that  any  general  congress  representing 
both  interests,  could  assemble,  it  was  certain  that  re- 
ciprocal distrust  would  coerce  them  into  irrevocable 
measures  of  hostility.  Cicero  landed  at  Otranto.  He 
went  forward  by  land  to  Brundusium,  where,  on  the 
25th  of  November,  his  wife  and  daughter,  who  had 
come  forward  from  Rome  to  meet  him,  entered  the 
public  square  of  that  town  at  the  same  moment  with 
himself.  Without  delay  he  moved  forward  towards 
Rome  ;  but  he  could  not  gratify  his  ardor  for  a  per- 
sonal interference  in  the  great  crisis  of  the  hour,  with- 
out entering  Rome  ;  and  that  he  was  not  at  liberty  to 
do,  without  surrendering  his  pretensions  to  the  honor 
of  a  triumph. 

Many  writers  have  amused  themselves  with  the  idle 
vanity  of  Cicero,  in  standing  upon  a  claim  so  windy, 
under  circumstances  so  awful.  But,  on  the  one  hand, 
it  should  be  remembered  how  eloquent  a  monument  it 
was  of  civil  grandeur,  for  a  novus  homo  to  have  estab- 
lished his  own  amongst  the  few  surviving  triumphal 
families  of  Rome  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  he  could 
have  effected  nothing  by  his  presence  in  the  senate. 
No  man  could  at  this  moment ;  Cicero  least  of  all  ; 
because  his  policy  had  been  thus  arranged  —  ultimately 


CICERO. 


279 


to  support  Pompay  ;  but  in  the  meantime,  as  strength- 
ening the  chances  against  war,  to  exhibit  a  perfect 
neutrality.  Bringing,  therefore,  nothing  in  his  coun- 
sels, he  could  hope  for  nothing  influential  in  the  result. 
Caesar  was  now  at  Eavenna,  as  the  city  nearest  to 
Rome  of  all  which  he  could  make  his  military  head- 
quarters ^\ithin  the  Italian  (i.  e.  the  Cisalpine)  province 
of  Gaul.  But  he  held  his  forces  well  in  hand,  and 
ready  for  a  start,  with  his  eyes  literally  fixed  on  the 
walls  of  Rome,  so  near  had  he  approached.  Cicero 
warned  his  friend  Atticus,  that  a  dreadful  and  per- 
fectly unexampled  war  —  a  struggle  '  of  life  and 
death  '  —  was  awaiting  them  ;  and  that  in  his  opinion 
nothing  could  avert  it,  short  of  a  great  Parthian  in- 
vasion, deluging  the  Eastern  provinces  —  Greece, 
Asia  Minor,  Syria  —  such  as  might  force  the  two 
chieftains  into  an  instant  distraction  of  their  efforts. 
Out  of  that  would  grow  the  absence  of  one  or  other ; 
and  upon  that  separation,  for  the  present,  might  hang 
an  incalculable  series  of  changes.  Else,  and  but  for 
fchis  one  contingency,  he  announced  the  fate  of  Pome 
to  be  sealed. 

The  new  year  came,  the  year  705,  and  with  it  new 
consuls.  One  of  these,  C.  Marcellus,  was  distinguished 
amongst  the  enemies  of  Csesar  by  his  personal  rancor 
—  a  feeling  which  he  shared  with  his  twin-brother 
Marcus.  In  the  first  day  of  this  month,  the  senate 
was  to  decide  upon  Caesar's  proposals,  as  a  basis  for 
future  arrangement.  They  did  so  ;  they  voted  the 
proposals,  by  a  large  majority,  unsatisfactory  —  in- 
stantly assumed  a  fierce  martial  attitude  —  fulminated 
the  most  hostile  of  all  decrees,  and  authorized  shock- 
ing outrages  upon  those  who,  in  official  situations 


280 


CICEKO. 


represented  Caesar's  interest.  These  men  fled  for  their 
lives.  Caesar,  on  receiving  their  report,  gave  the  signal 
for  advance ;  and  in  forty-eight  hours  had  crossed  the 
little  brook  called  the  Rubicon,  which  determined  the 
marches  or  frontier  line  of  his  province.  Earlier  by 
a  month  than  this  great  event,  Cicero  had  travelled 
southward.  Thus  his  object  was,  to  place  himself  in 
personal  communication  with  Pompey,  whose  vast 
Neapolitan  estates  drew  him  often  into  that  quarter. 
But,  to  his  great  consternation,  he  found  himself  soon 
followed  by  the  whole  stream  of  Roman  grandees, 
flying  before  Caesar  through  the  first  two  months  of  the 
year.  A  majority  of  the  senators  had  chosen,  together 
with  the  consuls,  to  become  emigrants  from  Rome, 
lather  than  abide  any  compromise  with  Caesar.  And, 
as  these  were  chiefly  the  rich  and  potent  in  the  aris- 
tocracy, naturally  they  drew  along  with  themselves 
many  humble  dependents,  both  in  a  pecuniary  and  a 
political  sense.  A  strange  rumor  prevailed  at  this 
moment,  to  which  even  Cicero  showed  himself  mali- 
ciously credulous,  that  Caesar's  natural  temper  was 
cruel,  and  that  his  policy  also  had  taken  that  direction. 
But  the  brilliant  result  within  the  next  six  or  seven 
weeks  changed  the  face  of  politics,  disabused  everybody 
of  their  delusions,  and  showed  how  large  a  portion 
of  the  panic  had  been  due  to  monstrous  misconcep- 
tions. For  already,  in  March,  multitudes  of  refugees 
had  returned  to  Caesar.  By  the  first  week  of  April, 
that  '  monster  of  energy,'  (that  rsQag  of  superhuman 
despatch,)  as  Cicero  repeatedly  styles  Caesar,  had 
marched  through  Italy  —  had  received  the  submission 
of  every  strong  fortress  —  had  driven  Pompey  into  his 
last  Calabrian  retreat  of  Brundusium,  (at  which  point 


CICERO. 


281 


it  was  that  this  unhappy  man  unconsciously  took  his 
last  farewell  of  Italian  ground)  —  had  summarily 
kicked  him  out  of  Brundusium  —  and,  having  thus 
cleared  all  Italy  of  enemies,  was  on  his  road  back  to 
Rome.  From  this  city,  within  the  first  ten  days  of 
April,  he  moved  onwards  to  the  Spanish  war,  where, 
in  reality,  the  true  strength  of  Pompey's  cause  —  strong 
legions  of  soldiers,  chiefly  Italian  —  awaited  him  in 
strong  positions,  chosen  at  leisure,  under  Afranius  and 
Petreius.  For  the  rest  of  this  year,  705,  Pompey  was 
unmolested.  In  706,  Caesar,  victorious  from  Spain, 
addressed  himself  to  the  task  of  overthrowing  Pompey 
in  person  ;  and,  on  the  9th  of  August  in  that  year, 
took  place  the  ever-memorable  battle  on  the  river 
Pharsalus  in  Thessaly. 

During  all  this  period  of  about  one  year  and  a  half, 
Cicero's  letters,  at  intermitting  periods,  hold  the  same 
language.  They  fluctuate,  indeed,  strangely  in  tem- 
per ;  for  they  run  through  all  the  changes  incident  to 
hoping,  trusting,  and  disappointed  friendship.  Noth- 
ing can  equal  the  expression  of  his  scorn  for  Pompey's 
inertia,  when  contrasted  with  energy  so  astonishing 
on  the  part  of  his  antagonist.  Cicero  had  also  been 
deceived  as  to  facts.  The  plan  of  the  campaign  had, 
to  him  in  particular,  not  been  communicated  ;  he  had 
been  allowed  to  calculate  on  a  final  resistance  in  Italy. 
This  was  certainly  impossible.  But  the  policy  of 
maintaining  a  show  of  opposition,  which  it  was  in- 
tended to  abandon  at  every  point,  or  of  procuring  for 
Caesar  the  credit  of  so  many  successive  triumphs, 
which  might  all  have  been  evaded,  has  never  received 
^ay  explanation. 

Towards  the  middle  of  February,  Cicero  acknowl- 


282 


CICERO. 


edges  the  receipt  of  letters  from  Rome,  which  in  one 
sense  are  valuable,  as  exposing  the  system  of  self- 
delusion  prevailing.  Domitius,  it  seems,  who  soon 
after  laid  down  his  arms  at  Corfinium,  and  loitli  Cor- 
finium,  parading  his  forces  only  to  make  a  more 
solemn  surrender,  had,  as  the  despatches  from  Rome 
asserted,  an  army  on  which  he  could  rely  ;  as  to 
Caesar,  that  nothing  was  easier  than  to  intercept  him  ; 
that  such  was  Caesar's  own  impression ;  that  honest 
men  were  recovering  their  spirits  ;  and  that  the  rogues 
at  liome  {Ro?nce  improhos)  were  one  and  all  in  con- 
sternation. It  tells  powerfully  for  Cicero's  sagacity, 
that  now,  amidst  this  general  explosion  of  childish  - 
hopes,  he  only  was  sternly  incredulous.  '  Hcbc  metuo, 
equidem,  ne  sint  somnia.'*  Yes,  he  had  learned  by  this 
time  to  appreciate  the  windy  reliances  of  his  party. 
He  had  an  argument  from  experience  for  slighting  their 
vain  demonstrations  ;  and  he  had  a  better  argument 
from  the  future,  as  that  future  was  really  contemplated 
in  the  very  counsels  of  the  leader.  Pompey,  though 
nominally  controlled  by  other  men  of  consular  rank, 
was  at  present  an  autocrat  for  the  management  of  the 
war.  What  was  his  policy  ?  Cicero  had  now  dis- 
covered, not  so  much  through  confidential  interviews, 
as  by  the  mute  tendencies  of  all  the  measures  adopted 
—  Cicero  was  satisfied  that  his  total  policy  had  been, 
from  the  first,  a  policy  of  despair. 

The  position  of  Pompey,  as  an  old  invalid,  from 
whom  his  party  exacted  the  services  of  youth,  is 
worthy  of  separate  notice.  There  is  not,  perhaps,  a 
more  pitiable  situation  than  that  of  a  veteran  reposing 
upon  his  past  laurels,  who  is  summoned  from  beds  of 
down,  and  from  the  elaborate  system  of  comforts 


CICERO. 


283 


engrafted  upon  a  princely  establishment,  suddenly  to 
re-assume  his  armor  ~  to  prepare  for  personal  hard- 
ships of  every  kind  —  to  renew  his  youthful  anxieties, 
without  support  from  youthful  energies  —  once  again 
to  dispute  sword  in  hand  the  title  to  his  own  honors  — 
to  pay  back  into  the  chancery  of  war,  as  into  some 
fund  of  abeyance,  all  his  own  prizes,  and  palms  of 
every  kind  —  to  re-open  every  decision  or  award  by 
which  he  had  ever  benefited  —  and  to  view  his  own 
national  distinctions  of  name,  trophy,  laurel-  crown,^^ 
as  all  but  so  many  stakes  provisionally  resumed,  which 
must  be  redeemed  by  services  tenfold  more  difficult 
than  those  by  which  originally  they  had  been  earned. 

Here  was  a  trial  painful,  unexpected,  sudden  ;  such 
as  any  man,  at  any  age,  might  have  honorably  de- 
clined. The  very  best  contingency  in  such  a  struggle 
was,  that  nothing  might  be  lost ;  whilst,  along  with 
this  doubtful  hope,  ran  the  certainty  —  that  nothing 
could  be  gained.  More  glorious  in  the  popular  esti- 
mate of  his  countrymen,  Pompey  could  not  become, 
for  his  honors  were  already  historical,  and  touched 
with  the  autumnal  hues  of  antiquity,  having  been  won 
in  a  generation  now  gone  by  ;  but  on  the  other  hand 
he  might  lose  everything,  for,  in  a  contest  with  so 
•dreadful  an  antagonist  as  Caesar,  he  could  not  hope  to 
come  off  unscorched  ;  and,  whatever  might  be  the 
final  event,  one  result  must  have  struck  him  as  inevita- 
ble, viz.  that  a  new  generation  of  men,  who  had  come 
forward  into  the  arena  of  life  within  the  last  twenty 
years,  would  watch  the  approaching  collision  with 
Cfesar  as  putting  to  the  test  a  question  much  canvassed  ♦ 
of  late,  with  regard  to  the  soundness  and  legitimacy  of 
Pompey's  military  exploits.    As  a  commander -in-chief 


284 


CICEHO. 


Pompey  was  known  to  have  been  unusually  fortunate. 
The  bloody  contests  of  Marius,  Cinna,  Sylla,  and  their 
vindictive,  but,  perhaps,  unavoidable,  proscription,  had 
thinned  the  ranks  of  natural  competitors,  at  the  very 
opening  of  Pompey's  career.  That  interval  of  about 
eight  years,  by  which  he  was  senior  to  Caesar,  hap- 
pened to  make  the  whole  difference  between  a  crowded 
list  of  candidates  for  offices  of  trust,  and  no  list  at  all. 
Even  more  lucky  hid  Pompey  found  himself  in  the 
character  of  his  appointments,  and  in  the  quality  of 
his  antagonists.  All  his  wars  had  been  of  that  class 
which  yield  great  splendor  of  external  show,  but  im- 
pose small  exertion  and  less  risk.  In  the  war  with  r 
Mithridates  he  succeeded  to  great  captains  who  had 
sapped  the  whole  stamina  and  resistance  of  the  con- 
test ;  besides  that,  after  all  the  varnishings  of  Cicero, 
when  speaking  for  the  Manilian  law,  the  enemy  was 
too  notoriously  effeminate.  The  bye-battle  with  the 
Cilician  pirates,  is  more  obscure  ;  but  it  is  certain  that 
the  extraordinary  powers  conferred  on  Pompey  by  the 
Gabinian  law,  gave  to  him,  as  compared  with  his 
predecessors  in  the  same  effort  at  cleansing  the  Levant 
from  a  nuisance,  something  like  the  unfair  superiority; 
above  their  brethren  enjoyed  by  some  of  Charlemagne's 
paladins,  in  the  possession  of  enchanted  weapons.  The  ' 
success  was  already  ensured  by  the  great  armament 
placed  at  Pompey' s  disposal  ;  and  still  more  by  his 
unlimited  commission,  which  enabled  him  to  force 
these  water-rats  out  of  their  holes,  and  to  bring  them 
all  into  one  focus ;  whilst  the  pompous  name  of  Bellum 
Piraiicum,  exaggerated  to  all  after  years  a  success 
which  had  been  at  the  moment  too  partially  facilitated* 
Finally,  in  his  triumph  over  Sertorius,  where  only  he 


CICERO.  285 

would  have  found  a  great  Roman  enemy  capable 
of  applying  some  measure  of  power  to  himself,  by 
the  energies  of  resistance,  although  the  transaction  is 
circumstantially  involved  in  much  darkness,  enough 
remains  to  show  that  Pompey  shrank  from  open  con- 
test —  passively,  how  far  co-operatively  it  is  hard  to 
say,  Pompey  owed  his  triumph  to  mere  acts  of  decoy 
and  subsequent  assassination. 

Upon  this  sketch  of  Pompey' s  military  life,  it  is 
evident  that  he  must  have  been  regarded,  after  tbe 
enthusiasm  of  the  moment  had  gone  by,  as  a  hollow 
scenical  pageant.  But  what  had  produced  this  enthu- 
siasm at  the  moment  ?  It  was  the  remoteness  of  the 
scenes.  The  pirates  had  been  a  troublesome  enemy, 
precisely  in  that  sense  which  made  the  Pindarrees  of 
India  such  to  ourselves  ;  because,  as  flying  marauders, 
lurking  and  watching  their  opportunities,  they  could 
seldom  be  brought  to  action ;  so  that  not  their  power, 
but  their  want  of  power,  made  them  formidable,  indis- 
posing themselves  to  concentration,  and  consequently 
weakening  the  motive  to  a  combined  efl'ort  against 
them.  Then,  as  to  Mithridates,  a  great  error  prevailed 
in  Pome  with  regard  to  the  quality  of  his  power.  The 
spaciousness  of  his  kingdom,  its  remoteness,  his  power 
of  retreat  into  Armenia  —  all  enabled  him  to  draw  out 
the  war  into  a  lingering  struggle.  These  local  advan- 
tages were  misinterpreted.  A  man  who  could  resist 
Sylla,  Lucullus,  and  others,  approved  himself  to  the 
raw  judgments  of  the  multitude  as  a  dangerous  enemy. 
I  Whence  a  very  disproportionate  appreciation  of  Pom- 
i  pey  —  as  of  a  second  Scipio  who  had  destroyed  a 
,  second  Hannibal.  If  Hannibal  had  transferred  the 
war  to  the  gates  of  Rome,  why  not  Mithridates,  who 


286  CICERO. 

had  come  westwards  as  far  as  Greece  ?  And,  u^on 
that  argument,  the  panic-struck  people  of  Rome  fan- 
cied that  Mithridates  might  repeat  the  experiment. 
They  overlooked  the  changes  which  nearly  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years  had  wrought.  As  possible  it 
would  have  been  for  Scindia  and  Holkar  forty  years 
ago,  as  possible  for  Tharawaddie"^  at  this  moment,  to 
conduct  an  expedition  into  England,  as  for  Mithridates 
to  have  invaded  Italy  at  the  era  of  670-80  of  Rome. 
There  is  a  wild  romantic  legend,  surviving  in  old 
Scandinavian  literature,  that  Mithridates  did  not  die  by 
suicide,  but  that  he  passed  over  the  Black  Sea ;  from 
Pontus  on  the  south-east  of  that  sea  to  the  Baltic  ; 
crossed  the  Baltic ;  and  became  that  Odin  whose 
fierce  vindictive  spirit  reacted  upon  Rome,  in  after 
centuries,  through  the  Goths  and  Vandals,  his  sup- 
posed descendants:  just  as  the  blood  of  Dido,  the 
Carthaginian  queen,  after  mounting  to  the  heavens  — 
under  her  dying  imprecation, 

*  Exoriare  aliquis  nostro  de  sanguine  vindex  '  — 

came  round  in  a  vast  arch  of  bloodshed  upon  Rome, 
under  the  retaliation  of  Hannibal,  four  or  five  centuries 
later.  This  Scandinavian  legend  might  answer  for  a 
grand  romance,  carrying  with  it,  like  the  Punic  legend, 
a  semblance  of  mighty  retribution  ;  iTut,  as  an  historical 
possibility,  any  Mithridatic  invasion  of  Italy  would  be 
extravagant.  Having  been  swallowed,  however,  by 
Roman  credulity  as  a  danger,  always  in  procinctu^ 
so  long  as  the  old  Pontic  lion  should  be  unchained, 
naturally  it  had  happened  that  this  groundless  panic, 
from  its  very  indistinctness  and  shadowy  outline,  be- 
came more  available  for  Pompey's  immoderate  glorifi- 

*  The  Burmese  Emperor  invaded  by  us  then  [1842.] 


CICEEO. 


287 


cation  than  any  service  so  much  nearer  to  home  as 
to  be  more  rationally  appreciable.  With  the  same 
unexampled  luck,  Pompey,  as  the  last  man  in  the 
series  against  Mithridates,  stepped  into  the  inheritance 
of  merit  belonging  to  the  entire  series  in  that  service ; 
and  as  the  laborer  who  easily  reaped  the  harvest, 
practically  threw  into  oblivion  all  those  who  had  so 
painfully  sown  it. 

But  a  special  Nemesis  haunts  the  steps  of  men  who 
become  great  and  illustrious  by  appropriating  the 
trophies  of  their  brothers.  Pompey,  more  strikingly 
than  any  man  in  history,  illustrates  the  moral  in  his 
catastrophe.  It  is  perilous  to  be  dishonorably  prosper- 
ous ;  and  equally  so,  as  the  ancients  imagined,  whether 
by  direct  perfidies,  (of  which  Pompey  is  deeply  sus- 
pected,) or  by  silent  acquiescence  in  unjust  honors, 
Seared  as  Pompey's  sensibilities  might  be  through  long 
self-indulgence,  and  latterly  by  annual  fits  of  illness, 
founded  on  dyspepsy,  he  must  have  had,  at  this  great 
era,  a  dim  misgiving  that  his  good  genius  was  forsaking 
him.  No  Shakspeare,  with  his  unusual  warnings,  had 
then  proclaimed  the  dark  retribution  which  awaited  his 
final  year  :  but  the  sentiment  of  Shakspeare  (see  his 
Bonnets)  is  eternal  ;  and  mxust  have  whispered  itself  to 
Pompey's  heart,  as  he  saw  the  billowy  war  advancing 
upon  him  in  his  old  age  — 

*  The  painful  warrior,  famoused  for  fight, 
After  a  thousand  victories  —  once  foil'd. 
Is  from  the  book  of  honor  razed  quite. 

And  all  the  rest  forgot  for  which  he  toil'd.' 

To  say  the  truth,  in  this  instance  as  in  so  many 
others,  the  great  moral  of  the  retribution  (escapes  us  — 
because  we  do  not  connect  the  scat/;ered  phenomena 


288 


CICERO. 


into  their  rigorous  unity.  Most  readers  pursue  the 
early  steps  of  this  mightiest  amongst  all  civil  ^vars 
with  the  hopes  and  shifting  sympathies  natural  to  those 
who  accompanied  its  motions.  Cicero  must  ever  "be 
the  great  authority  for  the  daily  fluctuations  of  public 
opinion  in  the  one  party,  as  Caesar,  with  a  few  later 
authors,  for  those  in  the  other.  But  inevitably  these 
coeval  authorities,  shifting  their  own  positions  as  events 
advanced,  break  the  uniformity  of  the  lesson.  They 
did  not  see,  as  we  may  if  we  will,  to  the  end.  Some- 
times the  Pompeian  partisans  are  cheerful ;  sometimes 
even  they  are  sanguine ;  once  or  twice  there  is  abso- 
lutely a  slight  success  to  color  their  vaunts.  But  much 
of  this  is  mere  political  dissimulation.  We  now  find, 
from  the  confidential  parts  of  Cicero's  correspondence, 
that  he  had  never  heartily  hoped  from  the  hour  when 
he  first  ascertained  Pompey's  drooping  spirits,  and  his 
desponding  policy.  And  in  a  subsequent  stage  of  the 
contest,  when  the  war  had  crossed  the  Adriatic,  we 
now  know,  by  a  remarkable  passage  in  his  De  Divina- 
Hone,  that,  whatever  he  might  think  it  prudent  to  say, 
never  from  the  moment  when  he  personally  attached 
himself  to  Pompey's  camp,  had  he  felt  any  reliance 
whatever  on  the  composition  of  the  army.  Even  to 
Pompey's  misgiving  ear  in  solitude,  a  fatal  summons 
must  have  been  sometimes  audible,  to  resign  his  quiet 
life  and  his  showy  prosperity.  The  call  was  in  efiect 
—  '  Leave  your  palaces  ;  come  back  to  camps  —  never 
more  to  know  a  quiet  hour  ! '  What  if  he  could  have 
heard  arriere  pensee  of  the  silent  call !  '  Live  through 
a  brief  season  of  calamity  ;  live  long  enough  for  total 
ruin  ;  live  for  a  morning  on  which  it  will  be  said  —  All 
fs  lost ;  as  a  panic-stricken  fugitive,  sue  to  the  mercies 


CICERO. 


289 


of  slaves  ;  and  in  return,  as  a  headless  trunk,  lie  like 
a  poor  mutilated  mariner,  rejected  by  the  sea,  a  wreck 
from  a  wreck  —  owing  even  the  last  rites  of  burial  to 
the  pity  of  a  solitary  exile.'  This  doom,  and  thus  cir- 
cumstantially, no  man  could  know.  But,  in  features 
that  were  even  gloomier  than  these,  Pompey  might, 
through  his  long  experience  of  men,  have  foreseen  the 
bitter  course  which  he  had  to  traverse.  It  did  not 
require  any  extraordinary  self-knowledge  to  guess, 
that  continued  opposition  upon  the  plan  of  the  campaign 
would  breed  fretfulness  in  himself ;  that  the  irritation 
of  frequent  failure,  inseparable  from  a  war  so  widely 
spread,  would  cause  blame  or  dishonor  to  himself; 
that  his  coming  experience  would  be  a  mere  chaos  of 
obstinacy  in  council,  loud  remonstrance  in  action, 
crimination  and  recrimination,  insolent  dictation  from 
rivals,  treachery  on  the  part  of  friends,  flight  and  deser- 
tion on  the  part  of  confidants.  Yet  even  this  fell  short 
of  the  shocking  consummation  into  which  the  frenzy 
of  faction  ripened  itself  within  a  few  months.  We 
know  of  but  one  case  which  resembles  it,  in  one  re- 
markable feature.  Those  readers  who  are  acquainted 
with  Lord  Clarendon's  History^  will  remember  the 
very  striking  portrait  which  he  draws  of  the  king's 
small  army  of  reserve  in  Devonshire  and  the  adjacent 
districts,  subsequently  to  the  great  parliamentary  tri- 
umph of  Naseby  in  June,  1645.  The  ground  was  now 
cleared  ;  no  work  remained  for  Fairfax  but  to  advance 
to  Northampton,  and  to  sweep  away  the  last  relics  of 
opposition.  In  every  case  this  would  have  proved  no 
trying  task.  But  what  was  the  condition  of  the  hostile 
forces?  Lord  Clarendon,  who  had  personally  presided 
at  their  head -quarters  whilst  in  attendance  upon  the 
19 

1 


CICERO 


Prince  of  Wales,  describes  tliem  in  these  emphatic 
terms  as  '  a  wicked  beaten  army/  Rarely  does  history 
present  us  with  such  a  picture  of  utter  debasement  in 
an  army  —  coming  from  no  enemy,  but  from  one  who, 
at  the  very  moment  of  recording  his  opinion,  knew  this 
army  to  be  the  king's  final  resource.  Reluctant  as  a 
wise  man  must  feel  to  reject  as  irredeemable  in  vileness 
that  which  he  knows  to  be  indispensable  to  hope,  this 
solemn  opinion  of  Lord  Clarendon's,  upon  his  royal 
master's  last  stake,  had  been  in  earlier  ages  anticipated 
by  Cicero,  under  the  very  same  circumstances,  with 
regard  to  the  same  ultimate  resource.  The  army  which 
Pompey  had  concentrated  in  the  regions  of  northern 
Greece,  ivas  the  ultimate  resource  of  that  party ; 
because,  though  a  strong  nucleus  for  other  armies 
existed  in  other  provinces,  these  remoter  dependencies 
were  in  all  likelihood  contingent  upon  the  result  from 
this  —  were  Pompey  prosperous,  they  would  be  pros- 
perous ;  if  not,  not.  Knowing,  therefore,  the  fatal 
emphasis  which  belonged  to  his  words,  not  blind  to  the 
inference  which  they  involved,  Cicero  did,  notwith- 
standing, pronounce  confidentially  that  same  judgment 
of  despah'  upon  the  army  soon  to  perish  at  Pharsalia, 
which,  from  its  strange  identity  of  tenor  and  circum- 
stances, we  have  quoted  from  Lord  Clarendon.  Both 
statesmen  spoke  confessedly  of  a  last  sheet  anchor ; 
both  spoke  of  an  army  vicious  in  its  military  composi- 
tion :  but  also,  which  is  the  peculiarity  of  the  case,  both 
charged  the  o?ius  of  their  own  despair  upon  the  non- 
professional qualities  of  the  soldiers  ;  upon  their  licen- 
tious U17  civic  temper  ;  upon  their  open  anticipations  of 
plunder  ;  and  upon  their  tiger- training  towards  a  great 
festival  of  coming  revenge. 


CICERO. 


291 


Lord  Clarendon,  however,  it  may  be  said,  did  not 
Include  the  commander  of  the  Devonshire  army  in  hia 
denunciation.  No  :  and  there  it  is  that  the  two  reports 
differ.  Cicero  did  include  the  commander.  It  was 
the  commander  whom  he  had  chiefly  in  his  eye. 
Others,  indeed,  were  parties  to  the  horrid  conspiracy 
against  the  country  which  he  charged  upon  Pompey  : 
for  non  datur  conjuratio  aliier  quam  j^er  plures ;  but 
these  '  others  '  were  not  the  private  soldiers  —  they 
were  the  leading  officers,  the  staff,  the  council  at 
Pompey's  head-quarters,  and  generally  the  men  of 
senatorial  rank.  Yet  still,  to  complete  the  dismal 
unity  of  the  prospect,  these  conspirators  had  an  army 
of  ruffian  foreigners  under  their  orders,  such  as  formed 
an  appropriate  engine  for  their  horrid  purposes. 

This  is  a  most  important  point  for  clearing  up  the 
true  character  of  the  war ;  and  it  has  been  utterly 
neglected  by  historians.  It  is  notorious  that  Cicero, 
on  first  joining  the  faction  of  Pompey  after  the  decla- 
ration of  hostilities,  had  for  some  months  justified  his 
conduct  on  the  doctrine  —  that  the  '  causa,'  the  con- 
stitutional merits  of  the  dispute,  lay  with  Pompey.  He 
could  not  deny  that  Caesar  had  grievances  to  plead  ; 
but  he  insisted  on  two  things:  1.  That  the  mode  of 
redress,  by  which  Caesar  made  his  appeal,  was  radically 
illegal;  2.  That  the  certain  tendency  of  this  redress 
was  to  a  civil  revolution.  Such  had  been  the  consistent 
representation  of  Cicero,  until  the  course  of  events  made 
him  better  acquainted  with  Pompey' s  real  temper  and 
policy.  It  is  also  notorious  —  and  here  lies  the  key  to 
the  error  of  all  biographers  —  that  about  two  years 
later,  when  the  miserable  death  of  Pompey  had  indis- 
posed Cicero  to  remember  his  wicked  unaccomplished 

1 


292 


CICKRO. 


purposes,  and  when  the  assassination  of  Coesar  had 
made  it  safe  to  resume  his  ancient  mysterious  animosity 
to  the  very  name  of  the  great  man,  Cicero  did  undoubt- 
edly go  back  to  his  early  way  of  distinguishing  between 
them.  As  an  orator,  and  as  a  philosopher,  he  brought 
back  his  original  distortions  of  the  case.  Pompey,  it 
was  again  pleaded,  had  been  a  champion  of  the  state, 
(sometimes  he  ventured  upon  saying,  of  liberty,)  CaBsar 
had  been  a  traitor  and  a  tyrant.  The  two  extreme 
terms  of  his  own  politics,  the  earliest  and  the  last,  do 
in  fact  meet  and  blend.  But  the  proper  object  of 
scrutiny  for  the  sincere  inquirer  is  this  parenthesis  of 
time,  that  intermediate  experience  which  placed  him  ^ 
in  daily  communion  with  the  real  Pompey  of  the  year 
Ah  Urhe  Cond.  705,  and  which  extorted  from  his  in- 
dignant patriotism  revelations  to  his  confidential  friend 
so  atrocious,  that  nothing  in  history  approaches  them. 

This  is  the  period  to  examine  ;  for  the  logic  of  the 
case  is  urgent.  Were  Cicero  now  alive,  he  could 
make  no  resistance  to  a  construction,  and  a  personal 
appeal  such  as  this.  Easily  you  might  have  a  motive, 
subsequently  to  your  friend's  death,  for  dissembling 
the  evil  you  had  once  imputed  to  him.  But  it  is  im- 
possible that,  as  an  unwilling  witness,  you  could  have 
had  any  motive  at  all  for  counterfeiting  or  exaggerat- 
ing on  your  friend  an  evil  purpose  that  did  not  exist. 
The  dissimulation  might  be  natural  —  the  stimulation 
was  inconceivable.  To  suppress  a  true  scandal  was'j 
the  office  of  a  sorrowing  friend  —  to  propagate  a  false 
one  was  the  office  of  a  knave:  not,  therefore,  that 
later  testimony  which  to  have  garbled  was  amiable, 
hut  that  coeval  testimony  which  to  have  inveated  was 
insanity  —  this  it  is  which  we  must  abide  by.  Besides 


CICERO. 


293 


that,  there  is  another  explanation  of  Cicero's  later  Ian* 
guage  than  simple  piety  to  the  memory  of  a  friend. 
His  discovery  of  Pompey's  execrable  plan  was  limited 
to  a  few  months  ;  so  that,  equally  from  its  brief  dura- 
tion, its  suddenness,  and  its  astonishing  contradiction 
to  all  he  had  previously  believed  of  Pompey,  such  a 
painful  secret  was  likely  enough  to  fade  from  his 
recollection,  after  it  had  ceased  to  have  any  practical 
importance  for  the  world.  On  the  other  hand,  Cicero 
had  a  deep  vindictive  policy  in  keeping  back  an  evil 
that  he  knew  of  Pompey.  It  was  a  mere  necessity  of 
logic,  that,  if  Pompey  had  meditated  the  utter  de- 
struction of  his  country  by  fire  and  sword  —  if,  more 
atrociously  still,  he  had  cherished  a  resolution  of  un* 
chaining  upon  Italy  the  most  ferocious  barbarians  he 
could  gather  about  his  eagles,  Getae  for  instance,  Col- 
chians,  Armenians  —  if  he  had  ransacked  the  ports  of 
the  whole  Mediterranean  world,  and  had  mustered  all 
the  shipping  from  fourteen  separate  states  enumerated 
by  Cicero,  with  an  express  purpose  of  intercepting  all 
supplies  from  Rome,  and  of  inflicting  the  slow  tor- 
ments of  famine  upon  that  vast  yet  non-belligerent 
city  —  then,  in  opposing  such  a  monster,  Caesar  was 
undeniably  a  public  benefactor.  Not  only  would  the 
magnanimity  and  the  gracious  spirit  of  forgiveness  in 
Csesar,  be  recalled  with  advantage  into  men's  thoughts, 
by  any  confession  of  this  hideous  malignity  in  his 
antagonist ;  but  it  really  became  impossible  to  sustain 
any  theory  of  ambitious  violence  in  Csesar,  when 
regarded  under  his  relations  to  such  a  body  of  parri- 
'  Asil  conspirators.  Fighting  for  public  objects  that 
Are  difficult  of  explaining  to  a  mob,  easily  may  any 
chieftain  of  a  party  be  misrepresented  as  a  child  of 


CICERO. 


Belfish  ambition.  But,  once  emblazoned  as  the  sole 
barrier  between  his  native  land  and  a  merciless  avenger 
by  fire  and  famine,  he  would  take  a  tutelary  character 
in  the  minds  of  a!l  men.  To  confess  one  solitary 
council  —  such  as  Cicero  had  attended  repeatedly  at 
Pompey's  head- quarters  in  Epirus  —  was,  by  acclama- 
tion from  every  house  in  Rome,  to  evoke  a  hymn  of 
gratitude  towards  that  great  Julian  deliverer,  whose 
Pharsalia  had  turned  aside  from  Italy  a  deeper  woe 
than  any  which  Paganism  records. 

We  insist  inexorably  upon  this  state  of  relations,  as 
existing  between  Cicero  and  the  two  combatants.  We 
refuse  to  quit  this  position.  We  affirm  that,  at  a  time 
when  Cicero  argued  upon  the  purposes  of  Caesar  in  a 
manner  confessedly  conjectural,  on  the  other  hand, 
with  regard  to  Pompey,  from  confidential  communica- 
tions, he  reported  it  as  a  dreadful  discovery,  that  mere 
destruction  to  Rome  was,  upon  Pompey's  policy,  the 
catastrophe  of  the  war.  Csesar,  he  might  persuade 
himself,  would  revolutionize  Rome  ;  but  Pompey,  he 
knew  in  confidence,  meant  to  leave  no  Rome  in  exist- 
ence. Does  any  reader  fail  to  condemn  the  selfishness 
of  the  constable  Bourbon  —  ranging  himself  at  Pavia 
in  a  pitched  battle  against  his  sovereign,  on  an  argu- 
ment of  private  wrong  ?  Yet  the  constable's  treason 
had  perhaps  identified  itself  with  his  self-preservation  ; 
and  he  had  no  reason  to  anticipate  a  lasting  calamity 
to  his  country  from  any  act  possible  to  an  individual. 
If  we  look  into  ancient  history,  the  case  of  Hippias, 
the  son  of  Pisistratus,  scarcely  approaches  to  this.  He 
indeed  returned  to  Athens  in  company  with  the  in- 
vading hosts  of  Darius.  But  he  had  probably  been 
expelled  from  Athens  by  violent  injustice  ;  and,  tliough 


CICERO. 


295 


attending  a  hostile  invasion,  he  could  not  have  caused 
it.  Hardly  a  second  case  can  be  found  in  all  history 
as  a  parallel* to  the  dreadful  design  of  Pompey,  unless 
it  be  that  of  Count  Julian  calling  in  the  Saracens  to 
ravage  Spain,  and  to  overthrow  the  altars  of  Christian- 
ity, on  the  provocation  of  one  outrage  to  his  own 
house  ;  early  in  the  eighth  century  invoking  a  scourge 
that  was  not  entirely  to  be  withdrawn  antil  the  six- 
teenth. But  then  for  Count  Julian  it  may  be  pleaded 
—  that  the  whole  tradition  is  doubtful ;  that  if  true 
to  the  letter,  his  own  provocation  was  enormous  ;  and 
that  we  must  not  take  the  measure  of  what  he  medi- 
tated by  the  frightful  consequences  which  actually 
ensued.  Count  Julian  might  have  relied  on  the  weak- 
ness of  the  sovereign  for  giving  a  present  effect  to  his 
vengeance,  but  might  still  rely  consistently  enough  on 
the  natural  strength  of  his  country,  when  once  coerced 
into  union,  for  ultimately  confounding  the  enemy  — 
and  perhaps  for  confounding  the  false  fanaticism  itself. 
For  the  worst  traitor  whom  history  has  recorded,  there 
remains  some  plea  of  mitigation  ;  something  in  aggra- 
vation of  the  wrongs  which  he  had  sustained,  some- 
thing in  abatement  of  the  retaliation  which  he  de- 
signed. Only  for  Pompey  there  is  none.  Rome  had 
given  him  no  subject  of  complaint.  It  was  true  that 
the  strength  of  Csesar  lay  there  ;  because  immediate 
hopes  from  revolution  belonged  to  democracy,  to  the 
oppressed,  to  the  multitudes  in  debt,  for  whom  the  law 
had  neglected  to  provide  any  prospect  or  degree  of 
relief ;  and  these  were  exactly  the  class  of  persons  that 
tould  not  find  funds  for  emigrating.  But  still  there 
was  no  overt  act,  no  official  act,'no  representative  act, 
by  which  Kome  had  declared  herself  for  either  party. 


296 


CICERO. 


Cicero  was  now  aghast  at  the  discoveries  he  made 
with  regard  to  Pompey.  Imbecility  of  purpose  —  dis- 
traction of  counsels  —  feebleness  in  their  dilatory 
execution  —  all  tended  to  one  dilemma,  either  that 
Pompey,  as  a  mere  favorite  of  luck,  never  had  pos- 
sessed any  military  talents,  or  that,  by  age  and  con- 
scious inequality  to  his  enemy,  these  talents  were  now 
in  a  state  of  collapse.  Having  first,  therefore,  made 
the  discovery  that  his  too  celebrated  friend  was  any- 
thing but  a  statesman,  [anoXtrixwraTog,)  Cicero  came  at 
length  to  pronounce  him  aarqaTii/ix&Taiov  —  anything 
but  a  general.  But  all  this  was  nothing  in  the  way  of 
degradation  to  Pompey' s  character,  by  comparison 
with  the  final  discovery  of  the  horrid  retaliation  which 
he  meditated  upon  all  Italy,  by  coming  back  with 
barbarous  troops  to  make  a  wilderness  of  the  opulent 
land,  and  upon  Rome  in  particular,  by  so  posting  his 
blockading  fleets  and  his  cruisers  as  to  intercept  all 
supplies  of  corn  from  Sicily  —  from  the  province  of 
Africa  —  and  from  Egypt.  The  great  moral,  there- 
fore, from  Cicero's  confidential  confessions  is  —  that 
he  abandoned  the  cause  as  untenable  ;  that  he  aban- 
doned the  sppposed  party  of  '  good  men,'  as  found 
upon  trial  to  be  odious  intriguers  —  and  that  he  aban- 
doned Pompey  in  any  privileged  character  of  a  patri- 
otic leader.  If  he  still  adhered  to  Pompey  as  an 
individual,  it  was  in  memory  of  his  personal  obliga- 
tions to  that  oligarch,  but,  secondly,  for  the  very 
^^enerous  reason  —  that  Pompey' s  fortunes  were  de- 
filining  ;  and  because  Cicero  would  not  be  thought  to 
have  shunned  that  man  in  his  misfortunes,  whom  in 
reality  he  had  felt  tempted  to  despise  only  for  his 
wormous  errors. 


CICERO. 


297 


After  these  distinct  and  reiterated  acknowledgments, 
it  is  impossible  to  find  the  smallest  justification  for  the 
great  harmony  of  historians  in  representing  Cicero  as 
having  abided  by  those  opinions  with  which  he  first 
entered  upon  the  party  strife.  Even  at  that  time  it  is 
probable  that  Cicero's  deep  sense  of  gratitude  to  Pom« 
pey  secretly,  had  entered  more  largely  into  his  decis- 
ion than  he  had  ever  acknowledged  to  himself.  For 
he  had  at  first  exerted  himself  anxiously  to  mediate 
between  the  two  parties.  Now,  if  he  really  fancied 
the  views  of  Caesar  to  proceed  on  principles  of  destruc- 
tion to  the  Roman  constitution,  all  mediation  was  a 
hopeless  attempt.  Compromise  between  extremes 
lying  so  widely  apart,  and  in  fact,  as  between  the 
affirmation  and  the  negation  of  the  same  propositions, 
must  have  been  too  plainly  impossible  to  have  justified 
any  countenance  to  so  impracticable  a  speculation. 

But  was  not  such  a  compromise  impossible  in  prac- 
tice, even  upon  our  own  theory  of  the  opposite  requi- 
sitions ?  No.  And  a  closer  statement  of  the  true 
principles  concerned,  will  show  it  was  not.  The  great 
object  of  the  Julian  party  was,  to  heal  the  permanent 
collision  between  the  supposed  functions  of  the  people, 
in  their  electoral  capacity,  in  their  powers  of  patron- 
age, and  in  their  vast  appellate  jurisdiction,  with  the 
assumed  privileges  of  the  senate.  We  all  know  how 
dreadful  have  been  the  disputes  in  our  own  country  as 
to  the  limits  of  the  constitutional  forces  composing  the 
total  state.  Between  the  privileges  of  the  Commons 
and  the  prerogative  of  the  Crown,  how  long  a  time, 
and  how  severe  a  struggle  was  required  to  adjust  the 
true  temperament !  To  say  nothing  of  the  fermenting 
Jisaff'ection  towards  the  government  throughout  the 


298 


CICERO. 


reign  of  James  1.,  and  the  first  fifteen  years  of  his  son, 
the  great  civil  war  grew  out  of  the  sheer  contradic- 
tions arising  between  the  necessities  of  the  j  ublic  ser- 
vice and  the  letter  of  superannuated  prerogatives.  The 
simple  history  of  that  great  strife  was,  that  the  democ- 
racy, the  popular  elements  in  the  commonwealth,  had 
outgrown  the  provisions  of  old  usages  and  statutes. 
The  king,  a  most  conscientious  man,  believed  that  the 
efforts,  of  the  Commons,  which  represented  only  the 
instincts  of  rapid  growth  in  all  popular  interests,  cloaked 
a  secret  plan  of  encroachment  on  the  essential  rights 
of  the  sovereign.  In  this  view  he  was  confirmed  by 
lawyers,  the  most  dangerous  of  all  advisers  in  political 
struggles  ;  for  they  naturally  seek  the  solution  of  all 
contested  claims,  either  in  the  position  and  determina- 
tion of  ancient  usage,  or  in  the  constructive  view  of  its 
analogies.  Whereas,  here  the  very  question  was  con- 
cerning a  body  of  usage  and  precedent,  not  denied  in 
many  cases  as  facts,  whether  that  condition  of  policy, 
not  unreasonable  as  adapted  to  a  community,  having 
but  two  dominant  interests,  were  any  longer  safely 
tenable  under  the  rise  and  expansion  of  a  third.  For 
instance,  the  whole  management  of  our  foreign  policy 
had  always  been  reserved  to  the  crown,  as  one  of  its 
most  sacred  mysteries,  or  anoQi>r^ra  ;  yet,  if  the  people 
could  obtain  no  indirect  control  of  this  policy,  through 
the  amplest  control  of  the  public  purse,  even  their  do- 
mestic rights  might  easily  be  made  nugatory.  Again, 
it  was  indispensable  that  the  crown  purse,  free  from 
all  direct  responsibility,  should  be  checked  by  some 
responsibility,  operating  in  a  way  to  preserve  the  sove- 
reign in  his  constitutional  sanctity.  This  was  finally 
efiected  by  the  admirable  compromise  —  of  lodging 


CICERO. 


299 


the  responsibility  in  the  persons  of  aL  servants  by  or 
through  whom  the  sovereign  could  act.  But  this  was 
BO  little  understood  by  Charles  I.  as  any  constitutional 
privilege  of  the  people,  that  he  resented  the  proposal 
as  much  more  insulting  to  himself  than  that  of  fixing 
the  responsibility  in  his  own  person.  The  latter  pro- 
posal he  viewed  as  a  violation  of  his  own  prerogative, 
founded  upon  open  wrong.  There  was  an  injury,  but 
no  insult.  On  the  other  hand,  to  require  of  him  the 
sacrifice  of  a  servant,  whose  only  offence  had  been  in 
his  fidelity  to  himself,  was  to  expect  that  he  should  act 
collusively  with  those  w^ho  sought  to  dishonor  him. 
The  absolute  to  el  Rey  of  Spanish  kings,  in  the  last 
resort,  seemed  in  Charles's  eye  indispensable  to  the 
dignity  of  the  crown.  And  his  legal  counsellors  as- 
sured him  that,  in  conceding  this  point,  he  would  de- 
grade himself  into  a  sort  of  upper  constable,  having 
some  disagreeable  functions,  but  none  which  could  sur- 
round him  with  majestic  attributes  in  the  eyes  of  his 
subjects.  Feeling  thus,  and  thus  advised,  and  relig- 
iously persuaded  that  he  held  his  powers' for  the  ben- 
efit of  his  people,  so  as  to  be  under  a  deep  moral 
incapacity  to  surrender  '  one  dowle  '  from  his  royal 
plumage,  he  did  right  to  struggle  with  that  energy  and 
that  cost  of  blood  which  marked  his  own  personal  war 
from  1642  to  1645.  Now,  on  the  other  hand,  we 
know,  that  nearly  all  the  concessions  sought  from  the 
king,  and  refused  as  mere  treasonable  demands,  were 
subsequently  re-affirmed,  assumed  into  our  constitu- 
tional law,  and  solemnly  established  forever,  about 
;orty  years  later,  by  the  Revolution  of  1688-89.  And 
this  great  event  was  in  the  nature  of  a  compromise. 
For  the  patriots  of  1642  had  been  betrayed  into  some 


300 


CICERO. 


capital  errors,  claims  both  irreconcilable  with  the  dig- 
nity of  the  crown,  and  useless  to  the  people.  This 
ought  not  to  surprise  us,  and  does  not  extinguish  our 
debt  of  gratitude  to  those  great  men.  Where  has  been 
the  man,  much  less  the  party  of  men,  that  did  not,  in 
a  first  essay  upon  so  difficult  an  adjustment  as  that  of 
an  equilibration  between  the  limits  of  political  forces, 
'travel  into  some  excesses  ?  But  forty  years'  experi- 
ence —  the  restoration  of  a  party  familiar  with  the 
invaluable  uses,  of  royalty,  and  the  harmonious  co- 
operation of  a  new  sovereign,  already  trained  to  a 
system  of  restraints,  made  this  final  settlement  as  near 
to  a  perfect  adjustment  and  compromise  between  all 
conflicting  rights,  as,  perhaps,  human  wisdom  could 
attain. 

Now,  from  this  English  analogy,  we  may  explain 
something  of  what  is  most  essential  in  the  lloman  con- 
flict. This  great  feature  was  common  to  the  two  cases 
—  that  the  change  sought  by  the  revolutionary  party 
was  not  an  arbitrary  change,  but  in  the  way  of  a  natu- 
ral nisus,  working  secretly  throughout  two  or  three 
generations.  It  was  a  tendency  that  would  be  denied. 
Just  as,  in  the  England  of  1640,  it  is  impossible  to 
imagine  that,  under  any  immediate  result  whatever, 
ultimately  the  mere  necessities  of  expansion  in  a  peo- 
ple, ebullient  with  juvenile  energies,  and  passing,  at^ 
every  decennium,  into  new  stages  of  development, 
could  have  been  gainsayed  or  much  retarded.  Had 
the  nation  embodied  less  of  that  stern  political  temper- 
ament, which  leads  eventually  to  extremities  in  action, 
it  is  possible  that  the  upright  and  thoughtful  character  ol 
the  sovereign  might  have  reconciled  the  Commons  to 
expedients  of  present  redress,  and  for  twenty  years  the 


CICERO. 


301 


crisis  might  have  been  evaded.  But  the  licentious 
character  of  Charles  II.  would  inevitably  have  chal- 
lenged the  resumption  of  the  struggle  in  a  more  em- 
bittered shape;  for  in  the  actual  war  of  1642,  the 
separate  resources  of  the  crown  were  soon  exhausted ; 
and  a  deep  sentiment  of  respect  towards  the  king  kept 
alive  the  principle  of  fidelity  to  the  crown,  through  all 
the  oscillations  of  the  public  mind.  Under  a  stronger 
reaction  against  the  personal  sovereign,  it  is  not  abso- 
lutely impossible  that  the  aristocracy  might  have  come 
into  the  project  of  a  republic.  Whenever  this  body 
stood  aloof,  and  by  alliance  with  the  church,  as  well 
as  with  a  very  large  section  of  the  democracy,  their 
non-adhesion  to  republican  plans  finally  brought  them 
to  extinction.  But  the  principle  cannot  be  refused  — 
that  the  conflict  was  inevitable  ;  that  the  collision  could 
in  no  way  have  been  evaded ;  and  for  the  same  reason 
as  spoken  so  loudly  in  Rome  —  because  the  grievances 
to  be  redressed,  and  the  incapacities  to  be  removed, 
and  the  organs  to  be  renewed,  were  absolute  and 
urgent ;  that  the  evil  grew  out  of  the  political  system ; 
that  this  system  had  generally  been  the  silent  product 
of  time  ;  and  that  as  the  sovereign,  in  the  English 
case  most  conscientiously,  so,  on  the  other  hand,  in 
Rome,  the  Pompeian  faction,  with  no  conscience  at  all, 
Btood  upon  the  letter  of  usage  and  precedent,  where 
the  secret  truth  was  —  that  nature  herself,  that  nature 
which  works  in  political  by  change,  by  growth,  by  de- 
struction, not  less  certainly  that  in  physical  organiza- 
tions, had  long  been  silently  superannuating  these 
precedents,  and  preparing  the  transition  into  forms, 
more  in  harmony  with  public  safety. 

The  capital  fault  in  the  operative  constitution  of 


302 


CICERO. 


Rome,  had  long  been  in  the  antinomies^  if  we  may  he 
pardoned  for  so  learned  a  term,  of  the  public  service* 
It  is  not  so  true  an  expression  —  that  anarchy  was 
always  to  be  apprehended,  as,  in  fact  —  that  anarchy 
always  subsisted.  What  made  this  anarchy  more  and 
less  dangerous,  was  the  personal  character  of  the  par- 
ticular man  militant  for  the  moment ;  next,  the  variable 
interest  which  such  a  party  might  have  staked  upon 
the  contest ;  and  lastly,  the  variable  means  at  his  dis- 
posal towards  public  agitation.  Fortunately  for  the 
public  safety,  these  forces,  like  all  forces  in  this  world 
of  compensations,  and  of  fluctuations,  obeying  steady 
laws,  rose  but  seldom  into  the  excess  which  menaced 
the  framework  of  the  state.  Even  in  disorder,  when 
long-continued,  there  is  an  order  that  can  be  calcu- 
lated :  dangers  were  foreseen ;  remedies  were  put  into 
an  early  state  of  preparation.  But  because  the  evil 
had  not  been  so  ruinous  as  might  have  been  predicted, 
it  was  not  the  less  an  evil,  and  it  was  not  the  less  enor- 
mously increasing.  The  democracy  retained  a  large 
class  of  functions,  for  which  the  original  uses  had  been 
long  extinct.  Powers,  which  had  utterly  ceased  to  be 
available  for  interests  of  their  own,  were  now  used 
purely  as  the  tenures  by  which  they  held  a  vested  in- 
terest in  bribery.  The  sums  requisite  for  bribery  were 
rising  as  the  great  estates  rose.  No  man,  even  in  a 
gentlemanly  rank,  no  eques,  no  ancient  noble  even, 
unless  his  income  were  hyperbolically  vast,  or  unless 
*s  the  creature  of  some  party  in  the  background,  could 
it  length  face  the  ruin  of  a  political  career.  We  do 
.not  speak  of  men  anticipating  a  special  resistance,  but 
of  those  who  stood  in  ordinary  circumstances.  Atticus 
IS  not  a  man  whom  we  should  cite  for  any  authority  in 


CICERO. 


803 


Q  question  of  principle,  for  we  believe  him  to  have 
been  a  dissembling  knave,  and  the  most  perfect  vicar 
of  Bray  extant ;  but  in  a  question  of  prudence,  his 
example  is  decisive.  Latterly  he  was  worth  a  hundred 
thousand  pounds.  Four-fifths  of  this  sum,  it  is  true, 
had  been,  derived  from  a  casual  bequest ;  however,  he 
had  been  rich  enough,  even  in  early  life,  to  present  all 
the  poor  citizens  of  Athens  —  probably  twelve  thousand 
families  —  with  a  year's  consumption  for  two  individu- 
als of  excellent  wheat ;  and  he  had  been  distinguished 
for  other  ostentatious  largesses;  yet  this  man  held  it 
to  be  ridiculous,  in  common  prudence,  that  he  should 
embark  upon  any  political  career.  Merely  the  costs 
of  an  aedileship,  to  which  he  would  have  arrived  in 
early  life,  would  have  swallowed  up  the  entire  hundred 
thousand  pounds  of  his  mature  good  luck.  '  Honores 
non  petiit ;  quod  neque  peti  more  majorum,  neque  capi 
possent,  conservatis  legibus,  in  tam  effusis  largitioni- 
bus  ;  neque  geri  sine  periculo,  corruptis  civitatis  mori- 
bus.'  But  this  argument  on  the  part  of  Atticus  pointed 
to  a  modest  and  pacific  career.  When  the  politics  of 
a  man,  or  his  special  purpose,  happened  to  be  polemic, 
the  costs,  and  the  personal  risk,  and  the  risk  to  the 
public  peace,  were  on  a  scale  prodigiously  greater. 
No  man  with  such  views  could  think  of  coming  for- 
ward without  a  princely  fortune,  and  the  courage  of  a 
martyr.  Milo,  Curio,  Decimus,  Brutus,  and  many  per- 
sons besides,  in  a  lapse  of  twenty-five  years,  spent  for- 
tunes of  four  and  five  hundred  thousand  pounds,  and 
without  accomplishing,  after  all,  much  of  what  they 
proposed.  In  other  shapes,  the  evil  was  still  more 
malignant ;  and,  as  these  circumstantial  cases  are  the 
most  impressive,  we  will  bring  forward  a  few. 


304 


CICERO. 


I.  —  Provisional  administrations.  The  Komaus 
were  not  characteristically  a  rapacious  or  dishonest 
people  —  the  Greeks  were  ;  and  it  is  a  fact  strongly 
illustrative  of  that  infirmity  in  principle,  and  levity, 
which  made  the  Greeks  so  contemptible  to  the  graver 
judgments  of  Rome  —  that  hardly  a  trustworthy  man 
could  be  found  for  the  receipt  of  taxes.  The  regular 
course  of  business  was,  that  the  Greeks  absconded 
with  the  money,  unless  narrowly  watched.  Whatever 
else  they  might  be  —  sculptors,  bufibons,  dancers, 
tumblers  —  they  were  a  nation  of  swindlers.  For  the 
art  of  fidelity  in  peculation,  you  might  depend  upon 
them  to  any  amount.  Now,  amongst  the  Romans, 
these  petty  knaveries  were  generally  unknown.  Even 
as  knaves  they  had  aspiring  minds  ;  and  the  original 
key  to  their  spoliations  in  the  provinces,  was  un- 
doubtedly the  vast  scale  of  their  domestic  corruption. 
A  man  who  had  to  begin  by  bribing  one  nation,  must 
end  by  fleecing  another.  Almost  the  only  open  chan- 
nels through  which  a  Roman  nobleman  could  create 
a  fortune,  (always  allowing  for  a  large  means  of 
marrying  to  advantage,  since  a  man  might  shoot  a 
whole  series  of  divorces,  still  refunding  the  last  dowry, 
but  still  replacing  it  with  a  better,)  were  these  two  — 
lending  money  on  sea-risks,  or  to  embarrassed  muni- 
cipal corporations  on  good  landed  or  personal  security, 
with  the  gain  of  twenty,  thirty,  or  even  forty  per 
cent.  ;  and  secondly,  the  grand  resource  of  a  pro- 
vincial government.  The  abuses  we  need  not  state  : 
the  prolongation  of  these  lieutenancies  beyond  the 
legitimate  year,  was  one  source  of  enormous  evil ; 
jind  it  was  the  more  rooted  an  abuse,  because  very 
often  it  was  undeniable  that  other  evils  arose  in  the 


CICERO. 


305 


opposite  scale  from  too  hasty  a  succession  of  gov« 
ernors,  upon  which  principle  no  consistency  of  local 
improvements  could  be  ensured,  nor  any  harmony 
even  in  the  administration  of  justice,  since  each  suc- 
cessive governor  brought  his  own  system  of  legal 
rules. 

As  tc  the  other  and  more  flagrant  abuses  in  ex- 
tortion from  the  province,  in  garbling  the  accounts 
and  defeating  all  scrutiny  at  Kome,  in  embezzlement 
of  military  pay,  and  in  selling  every  kind  of  private 
advantage  for  bribes,  these  have  been  made  notorious 
by  the  very  circumstantial  exposure  of  Verres.  But 
some  of  the  worst  evils  are  still  unpublished,  and  must 
be  looked  for  in  the  indirect  revelations  of  Cicero 
when  himself  a  governor,  as  well  as  the  incidental 
relations  by  special  facts  and  cases.  We,  on  our 
parts,  will  venture  to  raise  a  doubt  whether  Verres 
ought  really  to  be  considered  that  exorbitant  criminal 
whose  guilt  has  been  so  profoundly  impressed  upon 
us  all  by  the  forensic  artifices  of  Cicero.  The  true 
reasons  f  jr  his  condemnation  must  be  sought,  first,  in 
the  proximity  of  Rome  of  that  Sicilian  province  where 
many  of  his  alleged  oppressions  had  occurred  —  the 
fluent  intercourse  with  his  island,  and  the  multiplied 
inter- connections  of  individual  towns  with  Roman 
grandees,  aggravated  the  facilities  of  making  charges  ; 
whilst  the  proofs  were  anything  but  satisfactory  in  the 
Roman  judicature.  Here  lay  one  disadvantage  of 
Verres  ;  but  another  was  —  that  the  ordinary  system 
of  bribes,  viz.  the  sacrifice  of  one  poition  from  the 
spoils  in  the  shape  of  bribes  to  the  jury  (judices)  in 
order  to  redeem  the  other  portions,  could  not  be 
g,pplied  in  this  case.  The  spoils  were  chiefly  works 
20 


306 


CICEKO. 


of  art ; .  Verres  was  the  very  first  man  who  formed  a 
gallery  of  art  in  Rome  ;  and  a  French  writer  in  the 
Academie  des  Inscriptions  has  written  a  most  elabo- 
rate catalogue  raisonnee  to  his  gallery  —  drawn  fiom 
the  materials  left  by  Cicero  and  Pliny.  But  this  was 
obviously  a  sort  of  treasure  that  did  not  admit  of 
partition.  And  the  object  of  Verres  would  equally 
have  been  defeated  by  selling  a  pan  for  the  costs  of 
'  salvage  '  on  the  rest.  In  this  sad  dilemma,  Verres 
upon  the  whole  resolved  to  take  his  chance  ;  or,  if 
bribery  were  applied  to  some  extent,  it  must  have 
stopped  far  short  of  that  excess  to  which  it  would  have 
proceeded  under  a  more  disposable  form  of  his  gains. 
But  we  will  not  conceal  the  truth  which  Cicero  indi- 
rectly reveals.  The  capital  abuse  in  the  provincial 
system  was  —  not  that  the  guilty  governor  might 
escape,  but  that  the  innocent  governor  might  be 
ruined.  It  is  evident  that,  in  a  majority  of  cases, 
this  magistrate  was  thrown  upon  his  own  discretion. 
Nothing  could  be  so  indefinite  and  uncircumstantial 
as  the  Roman  laws  on  this  head.  The  most  upright 
administrator  was  almost  as  cruelly  laid  open  to  the 
fury  of  calumnious  persecution  as  the  worst ;  both 
were  often  cited  to  answer  upon  parts  of  their  admin- 
istration altogether  blameless  ;  but,  when  the  original 
rule  had  been  so  wide  and  lax,  the  final  resource  must 
Se  in  the  mere)-  of  the  tribunals. 

II.  — The  Roman  judicial  system.  This  would  re- 
i^uire  a  separate  volume,  and  chiefly  upon  this  ground 
—  that  in  no  country  upon  earth,  except  Rome,  has 
the  ordinary  administration  of  justice  been  applied  as 
a  great  political  engine.    Men,  who  could  not  other- 


CICERO. 


307 


wise  be  removed,  were  constantly  assailed  by  im- 
peachments ;  and  oftentimes  for  acts  done  forty  or 
fifty  years  before  the  time  of  trial.  But  this  dreadful 
aggravation  of  the  injustice  was  not  generally  needed. 
The  system  of  trial  was  the  most  corrupt  that  has 
ever  prevailed  under  European  civilization.  The 
composition  of  their  courts,  as  to  the  rank  of  the 
numerous  jury,  was  continually  changed :  but  no 
change  availed  to  raise  them  above  bribery.  The 
rules  of  evidence  were  simply  none  at  all.  Every 
hearsay,  erroneous  rumor,  atrocious  libel,  was  allowed 
to  be  ofiered  as  evidence.  Much  of  this  never  could 
be  repelled,  as  it  had  not  been  anticipated.  And, 
even  in  those  cases  where  no  bribery  was  attempted, 
the  issue  was  dependent,  almost  in  a  desperate  extent, 
upon  the  impression  made  by  the  advocate.  And 
finally  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  there  was  no  pre- 
siding judge,  in  our  sense  of  the  word,  to  sum  up  — 
to  mitigate  the  effect  of  arts  of  falsehood  in  the  advo- 
cate —  to  point  the  true  bearing  of  the  evidence  — 
still  less  to  state  and  to  restrict  the  law.  Law  there 
very  seldom  was  any,  in  a  precise  circumstantial  shape. 
The  verdict  might  be  looked  for  accordingly.  And  we 
do  not  scruple  to  say  —  that  so  triumphant  a  machinery 
of  oppression  has  never  existed,  no,  not  in  the  dungeons 
of  the  inquisition. 

III.  —  The  license  of  jpublic  libelling.  Upon  this  we 
had  proposed  to  enlarge.  But  we  must  forbear.  One 
only  caution  we  must  impress  upon  the  reader  ;  he 
may  fancy  that  Cicero  would  not  practise  or  defend 
in  others  the  absolute  abuse  of  confi  ience  on  the  part 
of  the  jury  and  audience  by  employing  direct  false- 


UlUERO. 


hoods.  Bat  this  is  a  mistake.  Cicero,  in  his  justifi- 
cation of  the  artifices  used  at  the  bar,  evidently  goes 
the  whole  length  of  advising  the  employment  of  all 
misstatements  whatsoever  which  wear  a  plausible  air. 
His  own  practice  leads  to  the  same  inference.  Not 
the  falsehood,  but  the  defect  of  probability,  is  what  in 
his  eyes  degrades  any  possible  assertion  or  insinua- 
tion. And  he  holds  also  —  that  a  barrister  is  not 
accountable  for  the  frequent  self-contradictions  m 
which  he  must  be  thus  involved  at  difi*erent  periods  of 
time.  The  immediate  purpose  is  paramount  to  all 
extra-judicial  consequences  whatever,  and  to  all  subse- 
quent exposures  of  the  very  grossest  inconsistency  in 
the  most  calumnious  falsehoods. 

IV.  — The  morality  of  expediency  employed  hy  Roman 
statesmen.  The  regular  relief,  furnished  to  Kome 
under  the  system  of  anarchy  which  Caesar  proposed  to 
set  aside,  lay  in  seasonable  murders.  When  a  man 
grew  potent  in  political  annoyance,  somebody  was  em- 
ployed to  murder  him.  Never  was  there  a  viler  or 
better  established  murder  than  that  of  Clodius  by  Milo, 
or  that  of  Carbo  and  others  by  Pompey  when  a  young 
man,  acting  as  the  tool  of  Sylla.  Yet  these  and  the 
murders  of  the  two  Gracchi,  nearly  a  century  before 
Cicero  justifies  as  necessary.  So  little  progress  had 
law  and  sound  political  wisdom  then  made,  that  Cicero 
was  not  aware  of  anything  monstrous  in  pleading  for 
a  most  villanous  act  —  that  circumstances  had  made  it 
expedient.  Such  a  man  is  massacred,  and  Cicero 
appeals  to  all  your  natural  feelings  of  honor  against 
the  murderers.  Such  another  is  massacred  on  the  op- 
posite side,  and  Cicero  thinks  it  quite  sufficient  to  reply 


CICEHO. 


309 


— '  Oh,  but  I  assure  you  lie  was  a  bad  man  —  I  knew 
him  to  be  a  bad  man.  And  it  was  his  duty  to  be 
murdered  —  as  the  sole  service  he  could  render  the 
commonwealth.'  So  again,  in  common  with  all  his 
professional  brethren,  Cicero  never  scruples  to  ascribe 
the  foulest  lust  and  abominable  propensities  to  any 
public  antagonist ;  never  asking  himself  any  questioi 
but  this  —  Will  it  look  probable  ?  He  personallj 
escaped  such  slanders,  because  as  a  young  man  he  wa^ 
known  to  be  rather  poor,  and  very  studious.  But  in 
later  life  a  horrible  calumny  of  that  class  settled  upon 
himself,  and  one  peculiarly  shocking  to  his  parental 
grief ;  for  he  was  then  sorrowing  in  extremity  for  the 
departed  lady  who  had  been  associated  in  the  slander. 
Do  we  lend  a  moment's  credit  to  the  foul  insinuation  ? 
No.  But  we  see  the  equity  of  this  retribution  revolv- 
ing upon  one  who  had  so  often  slandered  others  in  the 
same  malicious  way.  At  last  the  poisoned  chalice 
came  round  to  his  own  lips,  and  at  a  moment  when  it 
wounded  the  most  acutely. 

V. — The  continued  repetition  of  convulsions  in  the 
state.  Under  the  last  head  we  have  noticed  a  conse- 
quence of  the  long  Roman  anarchy  dreadful  enough  to 
contemplate,  viz.  the  necessity  of  murder  as  a  sole 
relief  to  the  extremities  continually  recurring,  and  as 
a  permanent  temptation  to  the  vitiation  of  all  moral 
ideas  in  the  necessity  of  defending  it  imposed  often 
upon  such  men  as  Cicero.  This  was  an  evil  which 
cannot  be  exaggerated  :  but  a  more  extensive  evil  lay 
in  the  recurrence  of  those  conspiracies  which  the  public 
anarchy  promoted.  We  have  all  been  deluded  upon 
Uiis  point.    The  conspiracy  of  Catiline,  to  those  who 


310 


CICERO. 


weigh  well  tli3  mystery  still  enveloping  the  names  of 
Caesar,  of  the  Consul  C.  Antonius,  and  others  suspected 
as  partial  accomplices  in  this  plot,  and  who  consider 
also  what  parties  were  the  exposers  or  merciless 
avengers  of  this  plot,  was  but  a  reiteration  of  the 
attempts  made  within  the  previous  fifty  years  by  Ma- 
rius,  Cinna,  Sylla,  and  finally  by  Caesar  and  by  his 
heir  Octavius,  to  raise  a  reformed  government,  safe 
and  stable,  upon  this  hideous  oligarchy  that  annually 
almost  brought  the  people  of  Rome  into  the  necessity 
of  a  war  and  the  danger  of  a  merciless  proscription. 
That  the  usual  system  of  fraudulent  falsehoods  wati 
offered  by  way  of  evidence  against  Catiline,  is  pretty 
obvious.  Indeed,  why  should  it  have  been  spared  } 
The  evidence,  in  a  lawyer's  sense,  is  after  all  none  at 
all.  The  pretended  revelations  of  foreign  envoys  go 
for  nothing.  These  could  have  been  suborned  most 
easily.  And  the  shocking  defect  of  the  case  is  —  that 
the  accused  party  were  never  put  on  their  defence, 
never  confronted  with  the  base  tools  of  the  accusers, 
and  the  senators  amongst  them  were  overwhelmed 
with  clamors  if  they  attempted  their  defence  in  the 
senate.  The  motive  to  this  dreadful  injustice  is  mani- 
fest. There  was  a  conspiracy  ;  that  we  do  not  doubt  ? 
and  of  the  same  nature  as  Caesar's.  Else  why  should 
eminent  men,  too  dangerous  for  Cicero  to  touch,  have 
been  implicated  in  the  obscurer  charges  ?  How  had 
they  any  interest  in  the  ruin  of  Rome  ?  How  had 
Catiline  any  interest  in  such  a  tragedy  ?  But  all  the 
grandees,  who  were  too  much  embarrassed  in  debt  to 
bear  the  means  of  profiting  by  the  machinery  of  bribes 
applied  to  so  vast  a  populace,  naturally  wished  to  place 
the  administration  of  public  affairs  on  another  footing ; 


CICERO. 


311 


many  from  merely  selfish  purposes,  like  Cetbegus  ox 
Lentulus  —  some,  we  doubt  not,  from  purer  motives 
of  enlarged  patriotism.  One  charge  against  Catiline 
we  may  quote  from  many,  as  having  tainted  the  most 
plausible  part  of  the  pretended  evidence  with  damna- 
tory suspicions.  The  reader  may  not  have  remarked 
—  bat  the  fact  is  such  — that  one  of  the  standing  arti- 
fices for  injuring  a  man  with  the  populace  of  Rome, 
when  all  other  arts  had  failed,  was  to  say,  that  amongst 
his  plots  was  one  for  burning  the  city.  This  cured 
that  indifference  with  which  otherwise  the  mob  listened 
to  stories  of  conspiracy  against  a  system  which  they 
held  in  no  reverence  or  affection.  Now,  this  most 
senseless  charge  was  renewed  against  Catiline.  It  is 
hardly  worthy  of  notice.  Of  what  value  to  him  could 
be  a  heap  of  ruins  ?  Or  how  could  he  hope  to  found 
an  influence  amongst  those  who  were  yet  reeking  from 
such  a  calamity  ? 

But,  in  reality,  this  conspiracy  was  that  effort  con- 
tinually moving  underground,  and  which  would  have 
continually  exploded  in  shocks  dreadful  to  the  quiet  of 
the  nation,  which  mere  necessity,  and  the  instincts  of 
position,  prompted  to  the  parties  interested.  Let  the 
reader  only  remember  the  long  and  really  ludicrous 
succession  of  men  sent  out  against  Antony  at  Mutina 
by  the  senate,  viz.  Octavius,  Plancus,  Asinius  Pollio, 
Lepidus,  every  one  of  whom  fell  away  almost  instantly 
to  the  anti-senatorial  cause,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
consuls,  Hirtius  and  Pansa,  who  would  undoubtedly 
liave  followed  the  general  precedent,  had  they  not  been 
killed  prematurely  :  and  it  will  become  apparent  how 
Irresistible  this  popular  cause  was,  as  the  sole  introduc- 
tion to  a  patriotic  reformation,  ranged  too  notoriously 


312 


CICERO. 


against  a  narrow  scheme  of  selfishness,  which  interested 
hardly  forty  families.  It  does  not  follow  that  all  men, 
simply  as  enemies  of  an  oligarchy,  would  have  after- 
wards exhibited  a  pure  patriotism.  Caesar,  however, 
did.  His  reforms,  even  before  his  Pompeian  struggle, 
were  the  greatest  ever  made  by  an  individual ;  and 
those  which  he  carried  through  after  that  struggle,  and 
during  that  brief  term  which  his  murderers  allowed 
him,  transcended  by  much  all  that  in  any  one  century 
had  been  accomplished  by  the  collective  patriotism  of 
Rome. 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  ROMAN  HISTORY. 


It  would  be  thought  strange  indeed,  if  there  should 
exist  a  large,  a  memorable  section  of  history,  traversed 
by  many  a.  scholar  with  various  objects,  reviewed 
by  many  a  reader  in  a  spirit  of  anxious  scrutiny,  and 
yet  to  this  hour  misunderstood;  erroneously  appre- 
ciated ;  its  tendencies  mistaken,  and  its  whole  mean- 
ing, import,  value,  not  so  much  inadequately  —  aa 
falsely,  ignorantly,  perversely  —  deciphered.  Prima 
facie,  one  would  pronounce  this  impossible.  Never- 
theless it  is  a  truth ;  and  it  is  a  solemn  truth  ;  and 
what  gives  to  it  this  solemnity,  is  the  mysterious  mean- 
ing, the  obscure  hint  of  a  still  profounder  meaning  in 
the  background,  which  begins  to  dawn  upon  the  eye 
when  first  piercing  the  darkness  now  resting  on  the 
subject.  Perhaps  no  one  arc  or  segment,  detached 
from  the  total  cycle  of  human  records,  promises  so 
much  beforehand  —  so  much  instruction,  so  much 
gratification  to  curiosity,  so  much  splendor,  so  much 
depth  of  interest,  as  the  great  period  —  the  systole  and 
diastole,  flux  and  reflux  —  of  the  Western  Roman 
Empire.  Its  parentage  was  magnificent  and  Titanic. 
It  was  a  birth  out  of  the  death-struggles  of  the  colos- 
sal republic  :  its  foundations  were  laid  by  that  sublime 


314  PHILOSOPHY  OP  ROMAN  HISTORY. 


dictator,  '  the  foremost  man  of  all  this  world/  who  was 
unquestionably  for  comprehensive  talents  the  Lucifer, 
the  Protagonist  of  all  antiquity.  Its  range,  the  com- 
pass of  its  extent,  was  appalling  to  the  imagination. 
Coming  last  amongst  what  are  called  the  great  mon- 
archies of  Prophecy,  it  was  the  only  one  which  realized 
in  perfection  the  idea  of  a  monarcJiia,  being  (except 
for  Parthia  ^nd  the  great  fable  of  India  beyond  it) 
strictly  coincident  with  >/  oixov^isvt],  or  the  civilized 
world.  Civilization  and  this  empire  were  commensu- 
rate :  they  were  interchangeable  ideas,  and  co-exten- 
sive. Finally,  the  path  of  this  great  Empire,  through 
its  arch  of  progress,  synchronized  with  that  of  Chris- 
tianity :  the  ascending  orbit  of  each  was  pretty  nearly 
the  same,  and  traversed  the  same  series  of  generations. 
These  elements,  in  combination,  seemed  to  promise  a 
succession  of  golden  harvests  :  from  the  specular  sta- 
tion of  the  Augustan  age,  the  eye  caught  glimpses  by 
anticipation  of  some  glorious  El  Dorado  for  human 
hopes.  What  was  the  practical  result  for  our  historic 
experience  ?  Answer  —  A  sterile  Zaarrah.  Preliba- 
tions,  as  of  some  heavenly  vintage,  w^ere  inhaled  by 
the  Virgils  of  the  day  looking  forward  in  the  spirit  of 
prophetic  rapture  ;  whilst  in  the  very  sadness  of  truth, 
from  that  age  forwards  the  Roman  world  drank  from 
stagnant  marshes.  A  Paradise  of  roses  was  prefigured  : 
a  wilderness  of  thorns  was  found. 

Even  this  fact  has  been  missed  —  even  the  bare 
fact  has  been  overlooked  ;  much  more  the  causes,  the 
principles,  the  philosophy  of  this  fact.  The  rapid 
barbarism  which  closed  in  behind  Caesar's  chariot 
wheels,  has  been  hid  by  the  pomp  and  equipage  of 
the  imperial  court.    The  vast  power  and  domination 


PHILOSOPHY   OP   ROMAN   HISTORY.  315 

of  the  Roman  empire,  for  the  three  centuries  which 
followed  the  battle  of  Actium,  have  dazzled  the  his- 
toric eye,  and  have  had  the  usual  reaction  on  the 
power  of  vision ;  a  dazzled  eye  is  always  left  in  a 
condition  of  darkness.  The  battle  of  Actium  was 
followed  by  the  final  conquest  of  Egypt.  That  con- 
quest rounded  and  integrated  the  glorious  empire ;  it 
was  now  circular  as  a  shield  —  orbicular  as  the  disk 
of  a  planet:  the  great  Julian  arch  was -^ow  locked 
into  the  cohesion  of  granite  by  its  last  key-stone. 
From  that  day  forward,  for  three  hundred  years,  ther6 
was  silence  in  the  world :  no  muttering  was  heard  : 
no  eye  winked  beneath  the  wing.  Winds  of  hostility 
might  still  rave  at  intervals :  but  it  was  on  the  outside 
of  the  mighty  empire  :  it  was  at  a  dream-like  dis- 
tance ;  and,  like  the  storms  that  beat  against  some 
monumental  castle,  'and  at  the  doors  and  windows 
seem  to  call,'  they  rather  irritated  and  vivified  the 
sense  of  security,  than  at  all  disturbed  its  luxurious 
lull. 

That  seemed  to  all  men  the  consummation  of  politi- 
cal wisdom  —  the  ultimate  object  of  all  strife — the 
very  euthanasy  of  war.  Except  on  some  fabulous 
frontier,  armies  seemed  gay  pageants  of  the  Roman 
rank  rather  than  necessary  bulwarks  of  the  Roman 
power :  spear  and  shield  were  idle  trophies  of  the 
past :  '  the  trumpet  spoke  not  to  the  alarmed  throng.' 
Hush,  ye  palpitations  of  Rome !  was  the  cry  of  the 
superb  Aurelian,^^  from  his  far-ofi"  pavilion  in  the 
deserts  of  the  Euphrates  —  Hush,  fluttering  heart  of 
the  eternal  city !  Fall  back  into  slumber,  ye  wars,. 
%nd  rumors  of  wars !  Turn  upon  your  couches  of 
down,  ve  children  of  Romulus  —  sink  back  into  youi 


316  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ROMAN  HISTOEY. 

voluptuous  repose :  We,  your  almighty  armies,  have 
chased  into  darkness  those  phantoms  that  had  broken 
your  dreams.  We  have  chased,  we  have  besieged, 
we  have  crucified,  we  have  slain.  '  NiJiil  est,  Romulei 
Quirites,  quod  timere  possitis.  Ego  efficiam  ne  sit 
aliqua  solicitudo  Romana.  Vacate  ludis  —  vacate  cir- 
censihus,  Nos  puhliccB  necessitates  teneant :  vos  occu- 
pent  voluptates,^  Did  ever  Siren  warble  so  dulcet  a 
song  to  ears  already  prepossessed  and  medicated  with 
spells  of  Circean  effeminacy  ? 

But  in  this  world  all  things  re-act :  and  the  very 
extremity  of  any  force  is  the  seed  and  nucleus  of  a 
counter-agency.  You  might  have  thought  it  as  easy 
(in  the  words  of  Shakspeare)  to 

•  Wound  the  loud  winds,  or  with  be-mock'd-at  stabs 
Kill  the  still-closing  waters,' 

as  to  violate  the  majesty  of  the  imperial  eagle,  or  to 
ruffle  '  one  dowle  that's  in  his  plume.'  But  luxurious 
ease  is  the  surest  harbinger  of  pain  ;  and  the  dead  lulls 
of  tropical  seas  are  the  immediate  forerunners  of  tor- 
nadoes. The  more  absolute  was  the  security  obtained 
by  Caesar  for  his  people,  the  more  inevitable  was  his 
own  ruin.  Scarcely  had  Aurelian  sung  his  requiem  to 
the  agitations  of  Bome,  before  a  requiem  was  sung  by 
his  assassins  to  his  own  warlike  spirit.  Scarcely  had 
Probus,  another  Aurelian,  proclaimed  the  eternity  of 
peace,  and,  by  way  of  attesting  his  own  martial  supre- 
macy, had  commanded  '  that  the  brazen  throat  of  war 
should  cease  to  roar,'  when  the  trumpets  of  the  four 
winds  proclaimed  his  own  death  by  murder.  Not  as 
anything  extraordinary ;  for,  in  fact,  violent  death  — 
death  by  assassination  —  was  the  regular  portal  (the 


PHILOSOPHY   OF   ROMAN   HISTORY.  317 

porta  Lihitina,  or  funeral  gate)  through  which  the 
Caesars  passed  out  of  this  world ;  and  to  die  in  their 
beds  was  the  very  rare  exception  to  that  stern  rule  of 
fate.  Not,  therefore,  as  in  itself  at  all  noticeable,  but 
because  this  particular  murder  of  Probus  stands  sceni- 
cally  contrasted  with  the  great  vision  of  Peace,  which 
he  fancied  as  lying  in  clear  revelation  before  him, 
permit  us,  before  we  proceed  with  our  argument,  to 
rehearse  his  golden  promises.  The  sabres  were 
already  unsheathed,  the  shirt-sleeves  were  already 
pushed  up  from  those  murderous  hands,  which  were 
to  lacerate  his  throat,  and  to  pierce  his  heart,  when  he 
ascended  the  Pisgah  from  which  he  descried  the  Satur- 
nian  ages  to  succeed  :  —  '  Brevi^^  said  he,  '  milites 
non  necessarios  habelnmus.  Romanus  jam  miles  erit 
nullus.  Omnia  possidehimus.  RespuMica  orhis  ter- 
rarum,  ubique  secura^  non  arma  fahricahit.  Boves 
hahehuntur  aratro  :  equus  nascetur  ad  pacem.  Nulla 
erunt  hella :  nulla  captivitas,  Ubique  pax :  ubique 
Romana  leges :  ubique  judices  nostri'  The  historian 
himself,  tame  and  creeping  as  he  is  in  his  ordinary 
u^tyle,  warms  in  sympathy  with  the  Emperor :  his 
diction  blazes  up  into  a  sudden  explosion  of  prophetic 
grandeur:  and  he  adopts  all  the  views  of  Csesar. 
'  Nonne  omnes  barbaras  nationes  subjecerat  pedibus?' 
he  demands  with  lyrical  tumult  :  and  then,  while  con- 
fessing the  immediate  disappointment  of  his  hopes, 
thus  repeats  the  great  elements  of  the  public  felicity 
whenever  they  should  be  realized  by  a  Csesar  equally 
martial  for  others,  but  more  fortunate  for  himself:  — 
Mternos  thesauros  haberet  Romana  respublica.  Nihil 
txpenderetur  d  principe ;  nihil  d  possessore  redderetur, 
Aureum  profecto  seculum  promittebat.    Nulla  futura 


318 


PHILOSOPHY   OF  KOMAN  HISTORY. 


erani  castra :  nusquam  lituus  audiendus :  arma  non 
erant  fabricanda.  Populus  iste  miliiantium,  qui  nunc 
hellis  civilihus  Rempuhlicam  vexat '  —  aye  !  how  was 
that  to  be  absorbed  ?  How  would  that  vast  crowd  of 
half-pay  emeriti  employ  itself  ?  ^Araret :  studiis  in- 
cumber et  :  erudiretur  artihus :  navigaret.^  And  he 
closes  his  prophetic  raptures  thus  :  '  Adde  quod  nullum 
occideretur  in  hello,  Dii  honi  !  quid  tandem  vos  offen- 
deret  Respublicd  Romand,  cut  talem  principem  sustu- 
listis  ? ' 

Even  in  his  lamentations,  it  is  clear  that  he  mourns 
as  for  a  blessing  delayed  —  not  finally  denied.  The 
land  of  promise  still  lay,  as  before,  in  steady  vision 
below  his  feet ;  only  that  it  waited  for  some  happier 
Augustus,  who,  in  the  great  lottery  of  Caesarian  desti- 
nies, might  happen  to  draw  the  rare  prize  of  a  pros- 
perous reign  not  prematurely  blighted  by  the  assassin ; 
with  whose  purple  alourgis  might  mingle  no  fascice  of 
crape  —  with  whose  imperial  laurels  might  entwine  no 
ominous  cypress.  The  hope  of  a  millennial  armistice, 
of  an  eternal  rest  for  the  earth,  was  not  dead :  once 
again  only,  and  for  a  time,  it  was  sleeping  in  abeyance 
and  expectation.  That  blessing,  that  millennial  bless- 
ing, it  seems,  might  be  the  gift  of  Imperial  Rome. 

11. — Well:  and  why  not?  the  reader  demands. 
What  have  we  to  say  against  it  ?  This  Caesar,  or  that 
historian,  may  have  carried  his  views  a  little  too  far, 
\>r  too  prematurely ;  yet,  after  all,  the  very  enormity 
of  what  they  promised  must  be  held  to  argue  the  enor- 
mity of  what  had  been  accomplished.  To  give  any 
plausibility  to  a  scheme  of  perpetual  peace,  war  must 
already  have  become  rare,  and  must  have  been  ban- 


PHILOSOPHY   OF   liOxMAN   HISTOHY.  319 

shed  to  a  prodigious  distance.  It  was  no  longer  the 
hearths  and  the  altars,  home  and  religious  worship, 
which  quaked  under  the  tumults  of  war.  It  was  the 
purse  which  suffered  —  the  exchequer  of  the  state ; 
secondly,  the  exchequer  of  each  individual ;  thirdly, 
and  in  the  end,  the  interests  of  agriculture,  of  com- 
merce, of  navigation.  This  is  what  the  historian  indi- 
cates, in  promising  his  brother  Komans  that  '  ouinia 
possidehimus  : '  by  which,  perhaps,  he  did  not  mean  to 
lay  the  stress  on  '  ojnnia,^  as  if,  in  addition  to  their  own 
property,  they  were  to  have  that  of  alien  or  frontier 
nations,  but  (laying  the  stress  on  the  word  possidehi- 
mus) meant  to  say,  with  regard  to  property  already 
their  own  — '  We  shall  no  longer  hold  it  as  joint  pro- 
prietors with  the  state,  and  as  liable  to  fluctuating 
taxation,  but  shall  henceforwards  possess  it  in  absolute 
exclusive  property.'  This  is  v/hat  he  indicates  in 
saying  —  Boves  liabeluntur  aratro  :  that  is,  the  oxen, 
one  and  all  available  for  the  plough,  shall  no  longer 
be  open  to  the  everlasting  claims  of  the  ipvihlic  frumen- 
tarii  for  conveying  supplies  to  the  frontier  armies. 
This  is  what  he  indicates  in  saying  of  the  individual 
liable  to  military  service  —  that  he  should  no  longer 
live  to  slay  or  to  be  slain,  for  barren  bloodshed  or 
violence,  but  that  henceforth  '  araret,'  or  '  navigaret.' 
Ml  these  passages,  by  pointing  the  expectations  em- 
phatically to  benefits  of  purse  exonerated,  and  industry 
emancipated,  sufficiently  argue  the  class  of  interests 
v/hich  then  suffered  by  war :  that  it  was  the  interests 
of  private  property,  of  agricultural  improvement,  of 
commercial  industry,  upon  which  exclusively  fell  the 
evils  of  a  belligerent  state  under  th?  Roman  empire  :  and 
there  already  lies  a  mighty  blessing  achieved  for  social 


320  PHILOSOPHY   OF  BOMAN  HISTOHY. 


existence  —  when  sleep  is  made  sacred,  and  thresnolds 
secure ;  when  the  temple  of  human  life  is  safe,  and  the 
temple  of  female  honor  is  hallowed.  These  great 
interests,  it  is  admitted,  were  sheltered  under  the 
mighty  dome  of  the  Roman  empire  :  that  is  alread} 
an  advance  made  towards  the  highest  civilization :  and 
this  is  not  shaken  because  a  particular  emperor  should 
bo  extravagant,  or  a  particular  historian  romantic. 

No,  certainly  :  but  stop  a  moment  at  this  point. 
Civilization,  to  the  extent  of  security  for  life,  and  the 
primal  rights  of  man,  necessarily  grows  out  of  every 
strong  government.  And  it  follows  also  —  that,  as 
this  government  widens  its  sphere  —  as  it  pushes  back 
its  frontiers,  ultra  et  Garamantas  et  Inclos,  in  that  pro- 
portion will  the  danger  diminish  (for  in  fact  the  possi- 
bility diminishes)  of  foreign  incursions.  The  sense  of 
permanent  security  from  conquest,  or  from  the  inroad 
of  marauders,  must  of  course  have  been  prodigiously 
increased  when  the  nearest  standing  army  of  Rome 
was  beyond  the  Tigris  and  the  Inn  —  as  compared  with 
those  times  when  Carthage,  Spain,  Gaul,  Macedon, 
presented  a  ring-fence  of  venomous  rivals,  and  when 
every  little  nook  in  the  eastern  Mediterranean  swarmed 
with  pirates.  Thus  far,  inevitably,  the  Roman  police, 
planting  one  foot  of  his  golden  compasses  in  the  same 
eternal  centre,  and  with  the  other  describing  an  arch 
continually  wider,  mvist  have  banished  all  idea  of  pub- 
lic enemies,  and  have  deepened  the  sense  of  security 
ieyond  calculation.  Thus  far  we  have  the  benefits  of 
police  ;  and  those  are  amongst  the  earliest  blessings 
of  civilization  ;  and  they  are  one  indispensable  con- 
dition—  what  in  logic  is  called  the  conditio  sine  qua 
non^  for  all  the  othei  blessings.    But  that,  in  other 


PHILOSOPHY  OP  BOMAN  HISTORY. 


321 


words,  is  a  negative  cause,  (a  cause  which,  being  absent, 
the  effect  is  absent;)  but  not  the  positive  cause,  (or 
causa  syfficiens^)  which,  being  present,  the  effect  will 
be  present.  The  security  of  the  Roman  empire  was 
the  indispensable  condition,  but  not  in  itself  a  sufficient 
cause  of  those  other  elements  v/hich  compose  a  true 
civilization.  Rome  was  the  centre  of  a  high  police, 
which  radiated  to  Parthia  eastwards,  to  Britain  west- 
wards, bat  not  of  a  high  civilization. 

On  the  contrary,  what  we  maintain  is  —  that  the 
Roman  civilization  was  imperfect  ah  intra  —  iniperfect 
in  its  central  principle ;  was  a  piece  of  watchwork  that 
began  to  go  down  —  to  lose  its  spring  ;  and  was  slowly 
retrograding  to  a  dead  stop,  from  the  very  moment 
that  it  had  completed  its  task  of  foreign  conquest :  that 
it  was  kept  going  from  the  very  first  by  strong  reac- 
tion and  antagonism  :  that  it  fell  into  torpor  from  the 
moment  when  this  antagonism  ceased  to  operate  ;  that 
thenceforwards  it  oscillated  backwards  violently  to  bar- 
barism :  that,  left  to  its  own  principles  of  civilization, 
the  Roman  empire  was  barbarizing  rapidly  from  the 
time  of  Trajan :  that  abstracting  from  all  alien  agen- 
cies whatever,  whether  accelerating  or  retarding,  and 
supposing  Western  Rome  to  have  been  throwai  exclu- 
sively upon  the  resources  and  elasticity  of  her  own 
proper  civilization,  she  was  crazy  and  superannuated 
by  the  time  of  Commodus  —  must  soon  have  gone  to 
pieces  —  must  have  foundered  ;  and,  under  any  possible 
benefit  from  favorable  accidents  co-operating  with  alien 
forces,  could  not,  by  any  great  term,  have  retarded  that 
doom  which  was  written  on  her  drooping  energies,  pre- 
scribed by  internal  decay,  and  not  at  all  (as  is  univer- 
sally imagined)  by  external  assault. 
21 


322 


PHILOSOPHY   OF  KOMAN  HISTORY. 


III.  — '  Barbarizing  rapidly  !  '  the  reader  murmurs 
— '  Barbarism !  Oh,  yes,  I  remember  the  Barbarians 
broke  in  upon  the  Western  Empire  —  the  Ostrogoths, 
Visigotlis,  Vandals,  Burguudians,  Huns,  Heruli,  and 
swarms  beside.  These  wretches  had  no  taste  —  no 
literature,  probably  very  few  ideas ;  and  naturally  they 
barbarized  and  rebarbarized  wherever  they  moved.  But 
surely  the  writer  errs :  this  influx  of  barbarism  was 
not  in  Trajan's  time  at  the  very  opening  of  the  second 
century  from  Christ,  but  throughout  the  fifth  century.' 
No,  reader  ;  it  is  not  we  who  err,  but  you.  These  were 
not  the  barbarians  of  Rome.  That  is  the  miserable 
fiction  of  Italian  vanity,  always  stigmatizing  better  men 
than  themselves  by  the  name  of  barbarians  ;  and  in  fact 
we  all  know,  that  to  be  an  ultramontane  is  with  them 
to  be  a  barbarian.  The  horrible  charge  against  the 
Greeks  of  old,  viz.,  that  sua  tantum  mirantur,  a  charge 
implying  in  its  objects  the  last  descent  of  narrow  sensi- 
bility and  of  illiterate  bigotry,  in  modern  times  has  been 
true  only  of  two  nations,  and  those  two  are  the  French 
and  the  Italians.  But,  waiving  the  topic,  we  affirm  — 
and  it  is  the  purpose  of  our  essay  to  affirm  —  that  the 
barbarism  of  Rome  grew  out  of  Rome  herself;  that 
these  pretended  barbarians  —  Gothic,  Vandalish,^^  Lom- 
bard —  or  by  whatever  name  known  to  modern  history 
' —  were  in  reality  the  restorers  and  regenerators  of  the 
effete  Roman  intellect;  that,  but  for  them,  the  indige- 
nous Italian  would  probably  have  died  out  in  scrofula, 
madness,  leprosy ;  that  the  sixth  or  seventh  century 
would  have  seen  the  utter  extinction  of  these  Italian 
strulhrugs  ;  for  which  opinion,  if  it  were  important,  we 
r^ould  show  cause.  But  it  is  much  less  important  to 
show  cause  in  behalf  of  this  negative  proposition  — 


PHILOSOPHY  OF   ROMAN  HISTORY.  328 

that  the  Goths  and  Vandals  were  not  the  barbarians  of 
the  western  empire '  —  than  in  behalf  of  this  affirma- 
tive proposition,  '  that  the  Romans  were!'  We  do  not 
wish  to  overlay  the  subject,  but  simply  to  indicate  a 
few  of  the  many  evidences  which  it  is  in  our  power  to 
adduce.  VYe  mean  to  rely,  for  the  present,  upon  four 
arguments,  as  exponents  of  the  barbarous  and  barbar- 
izing tone  of  feeling,  which,  like  so  much  moss  or 
lichens,  had  gradually  overgrown  the  Roman  mind, 
and  by  the  third  century  had  strangled  all  healthy 
vegetation  of  natural  and  manly  thought.  During  this 
third  century  it  was,  in  its  latter  half,  that  most-  of 
the  Augustan  history  was  probably  composed.  Laying 
aside  the  two  Victors,  Dion  Cassius,  Ammianus  Marcel- 
linus,  and  a  few  more  indirect  notices  of  history  during 
this  period,  there  is  little  other  authority  for  the  annals 
of  the  Western  Empire  than  this  Augustan  history ; 
and  at  all  events,  this  is  the  chief  well-head  of  that 
history ;  hither  we  must  resort  for  most  of  the  personal 
biography,  and  the  portraiture  of  characters  connected 
with  that  period ;  and  here  only  we  find  the  regular 
series  of  princes  —  the  whole  gallery  of  Caesars,  from 
Trajan  to  the  immediate  predecessor  of  Dioclesian. 
The  composition  of  this  work  has  been  usually  distri- 
buted amongst  six  authors,  viz.,  Spartian,  Capitolinus, 
Lampridius,  Volcatius  Gallicanus,  Trebellius  Pollio, 
and  Vopiscus.  Their  several  shares,  it  is  true,  have 
been  much  disputed  to  and  fro  ;  and  other  questions 
have  been  raised,  affecting  the  very  existence  of  some 
amongst  them.  But  all  this  is  irrelevant  to  our  present 
purpose,  which  applies  to  the  work,  but  not  at  all  to 
the  writers,  excepting  in  so  far  as  they  (by  whattiver 
aames  known)  were  notoriously  and  demonstrably  per- 


324        PHiLosoriiY  of  iioman  history. 

sons  belonging  to  that  era,  trained  in  Iioman  habits  of 
thinking,  connected  with  the  court,  intimate  with  the 
great  Palatine  officers,  and  therefore  presumably  men 
of  rank  and  education.  We  rely,  in  so  far  as  we 
rely  at  all  upon  this  work,  upon  these  two  among  its 
characteristic  features  :  1st,  Upon  the  quality  and  style 
of  its  biographic  notices  ;  2dly,  Upon  the  remarkable 
uncertainty  which  hangs  over  all  lives  a  little  removed 
from  the  personal  cognizance  or  immediate  era  of  the 
writer.  But  as  respects,  not  the  history,  but  the  sub- 
jects of  the  history,  we  rely,  3dly,  Upon  the  peculiar 
traits  of  feeling  which  gradually  began  to  disfigure  the 
ideal  conception  of  the  Roman  Caesar  in  the  minds  of 
his  subjects  ;  4thly,  Without  reference  to  the  Augustan 
history,  or  to  the  subjects  of  that  history,  we  rely 
generally,  for  establishing  the  growing  barbarism  of 
Rome,  upon  the  condition  of  the  Roman  literature  after 
the  period  of  the  first  twelve  Caesars. 

IV.  —  First  of  all,  we  infer  the  increasing  barbarism 
of  the  Roman  mind  from  the  quality  of  the  personal 
notices  and  portraitures  exhibited  throughout  these 
biographical  records.  The  whole  may  be  described  by 
one  word  —  anecdotage.  It  is  impossible  to  conceive 
the  dignity  of  history  more  degraded  than  by  the  petty 
nature  of  the  anecdotes  which  compose  the  bulk  of  the 
communications  about  every  Caesar,  good  or  bad,  great 
or  little.  They  are  not  merely  domestic  and  purely 
personal,  when  they  ought  to  have  been  Caesarian, 
Augustan,  imperatorial  —  they  pursue  Caesar  not  only 
to  his  fireside,  but  into  his  bed-chamber,  into  his  bath, 
into  his  cabinet,  nay,  even  {sit  honor  aurihus  !)  into 
hia  cabinet  d'aisance  ;  not  merely  into  the  Palatine 


PHILOSOPHY   OF   ROMAN  HISTOP.Y. 


325 


closet,  but  into  the  Palatine  water-closet.  Thu3  of 
Heliogabalus  we  are  told  —  '  onus  ventris  auro  excepit 

—  minxit  myrrhinis  et  onycliinis ; '  that  is,  Caesar's 
lasanum  was  made  of  gold,  and  his  matula  was  made 
of  onyx,  or  of  the  undetermined  myrrhine  material. 
And  so  on,  with  respect  to  the  dresses  of  Csesar  ;  — 
how  many  of  every  kind  he  wore  in  a  week  —  of 
what  material  they  were  made  —  with  what  orna- 
ments.   So  again,  with  respect  to  the  meals  of  Csesar; 

—  what  dishes,  what  condiments,  what  fruits,  what 
confection  prevailed  at  each  course  ;  what  wines  he 
preferred  ;  how  many  glasses  (^cyatlios)  he  usually 
drank,  whether  he  drank  more  when  he  was  angry  ; 
whether  he  diluted  his  wine  with  water  ;  half-and-hall, 
or  how  ?  Did  he  get  drunk  often  ?  How  many  times 
a  week  ?  What  did  he  generally  do  when  he  was 
drunk  ?  How  many  chemises  did  he  allow  to  his  wife  ^ 
How  were  they  fringed  ?    At  what  cost  per  chemise  ? 

In  this  strain  —  how  truly  worthy  of  the  children  of 
Romuius  —  how  becoming  to  the  descendants  from 
Scipio  Afiicanus,  from  Paulus  ^miliuii,  from  the  co- 
lossal Marius  and  the  godlike  Julius  —  the  whole  of 
the  Augustan  history  moves.  There  is  a  superb  line 
in  Lucan  which  represents  the  mighty  phantom  of 
Paulus  standing  at  a  banquet  to  reproach  or  to  alarm  — 

*  Et  Pauli  ingentem  stare  miraberis  umbram  !  ' 

What  a  horror  would  have  seized  this  Augustan  scrib- 
bler, this  Roman  Tims,  if  he  could  have  seen  this 
'  mighty  phantom '  at  his  elbow  looking  over  his  inani- 
ties ;  and  what  a  horror  would  have  seized  the  phan- 
tom !  Once,  in  the  course  of  his  aulic  memorabilia, 
the  writer  is  struck  with  a  sudden  glimpse  of  such  aji 


826  PHILOSOPHY  OF   ROMAN  HISTOKY. 

idea  ;  and  he  reproaches  himself  for  recording  such 
infinite  littleness.  After  reporting  some  anecdotes,  in 
the  usual  Augustan  style,  about  an  Imperial  rebel,  as 
for  instance  that  he  had  ridden  upon  ostriches,  (which 
he  says  was  the  next  thing  to  flying ;  )  that  he  had  eaten 
a  dish  of  boiled  hippopotamus  and  that,  having  a 
fancy  for  tickling  the  catastrophes  of  crocodiles,  he 
had  anointed  himself  with  crocodile  fat,  by  which 
means  he  humbugged  the  crocodiles,  ceasing  to  be 
Caesar,  and  passing  for  a  crocodile  —  swimming  and 
playing  amongst  them  ;  these  glorious  facts  being  re- 
corded, he  goes  on  to  say  —  '  Sed  hcec  scire  quid  pro- 
dest  ?  Cum  et  Liinus  et  Sallustius  taceant  res  leves 
de  lis  quorum  vitas  scribendas  arripuerint.  Non  eniiu 
scimus  quotes  mulos  Clodius  habuerit ;  nec  utrmn  Tusco 
equo  seder  it  Catilina  an  Sardo ;  vel  quali  chlamyde 
Pompeius  usus  fuerit^  an  purpura.''  No  :  we  do  not 
know.  Livy  would  have  died  '  in  the  high  Roman 
fashion'  before  he  would  have  degraded  himself,  by 
such  babble  of  nursery-maids,  or  of  palace  pimps  and 
eaves- droppere. 

But  it  is  too  evident  that  babble  of  this  kind  grew  up 
not  by  any  accident,  but  as  a  natural  growth,  and  by  a 
sort  of  physical  necessity,  from  the  condition  of  the 
Roman  mind  after  it  had  ceased  to  be  excited  by  op- 
position in  foreign  nations.  It  was  not  merely  the 
extinction  of  republican  institutions  which  operated, 
(that  might  operate  as  a  co-cause,)  but,  had  these 
institutions  even  survived,  the  unresisted  energies  of 
the  Roman  mind,  having  no  purchase,  nothing  to  push 
against,  would  have  collapsed.  The  eagle,  of  al^ 
birds,  would  be  the  first  to  flutter  and  sink  plumb 
down,  if  the  atmosphere  should  make  no  resistance  to 


PHILOSOPHY   OF  KOMAN  HISTORY. 


327 


his  wings.  The  first  Eoman  of  note  who  began  this 
system  of  anecdotage  was  Suetonius.  In  him  the 
poison  of  the  degradation  was  m^uch  diluted,  by  the 
strong  remembrances,  still  surviving,  of  the  mighty 
republic.  The  glorious  sunset  w^as  still  burning  with 
gold  and  orange  lights  in  the  west.  True,  the  disease 
had  commenced  ;  but  the  habits  of  health  were  still 
strong  for  restraint  and  for  conflict  with  its  power. 
Besides  that,  Suetonius  graces  his  minutiae,  and  em- 
balms them  in  amber,  by  the  exquisite  finish  of  his 
rhetoric.  But  his  case,  coming  so  early  among  the 
Caesarian  annals,  is  sufficient  to  show  that  the  growth 
of  such  history  was  a  spontaneous  growth  from  the 
oircumstances  of  the  empire,  viz.  from  the  total  col- 
lapse of  all  public  antagonism. 

The  next  literature  in  which  the  spirit  of  anecdotage 
arose  was  that  of  France.  From  the  age  of  Louis 
Treize,  or  perhaps  of  Henri  Quatre,  to  the  Revolution, 
this  species  of  chamber  memoirs  —  this  eaves-dropping 
biography  —  prevailed  so  as  to  strangle  authentic  his- 
tory. The  parasitical  plant  absolutely  killed  the  sup- 
porting tree.  And  one  remark  we  will  venture  to 
make  on  that  fact ;  the  French  literature  would  have 
been  killed,  and  the  national  mind  reduced  to  .the 
strulhrug  condition,  had  it  not  been  for  the  situation  of 
France  amongst,  other  great  kingdoms,  making  her 
liable  to  potent  reactions  from  them.  The  Memoirs 
of  France,  that  is,  the  valet-de-chambre's  archives  sub- 
Btituted  for  the  statesman's,  the  ambassador's,  the 
soldier's,  the  politican's,  would  have  extinguished  all 
other  historic  composition,  as  in  fact  they  nearly  did, 
but  for  the  insulation  of  France  amongst  nations  with 
tftore  masculine  habits  of  thought.   That  saved  France. 


328 


PHILOSOPHY   OF   KOMAN  HISTORY- 


Rome  had  no  such  advantage  ;  and  Rome  gave  way. 
The  props,  the  buttresses,  of  the  Roman  intellect,  were 
all  cancered  "and  honeycombed  by  this  dry-rot  in  hei 
political  energies.  One  excuse  there  is  :  storms  yield 
tragedies  for  the  historian  ;  the  dead  calms  of  a  uni- 
versal monarchy  leave  him  little  but  personal  memo- 
randa. In  such  a  case  he  is  nothing,  if  he  is  not 
anecdotical. 

V.  —  Secondly,  we  infer  the  barbarism  of  Rome, 
and  the  increasing  barbarism,  from  the  inconceivable 
ignorance  which  prevailed  throughout  the  Western 
Empire,  as  to  the  most  interesting  public  facts  that 
were  not  taken  down  on  the  spot  by  a  tachygraphus  or 
short-hand  reporter.  Let  a  few  years  pass,  and  every- 
thing was  forgotten  about  everybody.  Within  a  few 
years  after  the  death  of  Aurelian,  though  a  kind  of 
saint  amongst  the  armies  and  the  populace  of  Rome, 
(for  to  the  Senate  he  was  odious,)  no  person  could  tell 
who  was  the  Emperor's  mother,  or  where  she  lived  ; 
though  she  must  have  been  a  woman  of  station  and 
notoriety  in  her  lifetime,  having  been  a  high  priestess 
at  some  temple  unknown.  Alexander  Severus,  a  very 
interesting  Caesar,  who  recalls  to  an  Englishman  the 
idea  of  his  own  Edward  the  Sixth,  both  as  a  prince 
equally  amiable,  equally  disposed  to  piety,  equally  to 
reforms,  and  because,  like  Edward,  he  was  so  placed 
with  respect  to  the  succession  and  position  of  his  reign, 
between  unnatural  monsters  and  bloody  exterminators^ 
as  to  reap  all  the  benefit  of  contrast  and  soft  relief;  — 
this  Alexander  was  assassinated.  That  was  of  course. 
But  still,  though  the  fact  was  of  course,  the  motives 
often  varied,  and  the  circumstances  varied;  and  the 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  ROMAN  HISTORY.  329 

reader  would  be  glad  to  know,  in  Shakspeare's  lan- 
guage, '  for  which  of  his  virtues '  it  was  deemed 
requisite  to  murder  him  ;  as  also,  if  it  would  not  be 
too  much  trouble  to  the  historian,  who  might  be  the 
murderers  ;  and  what  might  be  their  rank,  and  their 
names,  and  their  recompense  —  whether  a  halter  or  a 
palace.  But  nothing  of  all  this  can  be  learned.  And 
why?  All  had  been  forgotten.^'  Lethe  had  sent  al) 
her  waves  over  the  whole  transaction  ;  and  the  man 
who  wrote  within  thirty  years,  found  no  vestige  recov- 
erable of  the  imperial  murder  more  than  you  or  we, 
reader,  would  find  at  this  day,  if  we  should  search  for 
fragments  of  that  imperial  tent  in  which  the  murder 
happened.  Again,  with  respect  to  the  princes  who 
succeeded  immediately  to  their  part  of  the  Augustan 
history  now  surviving,  princes  the  most  remarkable, 
and  cardinal  to  the  movement  of  history,  viz.,  Dio- 
clesian  and  Constantine,  many  of  the  weightiest  trans- 
actions in  their  lives  are  washed  out  as  by  a  sponge. 
Did  Dioclesian  hang  himself  in  his  garters  ?  or  did  he 
die  in  his  bed  ?  Nobody  knows.  And  if  Dioclesian 
hanged  himself,  why  did  Dioclesian  hang  himself? 
Nobody  can  guess.  Did  Constantine,  again,  marry  a 
second  wife  ?  —  did  this  second  wife  fall  in  love  with 
her  step-son  Grispus  ?  —  did  she,  in  resentment  of  his 
scorn,  bear  false  witness  against  him  to  his  father  ?  — 
did  his  father,  in  consequence*,  put  him  to  death  ? 
What  an  awful  domestic  tragedy  !  —  was  it  true  ? 
Nobody  knows.  On  the  one  hand,  Eusebius  does  not 
BO  much  as  allude  to  it ;  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
Eusebius  had  his  golden  reasons  for  favoring  Constan- 
tine, and  this  was  a  matter  to  be  hushed  up  rather 
than  blazoned.    Tell  it  not  in  Gath  !    Publish  it  not 


330  PHILOSOPHY   OF  HOMAN  HISTORY. 

in  Askelon!  Then  again,  on  the  one  hand,  the  tale 
seems  absolutely  a  leaf  torn  out  of  the  Hippolytus  of 
Euripides.  It  is  the  identical  story,  only  the  name 
is  changed ;  Constantino  is  Theseus,  his  new  wife  is 
Phaedra,  Crispus  is  Hippolytus.  So  far  it  seems  rank 
with  forgery.  Yet  again,  on  the  other  hand,  such  a 
duplicate  did  lond  fide  occur  in  modern  history.  Such 
a  domestic  tragedy  was  actually  rehearsed,  with  one 
unimportant  change ;  such  a  leaf  was  positively  torn 
out  of  Euripides.  Philip  II.  played  the  part  of  Theseus, 
Don  Carlos  the  part  of  Hippolytus,  and  the  Queen 
filled  the  situation  (without  the  anirnus)  of  Phaedra. 
Again,  therefore,  one  is  reduced  to  blank  ignorance, 
and  the  world  will  never  know  the  true  history  of  the 
Caesar  who  first  gave  an  establishment  and  an  earthly 
throne  to  Christianity,  because  history  had  slept  the 
sleep  of  death  before  that  Caesar's  time,  and  because 
the  great  muse  of  history  had  descended  from  Parnas- 
sus, and  was  running  about  Caesar's  palace  in  the  bed- 
gown and  slippers  of  a  chambermaid. 

Many  hundred  of  similar  lacuncE  we  could  assign, 
with  regard  to  facts  the  most  indispensable  to  be 
known  ;  but  we  must  hurry  onwards.  Meantime,  let 
the  reader  contrast  with  this  dearth  of  primary  facts 
in  the  history  of  the  empire,  and  their  utter  extinction 
after  even  the  lapse  of  twenty  years,  the  extreme  cir- 
cumstantiality of  the  republican  history,  through  many 
centuries  back. 

VI.  • —  Thirdly,  we  infer  the  growing  barbarism  of 
Rome,  that  is,  of  the  Roman  people,  as  well  as  the 
Roman  armies,  from  the  brutal,  bloody,  and  Tartar 
style  of  their  festal  exultations  after  victory,  and  the 


PHILOSOPHY  OP  HOMAN"  HISTOHY.  331 


Moloch  sort  of  character,  and  functions  with  which 
they  gradually  invested  their  great  Sultan,  the  Caesar. 
One  of  the  hallisteia,  that  is,  the  lallets  or  dances 
carried  through  scenes  and  representative  changes, 
which  were  performed  by  the  soldiery  and  by  the 
mobs  of  Rome  upon  occasion  of  any  triumphal  dis- 
play, has  been  preserved,  in  so  far  as  relates  to  the 
words  which  accompanied  the  performance ;  for  there 
was  always  a  verbal  accompaniment  to  the  choral  parts 
of  the  lallisteia.    These  words  ran  thus  :  — 

*  Mille,  niille,  mille,  mille,  mille,  mille,  [six  times  repeated]  decoJaviraus 
Unus  iiomo  mille,  mille,  mille,  mille,  [four  times]  decollavit 
Mille,  mille,  mille,  vivat  annos,  qui  mille,  mille  occidit. 
Tantum  viui  habet  nemo,  quantum  Ciesar  fudit  sanguinis.' 

And  again,  a  part  of  a  lallisteion  runs  thus :  — 

'  Mille  Francos,  mille  Sarmatas,  semerbceidimis  : 
Mille,  mille,  mille,  mille,  mille,  Fecsas  quaerimus.' 

But,  in  reality,  the  national  mind  was  convulsed 
and  revolutionized  by  many  causes ;  and  we  may  be 
assured  that  it  must  have  been  so,  both  as  a  cause  and 
as  an  effect,  before  that  mind  could  have  contemplated 
with  steadiness  the  fearful  scene  of  Turkish  murder 
and  bloodshed  going  on  forever  in  high  places.  The 
palace  floors  in  iRome  actually  rocked  and  quaked  with 
assassination :  snakes  were  sleeping  forever  beneath 
the  flowers  and  palms  of  empire  :  the  throne  was 
built  upon  coflins  :  and  any  Christian  who  had  read 
the  A  pocalypse,  whenever  he  looked  at  the  altar  conse- 
crated to  Csesar,  on  which  the  sacred  fire  was  burning 
forever  in  the  Augustan  halls,  must  have  seen  below 
them  '  the  souls  of  those  who  had  been  martyred,'  and 
have  fancied  that  he  heard  them  crying  out  to  the 
angel  of  retribution  —  'How  long?  O  Lord  I  ho\^ 
long  ^  ' 


532  PHILOSOPHY   OP   HOMAN  HISTORY. 

Gibbon  has  left  us  a  description,  not  very  powerful, 
of  a  case  which  is  all-powerful  of  itself,  and  needs  no 
expansion,  —  the  case  of  a  state  criminal  vainly  at- 
tempting to  escape  or  hide  himself  from  Csesar  — 
from  the  arm  wrapped  in  clouds,  and  stretching  over 
kingdoms  alike,  or  oceans,  that  arrested  and  drew 
back  the  wretch  to  judgment  —  from  the  inevitable  eye 
that  slept  not  nor  slumbered,  and  from  which,  neither 
Alps  interposing,  nor  immeasurable  deserts,  nor  track- 
less seas,  nor  a  four  months'  flight,  nor  perfect  inno- 
cence could  screen  him.  The  world  —  the  world  of 
civilization,  was  Caesar's  :  and  he  who  fled  from  the 
wrath  of  Csesar,  said  to  himself,  of  necessity  — '  If  I 
go  down  to  the  sea,  there  is  Csesar  on  the  shore  ;  if  I 
go  into  the  sands  of  Bilidulgerid,  there  is  Csesar  wait- 
ing for  me  in  the  desert ;  if  I  take  the  wings  of  the 
morning,  and  go  to  the  utmost  recesses  of  wild  beasts, 
there  is  Csesar  before  me.'  All  this  makes  the  con- 
dition of  a  criminal  under  the  Western  Empire  terrific, 
and  the  condition  even  of  a  subject  perilous.  But  how 
strange  it  is,  or  would  be  so,  had  Gibbon  been  a  man 
of  more  sensibility,  that  he  should  have  overlooked 
the  converse  of  the  case,  viz.,  the  terrific  condition  of 
Csesar,  amidst  the  terror  which  he  caused  to  others. 
In  fact,  both  conditions  were  full  of  despair.  But  Cae- 
sar's was  the  worst,  by  a  great  pre-eminence  ;  for  the 
state  criminal  could  not  be  made  such  without  his  own 
concurrence ;  for  one  moment,  at  least,  it  had  been 
within  his  choice  to  be  no  criminal  at  all ;  and  then 
for  him  the  thunderbolts  of  Csesar  slept.  But  Csesax 
had  rarely  any  choice  as  to  his  own  election  ;  and  for 
him,  therefore,  the  dagger  of  the  assassin  never  could 
4leep.    Other  men's  houses,  other  men's  bedchamberSj 


PHILOSOPHY   OF  EOMAN  HISTORY.  333 

were  generally  asylums  ;  but  for  Caesar,  his  own  palace 
had  not  the  privileges  of  a  home.  His  own  armies 
were  no  guards  —  his  own  pavilion,  rising  in  the  very 
centre  of  his  armies  sleeping  around  him,  was  no 
sanctuary.  In  all  these  places  had  Caesar  many  times 
been  murdered.  All  these  pledges  and  sanctities  — 
his  household  gods,  the  majesty  of  the  empire,  the 
'  sacramentum  militare,'  —  all  had  given  way,  all  had 
yawned  beneath  his  feet. 

The  imagination  of  man  can  frame  nothing  so 
awful  —  the  experience  of  man  has  witnessed  nothing 
BO  awful,  as  the  situation  and  tenure  of  the  Western 
Caesar.  The  danger  which  threatened  him  was  like 
the  pestilence  which  walketh  in  darkness,  but  which 
also  walketh  in  noon-day.  Morning  and  evening, 
summer  and  winter,  brought  no  change  or  shadow  of 
turning  to  this  particular  evil.  In  that  respect  it 
enjoyed  the  immunities  of  God  —  it  was  the  same 
yesterday,  to-day,  and  forever.  After  three  centuries 
it  had  lost  nothing  of  its  virulence  ;  it  was  growing 
worse  continually  :  the  heart  of  man  ached  under 
the  evil,  and  the  necessity  of  the  evil.  Can  any  man 
measure  the  sickening  fear  which  must  have  possessed 
the  hearts  of  the  ladies  and  the  children  composing 
the  imperial  family  ?  To  them  the  mere  terror,  en- 
tailed like  an  inheritance  of  leprosy  upon  their  family 
above  all  others,  must  have  made  it  a  woe  like  one  of 
the  evils  in  the  Hevelations  —  such  in  its  infliction  — 
6uch  in  its  inevitability.  It  was  what  Pagan  language 
denominated  '  a  sacred  danger ; '  a  danger  charmed 
find  consecrated  against  human  alleviation. 

At  length,  but  not  until  about  three  hundred  and 
twenty  years  of  murder  had  elapsed  from  the  inaugu- 


334  PHILOSOPHY   OP   HOMAN  HISTORY. 


ral  murder  of  the  great  imperial  founder,  Dioclesiaii 
rose,  and  as  a  last  resource  of  despair,  said,  let  us 
multiply  our  image,  and  try  if  that  will  discourage  oui 
murderers.  Like  Kehama,  entering  the  eight  gates  of 
Padalon  at  once,  and  facing  himself  eight  times  over, 
he  appointed  an  assessor  for  himself;  and  each  of 
these  co-ordinate  Augusti  having  a  subordinate  Csesar, 
there  were  in  fact  four  coeval  emperors.  Caesar 
enjoyed  a  perfect  alibi:  like  the  royal  ghost  in  Ham- 
let, Caesar  was  hie  et  ubique.  And  unless  treason 
enjoyed  the  same  ubiquity,  now,  at  least,  one  would 
have  expected  that  Caesar  might  sleep  in  security. 
But  murder  —  imperial  murder  —  is  a  Briareus.  There 
was  a  curse  upon  the  throne  of  Western  Rome  :  it 
rocked  like  the  sea,  and  for  some  mysterious  reason 
could  not  find  rest ;  and  few  princes  were  more  mem- 
orably afflicted  than  the  immediate  suc-cessors  to  this 
arrangement. 

A  nation  living  in  the  bosom  of  these  funereal  con- 
vulsions, this  endless  billowy  oscillation  of  prosperous 
murder  and  thrones  overturned,  could  not  have  been 
moral ;  and  therefore  could  not  have  reached  a  high 
civilization,  had  other  influences  favored.  No  causes 
act  so  fatally  on  public  morality  as  convulsions  in  the 
state.  And  against  Rome,  all  other  influences  com- 
bined. It  was  a  period  of  awful  transition.  It  was  a 
period  of  tremendous  conflict  between  all  false  relig- 
ions in  the  world,  (for  thirty  thousand  gods  were 
worshipped  in  Home,)  and  a  religion  too  pure  to  be 
comprehended.  That  light  could  not  be  compre- 
hended by  that  darkness.  And,  in  strict  philosophic 
truth,  Christianity  did  not  reach  its  mature  period, 
even  of  infancy,  until  the  days  of  the  Protestant 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  SOMAN   HISTORY.  835 

Reformation.  In  Rome  it  has  always  blended  with 
Paganism  :  it  does  so  to  this  day.  But  then,  i.  e.  up  to 
Dioclesian,  (or  the  period  of  the  Augustan  history,) 
even  that  sort  of  Christianity,  even  this  foul  adultera- 
tion of  Christianity,  had  no  national  influence.  Even 
a  pure  and  holy  religion,  therefore,  by  arraying  demo- 
niac passions  on  the  side  of  Paganism,  contributed  to 
the  barbarizing  of  Western  Pome. 

VII.  —  Finally,  we  infer  the  barbarism  of  Pome  from 
the  condition  of  her  current  literature.  Anything 
more  contemptible  than  the  literature  of  Western  (or 
indeed  of  Eastern)  Rome  after  Trajan,  it  is  not  possi- 
ble to  conceive.  Claudian,  and  two  or  three  others, 
about  the  times  of  Carinus,  are  the  sole  writers  in  verse 
through  a  period  of  four  centuries.  Writers  in  prose 
there  are  none  after  Tacitus  and  the  younger  Pliny. 
Nor  in  Greek  literature  is  there  one  man  of  genius 
after  Plutarch,  excepting  Lucian.  As  to  Libanius,  he 
would  have  been  '  a  decent  priest  where  monkeys  are 
the  gods  ; '  and  he  was  worthy  to  fumigate  with  his 
leaden  censer,  and  with  incense  from  such  dull  weeds 
as  root  themselves  in  Lethe,  that  earthly  idol  of  modern 
infidels,  the  shallow  but  at  the  same  time  stupid  Julian. 
Upon  this  subject,  however,  we  may  have  two  summary 
observations  to  make  :  —  1st,  It  is  a  fatal  ignorance 
in  disputing,  and  has  lost  many  a  good  cause,  not  to 
perceive  on  which  side  rests  the  onus  of  proof.  Here, 
because  on  our  allegation  the  proposition  to  be  proved 
would  be  negative,  the  onus  prohandi  must  lie  with  our 
opponents.  For  we  peremptorily  affirm,  that  from 
Trajan  downwards,  there  was  no  literature  in  Pome. 
To  proT^e  a  negative  is  impossible.    But  any  opponontj 


336  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ROMAN  HISTORY. 


who  takes  the  affirmative  side,  and  says  there  was,  will 
find  it  easy  to  refute  us.  Only  be  it  remembered,  that 
one  swallow  does  not  make  a  summer.  2dly,  (Which, 
if  true,  ought  to  make  all  writers  on  general  literature 
ashamed,)  we  maintain  —  that  in  any  one  period  of 
sixty  years,  in  any  one  of  those  centuries  which  we  call 
so  familiarly  the  Dark  Ages,  (yes,  even  in  the  10th  or 
11th,)  we  engage  to  name  more  and  better  books  as 
the  product  of  the  period  given,  than  were  produced  in 
the  whole  three  hundred  and  fifty  years  from  Trajan 
to  Honorius  and  Attila.  Here,  therefore,  is  at  once  a 
great  cause,  a  great  effect,  and  a  great  exponent  of  the 
barbarism  which  had  overshadowed  the  Western  Em- 
pire before  either  Goth  or  Yandal  had  gained  a  settle- 
ment in  the  land.  The  quality  of  their  history,  the 
tenure  of  the  Cassars,  the  total  abolition  of  literature, 
and  the  ooDvulsion  of  public  morals,  —  these  were  the 
true  k^^y  Vi  Ole  fioman  decay. 


GREECE  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 


WITH  A 

REFERENCE  TO  MR.  GEORGE  FINLAY'S  WORK  UPON 
THAT  SUBJECT. 

What  is  called  Philosophical  History  I  believe  to 
be  yet  in  its  infancy.  It  is  the  profound  remark  of 
Mr.  Finlay  —  profound  as  I  myself  understand  it  — 
i.  e.,  in  relation  to  this  philosophical  treatment,  "That 
history  will  ever  remain  inexhaustible."  How  inex- 
haustible ?  Are  the  facts  of  history  inexhaustible  ? 
In  regard  to  the  ancient  division  of  history  with  which 
he  is  there  dealing,  this  would  be  in  no  sense  true ; 
and  in  any  case  it  would  be  a  lifeless  truth.  So  en- 
tirely have  the  mere  facts  of  Pagan  history  been  dis- 
interred, ransacked,  sifted,  that  except  by  means  of 
bome  chance  medal  that  may  be  unearthed  in  the  illit- 
erate East  (as  of  late  towards  Bokhara),  or  by  means 
of  some  mysterious  inscription,  such  as  those  which 
still  mock  the  learned  traveller  in  Persia,  northwards 
near  Hamadan  (Ecbatana),  and  southwards  at  Perse- 
polis,  or  those  which  distract  him  amongst  the  shadowy 
ruins  of  Yucatan  (Uxmal,  suppose,  and  Palenque)  — 
once  for  all,  barring  these  pure  godsends,  it  is  hardly 
"in  the  dice"  that  any  downright  novelty  of  fact 

should  remain  in  reversion  for  this  nineteenth  century. 
22 


338 


GREECE   UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 


The  merest  possibility  exists,  that  in  Armenia,  or  in 
a  Grseco-Russian  monastery  on  Mount  Athos,  or  in 
Pompeii,  &c.,  some  authors  hitherto  avEyidoxoi  may  yet 
be  concealed ;  and  by  a  channel  in  that  degree  im- 
probable, it  is  possible  that  certain  new  facts  of  his- 
tory may  still  reach  us.  But  else,  and  failing  these 
cryptical  or  subterraneous  currents  of  communication, 
for  us  the  record  is  closed.  History  in  that  sense  has 
come  to  an  end,  and  is  sealed  up  as  by  the  angel  in 
the  Apocalypse.  '  What  then  ?  The  facts  so  under- 
stood are  but  the  dry  bones  of  the  mighty  past. 
And  the  question  arises  here  also,  not  less  than  in 
that  sublimest  of  prophetic  visions,  "  Can  these  dry 
bones  live  ?  "  Not  only  can  they  live,  but  by  an  infi- 
nite variety  of  life.  The  same  historic  facts,  viewed 
in  different  lights,  or  brought  into  connection  with 
other  facts,  according  to  endless  diversities  of  permu- 
tation and  combination,  furnish  grounds  for  such  eter- 
nal successions  of  new  speculations  as  make  the  facts 
themselves  virtually  new,  and  virtually  endless.  The 
same  Hebrew  words  are  read  by  different  sets  of  vowel 
points,  and  the  same  hieroglyphics  are  deciphered  by 
keys  everlastingly  varied. 

To  me,  I  repeat  that  oftentimes  it  seems  as  though 
the  science  of  history  were  yet  scarcely  founded.  There 
will  be  such  a  science,  if  at  present  there  is  not ;  and 
in  one  feature  of  its  capacities  it  will  resemble  chemis- 
try. What  is  so  familiar  to  the  perceptions  of  man  as 
the  common  chemical  agents  of  water,  air,  and  the  soil 
on  which  we  tread  ?  Yet  each  one  of  these  elements 
is  a  mystery  to  this  day  ;  handled,  used,  tried,  searched 
experimentally,  combined  in  ten  thousand  ways  —  it  is 


GKEECE   UNDER  THE  BOMANS.  339 

still  unknown ;  fathomed  by  recent  science  down  to  a 
certain  depth,  it  is  still  probably  by  its  destiny  unfath- 
omable. Even  to  the  end  of  days,  it  is  pretty  certain 
that  the  minutest  particle  of  earth  —  that  a  dew-drop 
scarcely  distinguishable  as  a  separate  object  —  that  the 
slenderest  filament  of  a  plant  —  will  include  within 
itself  secrets  inaccessible  to  man.  And  yet,  compared 
with  the  mystery  of  man  himself,  these  physical  worlds 
of  mystery  are  but  as  a  radix  of  infinity.  Chemistry 
is  in  this  view  mysterious  and  spinosistically  sublime  — 
that  it  is  the  science  of  the  latent  in  all  things,  of  all 
things  as  lurking  in  all.  Within  the  lifeless  flint, 
within  the  silent  pyrites,  slumbers  an  agony  of  poten- 
tial combustion.  Iron  is  imprisoned  in  blood.  With 
cold  water  (as  every  child  is  now-a-days  aware)  you 
may  lash  a  fluid  into  angry  ebullitions  of  heat  ;  with 
hot  water,  as  with  the  rod  of  Amram's  son,  you  may 
freeze  a  fluid  down  to  the  temperature  of  the  Sarsar 
wind,  provided  only  that  you  regulate  the  pressure  of 
the  air.  The  sultry  and  dissolving  fluid  shall  bake 
into  a  solid,  the  petrific  fluid  shall  melt  into  a  liquid. 
Heat  shall  freeze,  frost  shall  thaw ;  and  wherefore  ? 
Simply  because  old  things  are  brought  together  in 
new  modes  of  combination.  And  in  endless  instances 
beside,  we  see  in  all  elements  the  same  Panlike  latency 
l>f  forms  and  powers,  which  gives  to  the  external 
world  a  capacity  of  self-transformation,  and  of  poly- 
morphosis  absolutely  inexhaustible. 

But  the  same  capacity  belongs  to  the  facts  of  his- 
tory. And  I  do  not  mean  merely  that,  from  subjective 
differences  in  the  minds  reviewing  them,  such  facts 
assume  endless  varieties  of  interpretation  and  estimate, 


B40 


GREECE  irXDER  THE  ROMANS. 


but  that  objectively,  from  lights  still  increasing  in  the 
science  of  government  and  of  social  philosophy,  all 
the  primary  facts  of  history  become  liable  continually^ 
to  new  presentations,  to  new  combinations,  and  to 
new  valuations  of  their  moral  relations.  I  have  seen 
some  kinds  of  marble,  where  the  veinings  happened 
to  be  unusually  multiplied,  in  which  human  faces, 
figures,  processions,  or  fragments  of  natural  scenery, 
seemed  absolutely  illimitable,  under  the  endless  varia- 
tions or  inversions  of  the  order,  according  to  which 
they  might  be  combined  and  grouped.  Something 
analogous  takes  effect  in  reviewing  the  remote  parts  of 
history.  Rome,  for  instance,  has  been  the  object  of 
historic  pens  for  twenty  centuries  (dating  from  Polybi- 
us)  ;  and  yet  hardly  so  much  as  twenty  years  have 
elapsed  since  Niebuhr  opened  upon  us  almost  a  new 
revelation,  by  re-combining  the  same  eternal  facts,  ac- 
cording to  a  different  set  of  principles.  The  same  thing 
may  be  said,  though  not  with  the  same  degree  of  em- 
phasis, upon  the  Grecian  researches  of  the  late  Ottfried 
Mueller.  Egyptian  history  again,  even  at  this  moment, 
is  seen  stealing  upon  us  through  the  dusky  twilight 
in  its  first  distinct  lineaments.  Before  Young,  Cham- 
pollion,  Lepsius,  and  the  others  who  have  followed  on 
their  traces  in  this  field  of  history,  all  was  outer  dark- 
ness ;  and  whatsoever  we  do  know  or  shall  know  of 
Egyptian  Thebes  will  now  be  recovered  as  if  from  the 
unswathing  of  a  mummy.  Not  until  a  flight  of  three 
thousand  years  has  left  Thebes  the  Hekatompylos  a 
dusky  speck  in  the  far  distance,  have  we  even  hegun 
to  read  her  annals,  or  to  understand  her  revolutions. 
Another  instance  I -have  now  before  me  of  this  ne\« 


GREECE   UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 


341 


historic  faculty  for  resuscitating  the  buried,  and  foi 
calling  back  the  breath  to  the  frozen  features  of  death, 
in  Mr.  Finlay's  work  upon  the  Greeks  as  related  to 
the  Roman  Empire.  He  presents  us  with  old  facts, 
but  under  the  purpose  of  clothing  them  with  a  new 
life.  He  rehearses  ancient  stories,  not  with  the  humble 
ambition  of  better  adorning  them,  of  more  perspicu- 
DUvsly  narrating,  or  even  of  more  forcibly  pointing  their 
moral,  but  of  extracting  from  them  some  new  meaning, 
and  thus  forcing  them  to  arrange  themselves,  under 
some  latent  connection,  with  other  phenomena  now 
first  detected,  as  illustrations  of  some  great  principle 
or  agency  now  first  revealing  its  importance.  Mr. 
Finlay's  style  of  intellect  is  appropriate  to  such  a  task ; 
for  it  is  subtle  and  Machiavelian.  But  there  is  this 
difficulty  in  doing  justice  to  the  novelty,  and  at  times 
I  may  say  with  truth  to  the  profundity  of  his  views, 
that  they  are  by  necessity  thrown  out  in  continued 
successions  of  details,  are  insulated,  and,  in  one  word, 
sporadic.  This  follows  from  the  very  nature  of  his 
work ;  for  it  is  a  perpetual  commentary  on  the  inci- 
dents of  Grecian  history,  from  the  era  of  the  Roman 
conquest  to  the  commencement  of  what  Mr.  Finlay, 
in  a  peculiar  sense,  calls  the  Byzantine  Empire.  These 
incidents  have  nowhere  been  systematically  or  contin- 
uously recorded ;  they  come  forward  by  casual  flashes 
in  the  annals,  perhaps,  of  some  church  historian,  as 
they  happen  to  connect  themselves  with  his  momentary 
theme  ;  or  they  betray  themselves  in  the  embarrassments 
of  the  central  government,  whether  at  Rome  or  at 
Constantinople,  when  arguing  at  one  time  a  pestilence, 
at  another  an  insurrection,  or  at  a  third  an  inroad  of 


342 


GKEECE   UNDEK  THE  ROMANS. 


barbarians.  It  is  not  the  fault  of  Mr.  Finlay,  but  his 
great  disadvantage,  that  the  affairs  of  Greece  have 
been  thus  discontinuously  exliibited,  and  that  its  in- 
ternal changes  of  condition  have  been  never  treated 
except  indirectly,  and  by  men  aliud  agentihus.  The 
Grecian  race  had  a  primary  importance  on  our  planet; 
but  the  Grecian  name,  represented  by  Greece  consid- 
ered as  a  territory,  or  as  the  political  seat  of  the  Hel- 
lenic people,  ceased  to  have  much  importance,  in  the 
eyes  of  historians,  from  the  time  when  it  became  a 
conquered  province ;  and  it  declined  into  absolute 
insignificance  after  the  conquest  of  so  many  other 
provinces  had  degraded  Hellas  into  an  arithmetical 
unit,  standing  amongst  a  total  amount  of  figures, 
so  vast  and  so  much  more  dazzling  to  the  ordinary 
mind.  Hence  it  was  that  in  ancient  times  no  com- 
plete history  of  Greece,  through  all  her  phases  and 
stages,  was  conspicuously  attempted.  The  greatness 
of  her  later  revolutions,  simply  as  changes,  would  have 
attracted  the  historian  ;  but,  as  changes  associated 
with  calamity  and  loss  of  power,  they  repelled  his 
curiosity,  and  alienated  his  interest.  It  is  the  very 
necessity,  therefore,  .of  Mr.  Finlay's  position,  when 
coming  into  such  an  inheritance,  that  he  must  splinter 
his  philosophy  into  separate  individual  notices ;  for 
the  records  of  history  furnish  no  grounds  for  more. 
Spartam,  quain  nactus  est,  ornavit.  That  ungenial 
province,  which  he  has  obtained  by  lot,  he  has  beauti- 
fied by  hl&  culture  and  treatment.  Bat  this  does  not 
remedy  the  difficulty  for  ourselves,  in  attempting  to 
give  a  representative  view  of  his  philosophy.  General 
abstractions  he  had  no  opportunity  for  presenting  • 


GRKECE  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 


843 


sonsequently  we  have  no  opportunity  for  valuing ;  and, 
3n  the  other  hand,  single  cases  selected  from  a  sue 
cession  of  hundreds,  would  not  justify  any  r^epresenta* 
f  ive  criticism,  more  than  the  single  brick,  in  the  old 
anecdote  of  Hierocles,  would  serve  representatively  to 
appraise  the  house. 

Under  this  difficulty  as  to  the  possible  for  myself, 
and  the  just  for  Mr.  Finlay,  I  shall  adopt  the  follow- 
ing course.  So  far  as  the  Greek  people  ccUected 
themselves  in  any  splendid  manner  with  the  Roman 
Empire,  they  did  so  with  the  eastern  horn  of  that 
empire,  and  in  point  of  time  from  the  foundation  of 
Constantinople  as  an  eastern  Rome,  in  the  fourth  cen- 
•tury,  to  a  period  not  fully  agreed  on ;  but  for  the 
moment  I  will  say  with  Mr.  Finlay,  up  to  the  early 
part  of  the  eighth  century.  A  reason  given  by  Mr. 
Finlay  for  this  latter  date  is,  that  about  that  time  the 
Grecian  blood,  so  w^ideiy  diffused  in  Asia,  and  even  in 
Africa,  became  finally  detached  by  the  pi  ogress  of 
Mahometanism  and  Mahometan  systems  of  power, 
from  all  further  concurrence  or  coalition  with  the  views 
of  the  Byzantine  Csesar.  Constantinople  was  from 
that  date  thrown  back  more  upon  its  own  peculiar 
heritage  and  jurisdiction,  of  vv^hich  the  main  resources 
for  war  and  peace  lay  in  Europe,  and  (speaking  by  the 
narrowest  terms)  in  Thrace.  Henceforth,  therefore, 
for  the  city  and  throne  of  Constantino,  resuming  its 
^Id  Grecian  name  of  Byzantium,  there  succeeded  a 
theatre  less  diffusive,  a  population  more  concentrated, 
a  character  of  action  more  determinate  and  jealous,  a 
^yle  of  courtly  ceremonial  more  elaborate  as  well  as 
more  haughtily  repulsive,  and  universally  a  system  ol 


344 


GREECE   UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 


interests,  as  mucli  more  definite  and  selfisli,  as  might 
naturally  be  looked  for  in  a  nation  now  everywhere 
surrounded  by  new  thrones  gloomy  with  malice,  and 
swelling  with  the  consciousness  of  youthful  power. 
This  new  and  final  state  of  the  eastern  Rome,  Mr. 
Finlay  denominates  the  Byzantine  Empire.  Possibly 
this  use  of  the  term  thus  limited  may  be  capable  of 
justification  ;  but  more  questions  would  arise  in  the 
discussion  than  Mr.  Finlay  has  thought  it  of  importance 
to  notice.  And  for  the  present  1  shall  take  the  word 
Byzantine  in  its  most  ordinary  acceptation,  as  denoting 
the  local  empire  founded  by  Constantino  in  Byzantium, 
early  in  the  fourth  century,  under  the  idea  of  a  trans- 
lation from  the  old  western  Rome,  and  overthrown  by. 
the  Ottoman  Turks  in  the  year  1453.  In  the  fortunes 
and  main  stages  of  this  empire,  what  are  the  chief  ar- 
resting phenomena,  aspects,  or  relations  to  the  greatest 
of  modern  interests  ?   I  select  by  preference  these  :  — 

I.  First,  this  was  the  earliest  among  the  kingdoms 
of  our  planet  which  connected  itself  with  Christianity. 
In  Armenia,  there  had  been  a  previous  state  recog- 
nition of  Christianity.  But  that  was  neither  splendid 
nor  distinct.  Whereas  the  Byzantine  Rome  built 
avowedly  upon  Christianity  as  its  own  basis,  and  con- 
secrated its  own  nativity  by  the  sublime  act  of  founding 
the  first  provision  ever  attempted  for  the  poor,  consid- 
ered simply  as  poor  (i.  e.,  as  objects  of  pity,  not  as 
instruments  of  ambition). 

II.  Secondly,  as  the  great  cegis  of  western  Christen- 
dom, nay,  the  barrier  which  made  it  possible  that  any 
Christendom  should  ever  exist,  this  Byzantine  Empire 
U  enUtled  to  a  very  different  station  in  the  enlightened 


GREECE   UNDER  THE  ROxMANS. 


845 


gratitude  of  us  Western  Europeans  from  any  which  it 
has  yet  held.  I  do  not  scruple  to  say,  that,  hy  com- 
parison with  the  services  of  the  Byzantine  people  to 
Europe,  no  nation  on  record  has  ever  stood  in  the 
same  relation  to  any  other  single  nation,  much  less  to  a 
whole  family  of  nations,  whether  as  regards  the  oppor- 
tunity and  means  of  conferring  benefits,  or  as  regards  the 
astonishing  perseverance  in  supporting  the  succession  of 
these  benefits,  or  as  regards  the  ultimate  event  of  these 
benefits.  A  great  wrong  has  been  done  for  ages  ;  for 
we  have  all  been  accustomed  to  speak  of  the  Byzantine 
Empire  with  scorn,*  as  chiefly  known  by  its  effeminacy  ; 
and  the  greater  is  the  call  for  a  fervent  palinode. 

III.  Thirdly,  in  a  reflex  way,  as  the  one  great  danger 
which  overshadowed  Europe  for  generations,  and 
against  which  the  Byzantine  Empire  proved  the  capital 
bulwark,  Mahometanism  may  rank  as  one  of  the  By- 
zantine aspects  or  counterforces.  And  if  there  is  any 
popular  error  applying  to  the  history  of  that  great 
convulsion,  as  a  political  effort  for  revolutionizing  the 
world,  some  notice  of  it  will  find  a  natural  place  in 
connection  with  these  present  trains  of  speculation. 

*  "  With  scorn  :  "  — This  has  arisen  from  two  causes  :  one 
is  the  habit  of  regarding  the  whole  Roman  Empire  as  in  its 
"  decline  "  from  so  early  a  period  as  that  of  Commodus  ;  agree- 
ably to  which  conceit,  it  would  naturally  follow  that,  during 
its  latter  stages,  the  Eastern  Empire  must  have  been  absolutely 
I'n  its  dotage.  If  already  declining  in  the  second  century,  then, 
from  the  tenth  to  the  fifteenth,  it  must  have  been  paralytic  and 
(bedridden.  The  other  cause  may  be  found  in  the  accidental  but 
reasonable  hostility  of  the  Byzantine  court  to  the  first  Crusaders, 
as  also  in  the  disadvantageous  comparison  with  respect  to  manly 
virtues  between  the  simplicity  of  these  western  children,  and  th« 
\efined  dissimulation  of  the  Byzantines. 


346  GREECE   UNDER  THE  ROMAISS. 

Let  me,  therefore,  have  permission  to  throw  together 
a  few  remarks  on  these  three  subjects — 1.  On  the 
remarkable  distinction  by  which  the  eldest  of  Christian 
rulers  proclaimed  and  inaugurated  the  Christian  basis 
of  his  empire;  2.  On  the  true  but  forgotten  relation 
of  this  great  empire  to  our  modern  Christendom,  under 
which  idea  I  comprehend  Europe,  and  reversionally 
the  whole  continent  of  America  ;  3.  On  the  false  pre- 
tensions of  Mahometanism,  whether  advanced  by  itself 
or  by  inconsiderate  Christian  speculators  on  its  behalf. 
I  shall  thus  obtain  this  advantage,  that  some  sort  of 
unity  will  be  given  to  my  own  glances  at  Mr.  Finlay's 
theme ;  and,  at  the  same  time,  by  gathering  under 
these  general  heads  any  dispersed  comments  of  Mr. 
Finlay,  whether  for  confirmation  of  my  own  views,  or 
for  any  purpose  of  objection  to  his,  I  shall  give  to 
those  comments  also  that  kind  of  unity,  by  means  of 
a  reference  to  a  common  purpose,  which  I  could  not 
have  given  them  by  citing  each  independently  for  it- 
self. 

I.  First,  then,  as  to  that  memorable  act  by  which 
Constantinople  [i.  e.,  the  Eastern  Empire)  connected 
herself  forever  with  Christianity  —  viz.,  the  recognition 
of  pauperism  as  an  element  in  the  state  entitled  to  the 
maternal  guardianship  of  the  state.  In  this  new 
principle,  introduced  by  Christianity,  we  behold  a  far- 
seeing  or  proleptic  wisdom,  making  provision  for  evils 
before  they  had  arisen ;  for  it  is  certain  that  great 
expansions  of  pauperism  did  not  exist  in  the  ancient 
world.  A  pauper  population  is  a  disease  peculiar  to 
ohe  modern  or  Christian  world.  Various  causes  latent 
in  the  social  systems  of  the  ancients  prevented  such 


GEEECE   UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 


347 


developments  of  surplus  people.  But  does  not  this 
argue  a  superiority  in  the  social  arrangementf  of  these 
ancients  ?  Not  at  all ;  they  were  .atrociously  worse. 
They  evaded  this  one  morbid  affection  by  means  of 
others  far  more  injurious  to  the  moral  advance  of  man. 
'J'he  case  was  then  everywhere  as  at  this  day  it  is  in 
Persia.  A  Persian  ambassador  to  London  or  Paris 
might  boast  that,  in  his  native  Iran,  no  such  spectacles 
existed  of  hunger-bitten  myriads  as  may  be  seen  every- 
where during  seasons  of  distress  in  the  crowded  cities 
of  Christian  Europe.  No,"  would  be  the  answer, 
"  most  certainly  not ;  but  why  ?  The  reason  is,  that 
your  accursed  form  of  society  and  government  inter- 
cepts such  surplus  people,  does  not  suffer  them  to  be 
born.  What  is  the  result  ?  You  ought,  in  Persia,  to 
have  three  hundred  millions  of  people ;  your  vast  ter- 
ritory is  easily  capacious  of  that  number.  You  have  — 
how  many  have  you  ?  Something  less  than  eight 
millions."  Think  of  this,  startled  reader.  But,  if 
that  be  a  good  state  of  things,  then  any  barbarous 
soldier  who  makes  a  wilderness  is  entitled  to  call 
himself  a  great  philosopher  and  public  benefactor. 
This  is  to  cure  the  headache  by  amputating  the  head. 
Now,  the  same  principle  of  limitation  to  population 
a  'parte  ante,  though  not  in  the  same  savage  excess  as 
in  Mahometan  Persia,  operated  upon  Greece  and  Rome. 
The  whole  Pagan  world  escaped  the  evils  of  redundant 
population  by  vicious  repressions  of  it  beforehand. 
But  under  Christianity  a  new  state  of  things  was  des- 
tined to  take  effect.  Many  protections  and  excitements 
to  population  were  laid  in  the  framework  of  this  new 
••eligion,  which,  by  its  new  code  of  rules  and  impulses 


348 


GREECE  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 


in  so  many  ways  extended  the  free  agency  of  human 
beings.  Manufacturing  industry  was  destined  first  tc 
arise  on  any  grea't  scale  under  Christianity.  Except 
in  Tyre  and  Alexandria  (see  the  Emperor  Hadrian's 
account  of  this  last),  there  was  no  town  or  district  in 
the  ancient  world  where  the  populace  could  be  said 
properly  to  work.  The  rural  laborers  worked  a  little 
—  not  much  ;  and  sailors  worked*  a  little  ;  nobody  else 
worked  at  all.  Even  slaves  had  little  more  work  dis- 
tributed amongst  each  ten  than  now  settles  upon  one. 
And  in  many  other  ways,  by  protecting  the  principle 
of  life,  as  a  mysterious  sanctity,  Christianity  has  fa- 
vored the  development  of  an  excessive  population. 
Tnere  it  is  that  Christianity,  being  answerable  for  the 
mischief,  is  answerable  for  its  redress.  Therefore  it 
is  that,  breeding  the  disease,  Christianity  breeds  the 
cure.  Extending  the  vast  lines  of  poverty,  Christianity 
it  was  that  first  laid  down  the  principle  of  a  relief  for 
poverty.  Constantino,  the  first  Christian  potentate, 
laid  the  first  stone  of  the  mighty  overshadowing  insti- 
tution since  reared  in  Christian  lands  to  poverty,  dis- 
ease, orphanage,  and  mutilation.  Christian  instincts, 
moving  and  speaking  through  that  Caesar,  first  carried 
out  that  great  idea  of  Christianity.  Six  years  was 
Christianity  in  building  Constantinople,  and  in  the 
seventh  she  rested  from  her  labors,  saying,  "  Hence- 
forward let  the  poor  man  have  a  haven  of  rest  forever ; 
a  rest  from  his  work  for  one  day  in  seven  ;  a  rest  from 
his  anxieties  by  a  legal  and  fixed  relief."  Being  legal, 
it  could  not  be  open  to  disturbances  of  caprice  in  the 
giver  ;  being  fixed,  it  was  not  open  to  disturbances  of 
miscalcalation  in  the  receiver.    Now,  first,  when  first 


GREECE  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 


349 


Christianity  was  installed  as  a  public  organ  of  govern- 
ment  (and  first  owned  a  distinct  political  responsibility), 
did  it  become  the  duty  of  a  religion  which  assumed, 
as  it  were,  the  official  tutelage  of  poverty,  to  proclaim 
and  consecrate  that  function  by  some  great  memorial 
precedent.  And,  accordingly,  in  testimony  of  that 
obligation,  the  first  Christian  Csesar,  on  behalf  of 
Christianity,  founded  the  first  system  of  relief  for 
pauperism.  It  is  true,  that  largesses  from  the  public 
treasury,  gratuitous  corn,  or  corn  sold  at  diminished 
ratQS,  not  to  mention  the  sportulcR  or  stated  doles  of 
private  Koman  nobles,  had  been  distributed  amongst 
the  indigent  citizens  of  Western  Rome  for  centuries 
before  Constantino  ;  but  all  these  had  been  the  selfish 
bounties  of  factious  ambition  or  intrigue. 

To  Christianity  was  reserved  the  inaugural  act  of 
public  charity  in  the  spirit  of  charity.  We  mmst  re- 
member that  no  charitable  or  beneficent  institutions  of 
any  kind,  grounded  on  disinterested  kindness,  existed 
among  the  Pagan  Romans,  and  still  less  amongst  the 
Pagan  Greeks.  Mr.  Coleridge,  in  one  of  his  lay  ser- 
mons, advanced  the  novel  doctrine,  that  in  the  Scrip- 
ture is  contained  all  genuine  and  profound  statesman- 
ship. Of  course  he  must  be  understood  to  mean,  in 
its  capital  principles  ;  for,  as  to  subordinate  and  execu- 
tive rules  for  applying  such  principles,  these,  doubtless, 
are  in  part  suggested  by  the  local  circumstances  in 
each  separate  case.  Now,  amongst  the  political  the* 
ories  of  the  Bible  is  this,  that  pauperism  is  not  ai^ 
accident  in  the  constitution  of  states,  but  an  indefea- 
sible necessity  ;  or,  in  the  Scriptural  words,  that  the 
Door  shall  never  cease  out  of  the  land."    This  theory. 


350  GREECE  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 

or  great  canon  of  social  philosophy  during  many  cen- 
turies drew  no  especial  attention  from  philosophers. 
It  passed  for  a  truism,  bearing  no  particular  emphasis 
or  meaning  beyond  some  general  purpose  of  sanction 
to  the  impulses  of  charity.  But  there  is  good  reason 
to  believe  that  it  slumbered,  and  was  meant  to  slum- 
ber, until  Christianity  arising  and  moving  forwards 
should  call  it  into  a  new  life,  as  a  principle  suited  to  a 
new  order  of  things.  Accordingly,  we  have  seen  of 
late  that  this  Scriptural  dictum — "The  poor  shall 
never  cease  out  of  the  land  "  —  has  terminated  its 
career  as  a  truism  (that  is,  as  a  truth,  either  obvious 
on  one  hand,  or  inert  on  the  other),  and  has  wakened 
into  a  polemic  or  controversial  life.  People  arose  who 
took  upon  them  utterly  to  deny  the  Scriptural  doctrine. 
Peremptorily  they  challenged  the  assertion,  that  poverty 
must  always  exist.  The  Bible  said,  that  it  was  an  af- 
fection of  human  society  which  could  not  be  extermi- 
nated;  the  economist  of  1800  said  that  it  was  a  foul 
disease  which  must  and  should  be  exterminated.  The 
Scriptural  philosophy  said,  that  pauperism  was  inalien- 
able from  man's  social  condition,  in  the  same  way  that 
decay  was  inalienable  from  his  flesh.  "  I  shall  soon  see 
that,''  said  the  economist  of  1800,  "  for  as  sure  as  my 
name  is  Malthus,  I  will  have  this  poverty  put  down  by 
law  within  one  generation,  if  there's  a  law  to  be  had 
in  the  courts  of  Westminster."  The  Scriptures  have 
left  word,  that,  if  any  man  should  come  to  the  national 
banquet,  declaring  himself  unable  to  pay  his  contribu- 
tion, that  man  should  be  accounted  the  guest  of  Chris- 
Nianity,  and  should  be  privileged  to  sit  at  the  tabic  in 
thankful  remembrance  of  what  Christianity  had  done 


GREECE  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 


351 


for  man.  But  Mr.  Malthus  left  word  with  all  the  ser- 
vants, that,  if  any  man  should  present  himself  under 
those  circumstances,  he  was  to  be  told,  "  the  table  is 
full "  {his  words,  not  mine)  ;  "  go  away,  good  man." 
Go  away  !  Mr.  Malthus  ?  Whither  ?  In  what  direc- 
tion?—  "Why,  if  you  come  to  that,''  said  the  man  cf 
1800,  "  to  any  ditch  that  he  prefers:  surely  there's 
good  choice  of  ditches  for  the  most  fastidious  taste.'* 
During  twenty  years — viz.,  from  1800  to  1820  — 
this  new  philosophy,  which  substituted  a  ditch  for  a 
dinner,  and  a  paving-stone  for  a  loaf,  prevailed  and 
prospered.  At  one  time  it  seemed  likely  enough  to 
prove  a  snare  to  our  own  aristocracy  —  the  noblest  of 
all  ages.  But  that  peril  was  averted,  and  the  further 
history  of  the  case  was  this  :  By  the  year  1820,  much 
discussion  having  passed  to  and  fro,  serious  doubts 
had  arisen  in  many  quarters  ;  scepticism  had  begun  to 
arm  itself  against  the  sceptic;  the  economist  of  1800 
was  no  longer  quite  sure  of  his  ground.  He  was  now 
suspected  of  being  fallible  ;  and  what  seemed  of  worse 
augury,  he  was  beginning  himself  to  suspect  as  much. 
To  one  capital  blunder  he  was  obliged  jDublicly  to 
plead  guilty.  What  it  was  I  shall  have  occasion  to 
mention  immediately.  Meantime  it  was  justly  thought 
that,  in  a  dispute  loaded  with  such  prodigious  practical 
consequences,  good  senge  and  prudence  demanded  a 
more  extended  inquiry  than  had  yet  been  instituted. 
Whether  poverty  would  ever  cease  from  the  laud, 
might  be  doubted  by  those  who  balanced  their  faith  in 
Scripture  against  their  faith  in  the  man  of  1800.  But 
this  at  least  could  not  be  doubted  —  that  as  yet  pov- 
erty had  not  ceased,  nor  indeed  had  made  any  sensible 


352 


GREECE  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 


preparations  for  ceasing,  from  any  land  in  Europe.  Il 
was  a  clear  case,  therefore,  that,  howsoever  Europe 
might  please  to  dream  upon  the  matter,  when  pauper- 
ism should  have  reached  that  glorious  euthanasy  pre- 
dicted by  the  alchemist  of  old  and  the  economist  of 
1800,  for  the  present  she  must  deal  actively  with  her 
own  pauperism  on  some  avowed  plan  and  principle, 
good  or  evil  —  gentle  or  harsh.  Accordingly,  along 
the  line  of  years  between  1820  and  1830,  inquiries 
were  made  through  our  consuls  of  every  state  in  Eu- 
rope, what  were  those  plans  and  principles.  For  it 
was  justly  said  —  "As  one  step  towards  judging 
rightly  of  our  own  system,  now  that  it  has  been  so 
clamorously  challenged  for  a  bad  system,  let  us  learn 
what  it  is  that  other  nations  think  upon  the  subject, 
but"  above  all  what  it  is  that  they  The  answers  to 
our  many  inquiries  varied  considerably  ;  and  some 
amongst  the  most  enlightened  nations  appear  to  have 
adopted  the  good  old  plan  of  laissez  faire,  giving 
nothing  from  any  public  fund  to  the  pauper,  but  au- 
thorizing him  to  levy  contributions  on  that  gracious 
allegoric  lady.  Private  Charity,  wherever  he  could  meet 
her  taking  the  air  with  her  babes.  This  reference  ap- 
peared to  be  the  main  one  in  reply  to  any  application 
of  the  pauper  ;  and  for  all  the  rest  they  referred  him 
generally  to  the  "  ditch,"  or  to  his  own  unlimited 
choice  of  ditches,  according  to  the  approved  method 
of  public  benevolence  published  in  4to  and  in  8vo  by 
the  man  of  1800.  But  there  were  other  and  humbler 
states  in  Europe,  whose  very  pettiness  had  brought 
more  fully  within  their  vision  the  whole  machinery 
anf?  watchwork  of  pauperism,  as  it  acted  and  reacted 


GREECE  UNDER  THE  BOMANS. 


353 


on  the  industrious  poverty  of  the  land,  and  on  other 
interests,  by  means  of  the  system  adopted  in  relieving 
it.  From  these  states  came  many  interesting  reports, 
all  tending  to  some  good  purpose.  But  at  last,  and 
before  the  year  1830,  amongst  other  results  of  more 
or  less  value,  three  capital  points  were  established,  not 
more  decisive  for  the  justificatfon  of  the  English  sys- 
tem in  administering  national  relief  to  paupers,  and  of 
all  systems  that  reverenced  the  authority  of  Scripture, 
than  they  were  for  the  overthrow  of  Mr.  Malthus,  the 
man  of  1800.  These  three  points  are  worthy  of  being 
used  as  buoys  in  mapping  out  the  true  channels,  or 
indicating  the  breakers  on  this  difficult  line  of  navi- 
gation ;  and  I  now  rehearse  them.  They  may  seem 
plain  almost  to  obviousness ;  but  it  is  enough  that 
they  involve  all  the  disputed  questions  of  the  case. 

First,  that,  in  spite  of  the  assurances  from  econo- 
mists, no  progress  whatever  had  been  made  by  Eng- 
land, or  by  any  state  in  this  world,  which  lent  any 
sanction  to  the  hope  of  ever  eradicating  poverty  from 
society. 

Secondly,  that,  in  absolute  contradiction  to  the 
whole  hypothesis  relied  on  by  Malthus  and  his  breth- 
ren, in  its  most  fundamental  doctrine,  a  legal  provision 
for  poverty  did  not  act  as  a  bounty  on  marriage.  There 
went  to  wreck  the  basis  of  the  Malthus  philosophy. 
The  experience  of  England,  where  the  trial  had  been 
made  on  the  largest  scale,  was  decisive  on  this  point ; 
and  the  opposite  experience  of  Ireland,  under  the  op- 
posite circumstances,  was  equally  decisive.  And  this 
result  had  made  itself  so  clear  by  1820,  that  even 
Malthus  (as  I  have  already  noticed  by  anticipation) 

23 


354  GREECE  XJNDER  THE  ROMANS, 

was  compelled  to  publish  a  recantation  as  to  this  par- 
ticular error,  which  in  effect  was  a  recantation  of  his 
entire  theory. 

Thirdly,  that,  according  to  the  concurring  experience 
of  all  the  most  enlightened  states  in  Christendom, 
the  public  suffered  least  (not  merely  in  molestation, 
but  in  money),  paupefism  benefited  most,  and  the 
growth  of  pauperism  was  retarded  most,  precisely  as 
the  provision  for  the  poor  had  been  legalized  as  to  its 
obligation,  and  fixed  as  to  its  amount.  Left  to  indi- 
vidual discretion,  the  burden  was  found  to  press  most 
unequally  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  evil  itself  of 
pauperism,  whilst  much  less  effectually  relieved,  never- 
theless, through  the  irregular  action  of  this  relief,  was 
much  more  powerfully  stimulated. 

Such  is  the  abstract  of  our  latest  public  warfare  on 
this  great  question  through  a  period  of  nearly  fifty 
years.  And  the  issue  is  this  :  starting  from  the  con- 
temptuous defiance  of  the  Scriptural  doctrine  upon  the 
necessity  of  making  provision  for  poverty  as  an  indis- 
pensable element  in  civil  communities  {the  poor  shall 
never  cease  out  of  the  land),  the  economy  of  the  ago 
has  lowered  its  tone  by  graduated  descents,  in  each 
one  successively  of  the  four  last  decennia.  The  phi- 
losophy of  the  day,  as  to  this  point  at  least,  is  at  length 
in  coincidence  with  Scripture.  And  thus  the  very  ex- 
tensive researches  of  this  nineteenth  century,  as  to 
pauperism,  have  reacted  with  the  effect  of  a  full  justi- 
fication upon  Constantino's  attempt  to  connect  the 
tbundation  of  his  empire  with  that  n^w  theory  of 
Christianity  upon  the  imperishableness  of  poverty, 
and  upon  the  duties  corresponding  to  it. 


GREECE  UNDER  THE  ROMANS.  355 

Meantime,  Mr.  Finlay  denies  that  Christianity  had 
been  raised  by  Constantine  into  the  religion  of  the 
state ,  and  others  have  denied  that,  in  the  extensive 
money  privileges  conceded  to  Constantinople,  he  con- 
templated any  but  political  principles.  As  to  the  first 
point,  I  apprehend  that  Constantine  will  be  found  not 
so  much  to  have  shrunk  back  from  fear  of  installing 
Christianity  in  the  seat  of  supremacy,  as  to  have  di- 
verged in  policy  from  our  modern  methods  of  such  an 
installation.  My  own  belief  is,  .that,  according  to  his 
notion  of  a  state  religion,  he  supposed  himself  to  have 
conferred  that  distinction  upon  Christianity.  With 
respect  to  the  endowments  and  privileges  of  Constan- 
tinople, they  were  various  ;  some  lay  in  positive  dona- 
tions, others  in  immunities  and  exemptions ;  some, 
again,  were  designed  to  attract  strangers,  others  to 
attract  nobles  from  old  Rome.  But,  with  fuller  oppor- 
tunities for  .  pursuing  that  discussion,  I  think  it  might 
be  possible  to  show,  that,  in  more  than  one  of  his 
institutions  and  his  decrees,  he  had  contemplated  the 
special  advantage  of  the  poor  considered  as  poor ;  and 
that,  next  after  the  august  distinction  of  having  found- 
ed the  Christian  throne,  he  had  meant  to  challenge 
and  fix  the  gaze  of  future  ages  upon  this  glorious  pre- 
tension—  viz.,  that  he  first  had  executed  the  Scriptural 
injunction  to  make  a  provision  for  the  poor,  as  an 
order  of  society  that  by  laws  immutable  should  never 
cease  out  of  the  land." 

II.  Let  me  advert  to  the  value  and  functions  ot 
Constantinople  as  the  tutelary  genius  of  western  or 
dawning  Christianity. 

The  history  of  Constantinople,  or  more  generalij 


856 


GHEECE  UNBEH  THE  ROMANS. 


of  the  eastern  Koman  Empire,  wears  a  peciliar  in- 
terest to  the  children  of  Christendom  ;  and  for  two 
separate  reasons  —  first,  as  being  the  narrow  isthmus 
or  bridge  which  connects  the  two  continents  of  ancient 
and  modern  history,  and  that  is  a  philosophic  interest ; 
but,  secondly,  which  in  the  very  highest  degree  is  a 
practical  interest,  as  the  record  of  our  earthly  salvation 
from  Mahometanism.  On  two  horns  was  Europe  as- 
saulted by  the  Moslems  :  first,  last,  and  through  the 
largest  tract  of  time,  on  the  horn  of  Constantinople ; 
there  the  contest  raged  for  more  than  eight  hundred 
years ;  and  by  the  time  that  the  mighty  bulwark  fell 
(1453),  Vienna  and  other  cities  near  the  Danube  had 
found  leisure  for  growing  up ;  Hungary  had  grown 
up  ;  Poland  had  grown  up ;  so  that,  if  one  range  of 
Alps  had  slowly  been  surmounted,  another  had  now 
embattled  itself  against  the  westward  progress  of  the 
Crescent.  On  the  westward  horn,  in  France,  but  hy 
Germans,  once  for  all  Charles  Martel  had  arrested  the 
progress  of  the  fanatical  Moslem  almost  in  a  single  bat- 
tle ;  certainly  a  single  generation  saw  the  whole  danger 
dispersed,  inasmuch  as  within  that  space  the  Saracens 
were  effectually  forced  back  into  their  Spanish  lair. 
This  demonstrates  pretty  forcibly  the  difference  of  the 
Mahometan  resources  as  applied  to  the  western  and 
the  eastern  struggle.  To  throw  the  whole  weight  of 
that  difference,  a  difference  in  the  result  as  between 
eight  centuries  and  thirty  years,  upon  the  mere  differ- 
ence of  energy  in  German  and  Byzantine  forces,  as 
though  the  first  did,  by  a  rapturous  fervor,  in  a  few 
revolutions  of  summer,  what  the  other  had  protra^.ted 
through  nearly  a  millennium,  is  a  representation  which 


GREECE  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 


357 


defeats  itself  by  its  own  extravagance.  To  prove  too 
much,  is  more  dangerous  than  to  prove  too  little. 
The  fact  is,  that  vast  armies  and  mighty  nations  were 
continually  disposable  for  the  war  upon  the  city  of 
Constantino;  nations  had  time  to  arise  in  juvenile 
vigor,  to  grow  old  and  superannuated,  to  melt  away, 
and  totally  to  disappear,  in  that  long  struggle  on  the 
Hellespont  and  Propontis.  It  was  a  struggle  which 
might  often  intermit  and  slumber ;  armistices  there 
might  be,  truces,  or  unproclaimed  suspensions  of  war 
out  of  mutual  exhaustion;  but  peace  there  could  not 
be,  because  any  resting  from  the  duty  of  hatred  between 
races  that  reciprocally  seemed  to  lay  the  foundations 
of  their  creed  in  a  dishonoring  of  God,  was  impossible 
to  aspiring  human  nature.  Malice  and  mutual  hatred, 
I  repeat,  became  a  duty  in  those  circumstances.  Why 
had  they  he  gun  to  fight  ?  Personal  feuds  there  had 
been  none  between  the  parties.  For  the  early  caliphs 
did  not  conquer  Syria  and  other  vast  provinces  of  the 
Roman  FJrapire,  because  they  had  a  quarrel  with  the 
Cyesars  who  represented  Christendom;  but,  on  the 
contrary,  they  had  a  quarrel  with  the  Csesars  because 
they  had  conquered  Syria ;  or,  at  the  most,  the  con- 
quest and  the  feud  (if  not  always  lying  in  that  exact 
succession  as  cause  and  effect)  were  joint  effects  from 
a  common  cause,  which  cause  was  imperishable  as 
death  or  the  ocean,  and  as  deep  as  are  the  fountains  of 
life.  Could  the  ocean  be  altered  by  a  sea-fight,  or 
the  atmosphere  be  tainted  forever  by  an  earthquake  ? 
As  little  could  any  single  reign  or  its  events  affect  the 
feud  of  the  Moslem  and  the  Christian ;  a  feud  which 
could  not  cease  unless  God  could  change,  or  unlesa 


358  GREECE  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 

man  (b(;coming  careless  of  spiritual  things)  should  sinK 
to  the  level  of  a  brute. 

These  are  considerations  of  great  importance  in 
weighing  the  value  of  the  Eastern  Empire.  If  the 
cause  and  interest  of  Islamism,  as  against  Christianity, 
were  undying,  then  we  may  be  assured  that  the  Moor- 
ish infidels  of  Spain  did  not  reiterate  their  trans- 
Pyrenean  expeditions  after  one  generation  —  simply 
because  they  could  not.  But  we  know  that  on  the 
south-eastern  horn  of  Europe  they  could,  upon  the 
plain  argument  that  for  many  centuries  they  did. 
Over  and  above  this,  I  am  of  opinion  that  the  Sara- 
cens were  unequal  to  the  sort  of  hardships  bred  by 
cold  climates ;  and  there  lay  another  repulsion  for 
Saracens  from  France,  &c.,  and  not  merely  the  Carlo- 
vingian  sword.  We  children  of  Christendom  show 
our  innate  superiority  to  the  children  of  the  Orient 
upon  this  scale  or  tariff  of  acclimatizing  powers.  We 
travel  as  wheat  travels,  through  all  reasonable  ranges 
of  temperature  ;  they,  like  rice,  can  migrate  only  to 
warm  latitudes.  They  cannot  support  our  cold,  but 
we  can  support  the  countervailing  hardships  of  their 
heat.  This  cause  alone  would  have  weatherbound  the 
Mussulmans  forever  within  the  Pyrenean  cloisters. 
Mussulmans  in  cold  latitudes  look  as  much  out  of  their 
element  as  sailors  on  horseback.  Apart  from  which 
cause,  we  see  that  the  fine  old  Visigothic  races  in 
Spain  found  their  full  employment  up  to  the  reign  of 
Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  which  reign  first  created  a 
kingdom  of  Spain  ;  in  that  reign  the  whole  fabric  of 
their  power  thawed  away,  and  was  confounded  with 
forgotten  things.    Columbus,  according  to  a  local  tra- 


GEEECE   UNDEH  THE  ROMANS.  359 


Jition,  was  personally  present  at  some  of  the  latter 
campaigns  in  Grenada  :  he  saw  the  last  of  them.  So 
that  the  discovery  of  America  may  be  used  as  a  con- 
vertible date  with  that  of  extinction  for  the  Saracen 
power  in  western  Europe.  True,  that  the  overthrow 
of  Constantinople  had  forerun  this  event  by  nearly 
half-a-century.  But  then  I  insist  upon  the  different 
proportions  of  the  struggle.  Whilst  in  Spain  a 
province  iiad  fought  against  a  province,  all  Asia  mili- 
tant had  fought  against  the  eastern  Roman  Empire, 
ximongst  the  many  races  whom  dimly  we  descry  in 
those  shadov/y  hosts,  tilting  for  ages  in  the  vast  plains 
of  Angora,  are  seen  latterly  pressing  on  to  the  van 
two  mighty  powers,  the  children  of  Persia  and  the 
Ottoman  family  of  the  Turks.  Upon  these  nations  — 
the  one  heretical,  the  other  orthodox,  and  more  accu- 
rately Mahometan  than  Mahomet,  both  now  rapidly 
decaying  —  the  faith  of  Mahomet  has  ever  leaned  as 
upon  her  eldest  sons ;  and  these  powers,  both  the 
right  and  the  wrong,  the  Byzantine  Caesars  had  to  face 
in  every  phasis  of  Moslem  energy,  as  it  revolved  from 
perfect  barbarism,  through  semi-barbarism,  to  that 
crude  form  of  civilization  which  Mahometans  can  sup- 
port. And  through  all  these  transmigrations  of  their 
power,  we  must  remember  that  they  were  under  a 
martial  training  and  discipline,  never  suffered  to  be- 
come effeminate.  One  set  of  warriors  after  another 
did,  it  is  true,  become  effeminate  in  Persia:  but,  upon 
that  advantage  opening,  always  another  set  stepped  in 
from  Torkistan  or  from  the  Imaus.  The  nation,  as 
individuals,  melted  away  ;  the  Moslem  armies  were 
immortal. 


860  GREECE  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 

Here,  therefore,  it  is,  and  standing  at  this  point  of 
tny  review,  that  I  complain  of  Mr.  Finlay's  too  facile 
compliance  with  historians  far  beneath  himself.  He 
throws  away  his  own  advantages  :  oftentimes  his  com- 
mentaries on  the  past  are  ebullient  with  subtlety ;  and 
his  fault  strikes  me  as  lying  even  in  the  excess  of  his 
sagacity  applying  itself  too  often  to  a  basis  of  facts, 
quite  insufficient  for  supporting  the  superincumbent 
weight  of  his  speculations.  But  in  the  instance  before 
us  he  surrenders  himself  too  readily  to  the  ordinary 
current  of  history.  How  would  he  like  it,  if  he  hap- 
pened to  be  a  Turk  himself,  finding  his  nation  thus 
implicitly  undervalued  ?  For  clearly,  in  undervaluing 
the  Byzantine  resistance,  he  does  undervalue  the  Ma- 
hometan assault.  Advantages  of  local  situation  cannot 
eternally  make  good  the  deficiencies  of  man.  If  the 
Byzantines  (being  as  weak  as  historians  would  represent 
them)  yet  for  ages  resisted  the  whole  impetus  of  Ma- 
hometan Asia,  then  it  follows,  either  that  the  Crescent 
was  correspondingly  weak,  or  that,  not  being  weak,  she 
must  have  found  the  Cross  pretty  strong.  The  facit 
of  history  does  not  here  correspond  with  the  numerical 
items. 

Nothing  has  ever  surprised  me  more,  I  will  frankly 
own,  than  this  coincidence  of  authors  in  treating  the 
Byzantine  Empire  as  feeble  and  crazy.  On  the  con- 
trary, to  me  it  is  clear  that  some  secret  and  preter- 
natural strength  it  must  have  had,  lurking  where  the 
eye  of  man  did  not  in  those  days  penetrate,  or  by  what 
miracle  did  it  undertake  our  universal  Christian  cause, 
fight  for  us  all,  keep  the  waters  open  from  freezing  us 
up,  and  through  nine  centuries  prevent  the  ice  of  Ma- 


i 


GREECE   BISTDEE,  THE  ROMANS. 


361 


liometanism  from  closing  over  our  heads  forever  ?  Yet 
does  Mr.  Finlay  describe  this  empire  as  laboring,  in 
A.  D.  623,  equally  with  Persia,  under  "  internal  weak- 
ness," and  as  "  equally  incapable  of  offering  any  popu- 
lar or  national  resistance  to  an  active  or  enterprising 
enemy."  In  this  Mr.  Finlay  does  but  agree  with  other 
able  writers  ;  but  he  and  they  should  have  recollected, 
that  hardly  had  that  very  year  623  departed,  even  yet 
the  knell  of  its  last  hour  was  sounding  upon  the  winds, 
when  this  effeminate  empire  had  occasion  to  show  that 
she  could  clothe  herself  with  consuming  terrors,  as  a 
belligerent  both  defensive  and  aggressive.  In  the  ab- 
sence of  her  great  emperor, and  of  the  main  imperial 
forces,  the  goiden  capital  herself,  by  her  own  resources, 
routed  and  persecuted  into  wrecks  a  Persian  army  that 
had  come  down  upon  her  by  stealth  and  a  fraudulent 
circuit.  Even  at  that  same  period,  she  advanced  into 
Persia  more  than  a  thousand  miles  from  her  own  me- 
tropolis in  Europe,  under  the  blazing  ensigns  of  the 
Cross,  kicked  the  crown  of  Persia  to  and  fro  like  a 
tennis-ball,  upset  the  throne  of  Artaxerxes,  counter- 
signed haughtily  the  elevation  of  a  new  Basileus  more 
friendly  to  herself,  and  then  recrossed  the  Tigris  home- 
wards, after  having  torn  forcibly  out  of  the  heart  and 
palpitating  entrails  of  Persia  whatever  trophies  that 
empire  had  formerly,  in  her  fire-worshipping  stage, 
wrested  from  herself.  These  were  not  the  acts  of  an 
effeminate  kingdom.  In  the  language  of  Wordsworth 
we  may  say  — 

**  All  power  was  given  her  in  the  dreadful  trance; 
Infidel  kings  she  wither 'd  like  a  flame." 

*  Heraclius  ;  which  name  ought  not  to  have  the  stress  laid  on 
the  antepenultimate  (rac),  but  on  the  penultimate  (i). 


362 


GKEECE   UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 


Indeed,  no  image  that  I  remember  can  do  justice  to 
the  first  of  these  acts,  except  that  Spanish  legend  of 
the  Cid,  which  tells  us  that,  long  after  the  death  of  the 
mighty  cavalier,  when  the  children  of  those  Moors  who 
had  fled  from  his  face  whilst  living  were  insulting  the 
marble  statue  above  his  grave,  suddenly  the  statue 
raised  its  right  arm,  stretched  out  its  marble  lance,  and 
drifted  the  heathen  dogs  like  snow.  The  mere  sanc- 
tity of  the  Christian  champion's  sepulchre  was  its  own 
protection  ;  and  so  we  must  suppose  that,  when  the 
Persian  hosts  came  by  surprise  upon  Constantinople  — 
her  natural  protector  being  absent  by  three  months' 
march  —  simply  the  golden  statues  of  the  mighty 
Caesars,  half  rising  on  their  thrones,  must  have  caused 
that  sudden  panic  which  dissipated  the  danger.  Hardly 
fifty  years  later,  Mr.  Finlay  well  knows  that  Constanti- 
nople again  stood  an  assault  —  not  from  a  Persian 
hourrah  or  tempestuous  surprise,  but  from  a  vast  expe- 
dition, armaments  by  land  and  sea,  fitted  out  elaborately 
in  the  early  noontide  of  Mahometan  vigor  —  and  that 
assault  also,  in  the  presence  of  the  caliph  and  the  cres- 
cent, was  gloriously  discomfited.  Now  if,  in  the  mo- 
•ment  of  triumph,  some  voice  in  the  innumerable  crowd 
had  cried  out,  How  long  shall  this  great  Christian 
breakwater,  against  which  are  shattered  into  surge  and 
foam  all  the  mountainous  billows  of  idolators  and  mis- 
believers, stand  up  on  behalf  of  infant  Christendom  ?  " 
and  if  from  the  clouds  some  trumpet  of  prophecy  had 
replied,  "  Even  yet  for  eight  hundred  years  !  "  could 
any  man  have  persuaded  himself  that  such  a  fortress 
against  such  antagonists  —  such  a  monument  against 
,such   a   millennium  of  fury  —  was    to   be  classed 


GREECE  TJKDER  THK  ROMANS. 


363 


amongst  the  weak  things  of  the  earth  ?  This  oriental 
Rome,  it  is  true,  equally  with  Persia,  was  liable  to 
sudden  inroads  and  incursions.  But  the  difference  was 
this  —  Persia  was  strongly  protected  in  all  ages  by  the 
wilderness  on  her  main  western  frontier ;  if  this  were 
passed,  and  a  hand-to-hand  conflict  succeeded,  where 
light  cavalry  or  fugitive  archers  could  be  of  little  value, 
the  essential  weakness  of  the  Persian  Empire  then  be- 
trayed itself.  Her  sovereign  was  then  assassinated, 
and  peace  was  obtained  from  the  condescension  of  the 
invader.  But  the  enemies  of  Constantinople  —  Goths. 
Avars,  Bulgarians,  or  even  Persians  —  were  strong 
only  by  their  weakness.  Being  contemptible,  they 
were  neglected ;  being  chased,  tney  made  no  stand  ; 
being  prostrate,  they  capitulated  ;  and  .  thus  only  they 
escaped.  They  entered  like  thieves  by  means  of  dark- 
ness, and  escaped  Uke  sheep  by  means  of  dispersion. 
But,  if  caught,  they  were  annihilated.  No  ;  I  resume 
my  thesis ;  I  close  this  head  by  reiterating  my  cor- 
rection of  history  ;  I  re~affirm  my  position,  that  in 
Eastern  Rome  lay  the  salvation  of  western  and  central 
Europe  ;  in  Constantinople  and  the  Propontis  lay  the 
^ine  qua  non  condition  of  any  future  Christendom." 
Emperor  and  people  must  have  done  their  duty  ;  the 
result,  the  vast  extent  of  generations  surmounted, 
furnish  the  triumphant  demonstration.  Finally,  in- 
deed, they  fell,  king  and  people,  shepherd  and  flock  ; 
but  by  that  time  their  mission  was  fulfllled.  And 
doubtless,  as  the  noble  Palaeologus  lay  on  heaps  of 
carnage,  with  his  noble  people,  as  life  was  ebbing 
away,  a  voice  from  heaven  sounded  in  his  ears  the 
great  words  of  the  Hebrew  prophet,  "Behold!  youh 
VORK  IS  done;  your  warfare  is  accomplished." 


364 


GREECE  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 


III.  Such,  then,  being  the  unmerited  disparagemeat 
of  the  Byzantine  government,  and  so  great  the  ingrati- 
tude of  later  Christendom  to  that  sheltering  power 
under  which  themselves  enjoyed  the  leisure  of  a 
thousand  years  for  knitting  and  expanding  into  strong 
nations  ;  on  the  other  hand,  what  is  to  be  thought  of 
the  Saracen  an ti- Byzantines  ?  Everywhere  it  has 
passed  for  a  lawful  postulate,  that  the  Saracen  con- 
quests prevailed,  half  by  the  feebleness  of  the  Roman 
government  at  Constantinople,  and.  half  by  the  preter- 
natural energy  infused  into  the  Arabs  :iy  their  false 
prophet  and  legislator.  In  either  of  its  faces,  this 
theory  is  falsified  by  a  steady  review  of  facts.  With 
regard  to  the  Saracens,  Mr.  Finlay  thinks,  as  I  do, 
and  argues,  that  they  prevailed  through  the  local,  or 
sometimes  the  casual,  weakness  of  their  immediate 
enemies,  and  rarely  through  any  strength  of  their  own. 
We  must  remember  one  fatal  weakness  of  the  imperial 
administration  in  those  days,  not  due  to  men  or  to 
principles,  but  entirely  to  nature  and  the  slow  growth 
of  scientific  improvements  —  viz.,  the  difficulties  of 
locomotion.  As  respected  Syria,  Egypt,  Cyrenaica, 
and  so  on  to  the  most  western  provinces  of  Africa, 
the  Saracens  had  advantages  for  moving  rapidly  which 
.he  Caesar  had  not.  But  is  not  a  water  movement 
speedier  than  a  land  movement,  which  for  an  army 
never  has  much  exceeded  fourteen  miles  a-day  ? 
Certainly  it  is  ;  but  in  this  case  there  were  two  des- 
perate defects  in  the  imperial  control  over  that  water 
eervice.  To  use  a  fleet,  you  must  have  a  fleet  ;  but 
their  whole  naval  interest  had  been  starved  by  the 
intolerable  costs  of  the  Persian  war.    Immense  had 


GREECE  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 


365 


Deen  the  expenses  of  Heraclius,  and  annually  decaying 
liad  been  his  Asiatic  revenues.  Secondly,  the  original 
position  of  the  Arabs  had  been  better  than  that  of  the 
emperor  in  every  stage  of  the  warfare  which  so  sud- 
denly arose.  In  Arabia  the  Arabs  stood  nearest  to 
Syria,  in  Syria  nearest  to  Egypt,  in  Egypt  nearest  to 
Cyrenaica.  What  reason  had  there  been  for  expecting 
a  martial  legislator  at  that  moment  in  Arabia,  who 
should  fuse  and  sternly  combine  her  distracted  tribes  ? 
What  blame,  therefore,  to  Heraclius,  that  Syria  —  the 
first  object  of  assault,  being  also  by  much  the  weakest 
part  of  the  empire,  and  immediately  after  the  close  of 
a  desolating  war  —  should  in  four  campaigns  be  found 
indefensible  ?  We  must  remember  the  unexampled 
abruptness  of  the  Arabian  revolution.  The  year  six 
hundred  and  twenty -two,  by  its  very  name  of  Hegira, 
does  not  record  a  triumph,  but  a  humiliation.  In  that 
year,  therefore,  and  at  the  very  moment  when  Hera- 
clius was  entering  upon  his  long  Persian  struggle, 
Mahomet  was  yet  prostrate,  and  his  destiny  was 
doubtful.  Eleven  years  after  —  viz.,  in  six  hundred 
and  thirty-three  —  the  prophet  was  dead  and  gone; 
but  his  Jirst  successor  was  already  in  Syria  as  a  con- 
queror. Such  had  been  the  velocity  of  events.  The 
.Persian  war  had  then  been  finished  by  three  years, 
but  the  exhaustion  of  the  empire  had  perhaps,  at 
that  moment,  reached  its  maximum.  I  am  satisfied 
that  ten  years'  repose  fa:om  this  extreme  state  of  col- 
apse  would  have  shown  us  another  result.  Even  as 
it  was,  and  caught  at  this  enormous  disadvantage, 
Heraclius  taught  the  robbers  to  tremble,  and  would 
have  exterminated  them,  if  not  baffled  by  two  irremedi* 


366 


GREECE  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 


able  calamities,  neither  of  them  due  to  any  av3t  or 
neglect  of  his  own.  The  first  lay  in  the  treason  of 
his  lieutenants.  The  governors  of  Damascus,  of 
Aleppo,  of  Emesa,  of  Bostra,  of  Kinnisrin,  all  proved 
traitors.  The  root  of  this  evil  lay,  probably,  in  the 
disorders  following  the  Persian  invasion,  which  had 
made  it  the  perilous  interest  of  the  emperor  to  appoint 
great  officers  from  amongst  those  who  had  a  local 
influence.  Such  persons  it  might  have  been  ruinous 
too  suddenly  to  set  aside  ;  as,  in  the  event,  it  proved 
ruinous  to  employ  them.  A  dilemma  of  this  kind, 
offering  but  a  choice  of  evils,  belonged  to  the  nature 
of  any  Persian  war;  and  that  particular  war  was  be- 
queathed to  Heraclius  by  the  management  of  his  prede- 
cessors. The  second  calamity  was  even  more  fatal ; 
't  lay  in  the  composition  of  the  Syrian  population,  and 
its  original  want  of  vital  cohesion.  For  no  purpose 
could  this  population  be  united ;  they  formed  a  rope 
of  sand.  There  was  the  distraction  of  religion  —  Jaco- 
bites, Nestorians,  &c.  ;  there  was  the  distraction  of 
races  —  slaves  and  masters,  conquered  and  conquerors, 
modern  intruders  mixed,  but  not  blended  with,  aborig- 
inal mountaineers.  Property  became  the  one  principle 
and  ground  of  choice  between  the  two  governments. 
Where  was  protection  to  be  had  for  that  ?  Barbarous 
as  were  the  Arabs,  they  saw  their  present  advantage. 
Often  it  would  happen  from  the  position  of  the  armies, 
that  they  could,  whilst  the  emperor  could  not,  guaran- 
tee the  instant  security  of  land  or  of  personal  treas- 
ures ;  the  Arabs  could  also  promise,  sometimes,  even  a 
total  immunity  from  taxes  ;  generally  a  diminished 
scale  of  taxation  ;  always  a  remission  of  arrears  ;  none 


GREECE  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 


367 


>f  which  accessions  conld  be  listened  to  by  the  em- 
peror, partly  on  account  of  the  public  necessities, 
partly  from  jealousy  of  establishing  operative  prece- 
dents. For  religion,  again,  protection  v/as  more  easily 
obtained  in  that  day  from  the  Arab,  who  made  war  on 
Christianity,  than  from  the  Byzantine  emperor,  who 
w^as  its  champion.  What  were  the  different  sects 
and  subdivisions  of  Christianity  to  the  barbarian  ? 
Monophysite,  Monothelite,  Eutychian,  or  Jacobite,  all 
were  to  him  as  the  scholastic  disputes  of  noble  and  in- 
tellectual Europe  to  the  camps  of  gipsies.  The  Arab 
felt  himself  to  be  the  depositary  of  one  sublime  truth, 
the  unity  of  God.  His  mission,  therefore,  was  prin- 
cipally against  idolaters.  Yet  even  to  them  his  policy 
was  to  sell  toleration  of  idolatry  and  Polytheism  for 
k'ibute.  Clearly,  as  Mr.  Finlay  hints,  this  was  merely 
a  provisional  moderation,  meant  to  be  laid  aside  when 
sufficient  power  was  obtained ;  and  it  was  laid  aside, 
in  after  ages,  by  many  a  wretch  like  Timor  or  Nadir 
Shah.  Religion,  therefore,  and  property  once  secured, 
what  more  had  the  Syrians  to  seek  ?  And  if  to  these 
advantages  for  the  Saracens  we  add  the  fact,  that  a 
considerable  Arab  population  was  dispersed  through 
Syria,  who  became  so  many  emissaries,  spies,  and 
decoys  in  the  service  of  their  countrymen,  it  does 
great  honor  to  the  emperor,  that  through  so  many 
campaigns  he  should  at  all  have  maintained  his  ground  ; 
and  this  at  last  he  resigned  only  under  the  despon- 
dency caused  by  almost  universal  treachery. 

The  Saracens,  therefore,  had  no  great  merit  even  in 
tVisir  earliest  exploits  ;  and  the  impetus  of  their  move- 
ment forwards,  that  principle  of  proselytism  which 


B68  GREECE  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 

carried  them  so  strongly  "  ahead  "  through  a  few  gen- 
erations, was  very  soon  brought  to  a  stop.  Mr.  Finlay, 
in  my  mind,  does  right  to  class  these  barbarians  as 
socially  and  politically  little  better  than  the  Gothic, 
Hunnish,  and  Avar  monarchies."  But,  on  considera- 
tion, the  Gothic  monarchy  embosomed  the  germs  of  a 
noble  civilization ;  whereas  the  Saracens  have  never 
propagated  great  principles  A  any  kind,  nor  attained 
even  a  momentary  grandeur  in  their  institutions,  ex- 
cept where  coalescing  with  a  higher  or  more  ancient 
civilization. 

Meantime,  ascending  from  the  earliest  Mahometans 
to  their  prophet,  what  are  we  to  think  of  him  ?  Was 
Mahomet  a  great  man  ?  I  think  not.  The  case  was 
thus  :  the  Arabian  tribes  had  long  stood  ready,  like 
dogs  held  in  a  leash,  for  a  start  after  distant  game. 
It  was  not  Mahomet  who  gave  them  that  impulse. 
But  next,  what  was  it  that  hindered  the  Arab  tribes 
from  obeying  the  impulse  ^  Simply  this,  that  they 
were  always  in  feud  with  each  other  ;  so  that  their 
expeditions,  beginning  in  harmony,  were  sure  to  break 
up  in  anger  on  the  road.  What  they  needed  was 
some  one  grand  compressing  and  unifying  principle, 
such  as  the  Boman  found  in  the  destinies  of  his  city. 
True  ;  but  this,  you  say,  they  found  in  the  sublime 
principle  that  God  was  one,  and  had  appointed  them 
to  be  the  scourges  of  all  who  denied  it.  Their  mission 
was  to  cleanse  the  earth  from  Polytheism;  and,  as 
ambassadors  from  God,  to  tell  the  nations  —  "Ye 
shall  have  no  other  Gods  but  me."  That  was  grand; 
and  that  surely  they  had  from  Mahomet?  Perhaps  so ; 
but  where  did  he  get  it  ?    He  stole  it  from  the  J e wish 


GREECE   UNDER   THE  ROMANS. 


869 


Scriptures,  and  from  the  Scriptures  no  less  than  from 
the  traditions  of  the  Christians.  Assuredly,  then,  the 
first  projecting  impetus  was  not  impressed  upon  Islam^ 
ism  by  Mahomet.  This  lay  in  a  revealed  truth  ;  and 
by  Mahomet  it  was  furtively  translated  to  his  own  use 
from  those  oracles  which  held  it  in  keeping.  But 
possibly,  if  not  the  principle  of  motion,  yet  at  least 
the  steady  conservation  of  this  motion  was  secured  to 
Islamism  by  Mahomet.  Granting  (you  will  say)  that 
the  launch  of  this  religion  m.ight  be  due  to  an  alien 
inspiration,  yet  still  the  steady  movement  onwards  of 
this  religion,  through  some  centuries,  might  be  due 
exclusively  to  the  code  of  laws  bequeathed  by  Mahomet 
in  the  Koran.  And  this  has  been  the  opinion  of  many 
European  scholars.  They  fancy  that  Mahomet,  how- 
ever worldly  and  sensual  as  the  founder  of  a  pretended 
revelation,  was  wise  in  the  wisdom  of  this  world  ;  and 
that,  if  ridiculous  as  a  prophet  (which  word,'''  how- 
ever, did  not  mean  foreteller^  but  simply  revealer  of 
truth),  he  was  worthy  of  veneration  as  a  statesman. 
He  legislated  well  and-  presciently,  they  imagine,  for 
the  interests  of  a  remote  posterity.  Now,  upon  that 
question  let  us  hear  Mr.  Finlay.  He,  when  comment- 
ing upon  the  steady  resistance  offered  to  the  Saracens 

*  I  have  already  (viz.,  in  the  paper  on  "  Oracles  ")  had  oc- 
casion to  notice  the  erroneous  limitation  of  the  word  Prophecy, 
as  if  it  meant  only,  or  chiefly,  that  revelation  which  draws  away 
the  veil  of  futurity.  But  in  the  great  cardinal  proposition  of 
Islamism  this  correction  is  broadly  enunciated  —  There  is  one 
God,  and  Mahomet  is  his  Prophet.  _  Now,  in  the  narrow  sense 
of  prediction,  Mahomet  disclaimed  the  gift  of  prophecy  as  much 
%s  of  miracles. 

24 


370 


GEEECE   UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 


by  the  African  Christians  of  the  seventh  and  eighth 
centuries  —  a  resistance  which  terminated  disastrously 
for  both  sides --the  poor  Christians  being  extermi- 
nated, and  the  Moslem  invaders  being  robbed  of  an 
indigenous  working  population,  naturally  inquires! 
what  it  was  that  led  to  so  tragical  a  result.  The 
Christian  natives  of  these  provinces  were,  in  a  political 
condition,  little  favorable  to  belligerent  efforts  ;  and 
there  cannot  be  much  doubt  that,  with  any  wisdom  or 
any  forbearance  on  the  part  of  the  intruders,  both 
parties  might  soon  have  settled  down  into  a  pacific 
compromise  of  their  feuds.  Instead  of  this,  the  scim- 
itar was  invoked  and  worshipped  as  the  sole  possible 
arbitrator  ;  and  truce  there  was  none,  until  the  silence 
of  desolation  brooded  over  those  once  fertile  fields. 
Ifow  savage  was  the  fanaticism,  and  how  blind  the 
wordly  wisdom,  which  could  have  co-operated  to  such 
a  result !  The  cause  must  have  lain  in  the  unaccom- 
modating nature  of  the  Mahometan  institutions,  in  the 
bigotry  of  the  Mahometan  leaders,  and  in  the  defect 
of  expansive  views  on  the  part  of  their  legislator. 
He  had  not  provided  even  for  other  climates  than 
that  of  his  own  sweltering  sty  in  the  Hedjas,  or  for 
manners  more  polished,  or  for  institutions  more  philo- 
sophic, than  those  of  his  own  sun-baked  Ishmaelites. 
"  The  construction  of  the  political  government  of  the 
Saracen  Empire,"  says  Mr.  Finlay,  "  was  imperfect, 
and  shows  that  Mahomet  had  neither  contemplated 
extensive  foreign  conquests,  nor  devoted  the  energies 
of  his  powerful  mind  to  the  consideration  of  the  ques- 
tions of  administration  which  would  arise  out  of  the 
difficult  task  of  ruling  a  numerous  and  wealthy  popula- 


GEEECE  UNDER  THE  ROMANS.  371 

f  ion,  possessed  of  property,  but  deprived  of  equal  rights/* 
Hi;  then  shows  how  the  whole  power  of  the  state  settled 
into  the  hands  of  a  chief  priest  —  systematically  irre- 
sponsible. When,  therefore,  that  momentary  state  of 
responsibility  had  passed  away  from  the  Mahometans, 
which  was  created  (like  the  state  of  martial  law)  "by 
national  feelings,  military  companionship,  and  exalted 
enthusiasm,"  the  administration  of  the  caliphs  became 
far  more  oppressive  than  that  of  the  Roman  empire." 
It  is  in  fact  an  insult  to  the  majestic  Romans,  if  we 
should  place  them  seriously  in  the  balance  with  savages 
like  the  Saracens.  The  Romans  were  essentially  the 
leaders  of  civilization,  according  to  the  possibilities 
then  existing  ;  for  their  earliest  usages  and  social 
forms  involved  a  high  civilization,  whilst  promising  a 
higher  :  whereas  all  Moslem  nations  have  described 
a  petty  arch  of  national  civility  —  soon  reaching  its 
apex,  and  rapidly  barbarizing  backwards.  This  fatal 
gravitation  towards  decay  and  decomposition  in  Ma- 
hometan institutions,  which  at  this  day  exhibit  to  the 
gaze  of  mankind  one  uniform  spectacle  of  Mahometan 
ruins,  all  the  great  Moslem  nations  being  already  in  a 
StruJhrug'^''  state,  and  held  erect  only  by  the  colossal 
support  of  Christian  powers,  could  not,  as  a  reversion- 

*  To  any  reader  who  happens  to  be  illiterate,  or  not  extensively 
informed,  it  may  be  proper  to  explain,  that  Strulbrugs  were  a 
creation  of  Dean  Swift.  They  were  people  in  an  imaginary 
world,  who  were  afraid  of  dying  ;  and  who  had  the  privilege  of 
ingering  on  through  centuries  when  they  ought  to  have  been 
iead  and  buried,  but  suffering  all  the  evils  of  utter  superan- 
nuation and  decay  ;  having  a  bare  glimmering  of  semi-con- 
sciousness, but  otherwise  in  the  condition  of  mere  vegetables. 


372 


GREECE  UNDEK  THE  ROMANS. 


ary  evil,  have  been  healed  by  the  Arabian  prophet. 
Flis  own  religious  principles  would  have  prevented 
that^  for  they  offer  a  permanent  bounty  on  sensuality  ; 
so  that  every  man  who  serves  a  Mahometan  state 
faithfully  and  brilliantly  at  twenty-five,  is  incapacitated 
at  thirty-five  for  any  further  service,  by  the  very  na- 
ture of  the  rewards  which  he  receives  from  the  state. 
Within  a  very  few  years,  every  public  servaut  is  usu- 
ally emasculated  by  that  unlimited  voluptuousness 
which  equally  the  Moslem  princes  and  the  common 
Prophet  of  all  Moslems  countenance  as  the  proper 
object,  and  indeed  the  sole  object,  of  human  pursuit, 
not  on  earth  only,  but  in  the  future  of  paradise. 
Here  is  the  mortal  ulcer  of  Islamism,  which  can  never 
cleanse  itself  from  death  and  the  odor  of  death.  A 
political  ulcer  would  or  might  have  found  restora- 
tion for  itself ;  but  this  ulcer  is  higher  and  deeper  :  — 
it  lies  in  the  religion,  which  is  incapable  of  reform  :  it 
is  an  ulcer  reaching  as  high  as  the  paradise  which 
Islamism  promises,  and  deep  as  the  hell  which  it 
creates.  I  repeat,  that  Mahomet  could  not  effectually 
have  neutralized  a  poison  which  he  himself  had  intro- 
duced into  the  circulation  and  life-blood  of  his  Moslem' 
economy.  The  false  prophet  was  forced  to  reap  as  he 
had  sown.  But  an  evil,  which  is  certain,  may  be 
retarded ;  and  ravages,  which  tend  finally  to  confusion 
may  be  limited  for  many  generations.  Now,  in  the 
case  of  the  African  provincials  which  I  have  noticed, 
we  observe  an  original  incapacity  in  Islamism,  even  at 
Its  meridian  altitude,  for  amalgamating  with  any  supe- 
rior (and  therefore  any  Christian)  culture.  And  the 
gpecific  action  of  Mahometanism  in  the  African  case, 


GREECE  UNDER  THE  ROMANS.  373 

as  contrasted  with  the  Roman  economy  which  it  sup- 
planted, is  thus  exhibited  by  Mr.  Finiay  in  a  most 
instructive  passage,  where  every  negation  on  the  Ma- 
hometan side  is  made  to  suggest  the  countervailing 
positive  usage  on  the  side  of  the  Romans.  O  children 
of  Romulus  !  how  noble  do  you  appear,  when  thus 
abruptly  contrasted  with  the  wild  boars  that  desolated 
your  vineyards !  "  No  local  magistrates  elected  by 
the  people,  and  no  ^parish  priests  connected  by  their 
feelings  and  interests  both  with  their  superiors  and 
inferiors,  bound  society  together  by  common  ties ;  and 
no  system  of  legal  administration,  independent  of  the 
military  and  financial  authorities,  preserved  the  prop- 
erty of  the  people  from  the  rapacity  of  the  govern- 
ment." 

Such,  we  are  to  understand,  was  not  the  Mahometan 
system ;  such  had  been  the  system  of  Rome.  "  So- 
cially and  politically,"  proceeds  the  passage,  "  the 
Saracen  empire  was  little  better  than  the  Gothic, 
Hunnish,  and  Avar  monarchies;  and  that  it  proved, 
more  durable,  with  almost  equal  oppression,  is  to  be 
attributed  to  the  powerful  enthusiasm  of  Mahomet's 
religion,  which  tempered  for  some  time  its  avarice  and 
tyranny."  The  same  sentiment  is  repeated  still  more 
emphatically  at  p.  468  :  —  "  The  political  policy  of  the 
Saracens  was  of  itself  utterly  barbarous  ;  and  it  only 
caught  a  passing  gleam  of  justice  from  the  religious 
feeling  of  their  prophet's  doctrines." 

Thus  far,  therefore,  it  appears  that  Mahometanism 
Is  not  much  indebted  to  its  too  famous  founder  ;  it 
owes  to  him  a  principle — viz.,  the  unity  of  God  — 
which,  merely  through  a  capital  blunder,  it  fancies  ]?3«» 


374 


GREECE  UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 


ouliar  to  itself.  Nothing  but  tlie  grossest  ignorance  in 
Mahomet,  nothing  but  the  grossest  non-acquaintance 
with  Greek  authors  on  the  part  of  the  Arabs,  could 
have  created  or  sustained  the  delusion  current  amongst 
that  illiterate  people  —  that  it  was  themselves  only 
who  rejected  Polytheism.  Had  but  one  amongst  the 
personal  enemies  of  Mahomet  been  acquainted  with 
Greek,  there  was  an  end  of  the  new  religion  in  the 
first  moon  of  its  existence.  Oncg  open  the  eyes  of 
the  Arabs  to  the  fact,  that  Christians  had  anticipated 
them  in  this  great  truth  of  the  divine  unity,  and  Ma- 
hometanism  could  only  have  ranked  as  a  subdivision 
of  Christianity.  Mahomet  would  have  ranked  only  as 
a  Christian  heresiarch  or  schismatic  ;  such  as  Nestorius 
or  Marcian  at  one  time,  such  as  Arius  or  Pelagius  at 
another.  In  his  character  of  theologian,  therefore, 
Mahomet  was  simply  the  most  memorable  of  blunder- 
ers, supported  in  his  blunders  by  the  most  unlettered  ^* 
of  nations.  In  his  other  character  of  legislator,  we 
have  seen  that  already  the  earliest  stages  of  Mahometan 
experience  exposed  decisively  his  ruinous  imbecility. 
Where  a  rude  tribe  offered  no  resistance  to  his  system, 
for  the  simple  reason  that  their  barbarism  suggested 
no  motive  for  resistance,  it  could  be  no  honor  to  pre- 
vail.   And  where,  on  the  other  hand,  a  higher  civiliza- 

*  Most  unlettered:  " — Viz.,  at  the  era  of  Mahomet.  Sub- 
sequently, under  the  encouragement  of  great  cahphs,  they  be- 
came confessedly  a  learned  people.  But  this  cannot  disturb  the 
Bublime  character  of  their  ignorance,  at  that  earliest  period  when 
this  ignorance  was  an  indispensable  co-operating  element  with 
the  plagiarisms  of  Mahomet,  or  the  generation  of  a  ne^  reli* 
gion. 


GREECE   UNDEfl  THE  ROMANS. 


375 


tion  had  furnislied  strong  points  of  repulsion  to  his 
system,  it  appears  plainly  that  this  pretended  apostle 
of  social  improvements  had  devised  or  hinted  no  readier 
mode  of  conciliation,  than  by  putting  to  the  sword  all 
dissentients.  He  starts  as  a  theological  reformer,  with 
a  fancied  defiance  to  the  world  which  was  no  dofiancb 
at  all,  being  exactly  what  Christians  had  believed  for 
six  centuries,  and  Jews  for  six-and-twenty.  He  starta 
as  a  political  reformer,  with  a  fancied  conciliation  to  the 
world,  which  was  no  conciliation  at  all,  but  was  sure 
to  provoke  imperishable  hostility  wheresoever  it  had 
any  effect  at  all. 

I  have  thus  reviewed  some  of  the  more  splendid 
aspects  connected  with  Mr.  Finlay's  theme  ;  but  that 
theme,  in  its  entire  compass,  is  worthy  of  a  far  more 
extended  investigation  than  my  own  limits  will  allow, 
or  than  the  historical  curiosity  of  the  world  (misdirected 
here,  as  in  so  many  other  cases)  has  hitherto  demanded. 
The  Greek  race,  suffering  a  long  occultation  under  the 
blaze  of  the  Roman  Empire,  into  which  for  a  time  it 
had  been  absorbed,  but  again  emerging  from  this  blaze, 
and  re-assuming  a  distinct  Greek  agency  and  influence, 
offers  a  subject  great  by  its  own  inherent  attractions, 
and  separately  interesting  by  the  unaccountable  neg- 
lect which  it  has  suffered.  To  have  overlooked  this 
subject,  is  one  amongst  the  capital  oversights  of  Gib- 
bon. To  have  rescued  it  from  utter  oblivion,  and  to 
have  traced  an  outline  for  its  better  illumination,  is  the 
peculiar  merit  of  Mr.  Finlay.  His  greatest  fault  is  — 
to  have  been  careless  or  slovenly  in  the  niceties  of 
classical  and  philological  precision.  His  greatest  praise, 
%nd  a  very  great  one  indeed,  is  —  to  have  thrown  the 


376 


GREECE   UNDER  THE  ROMANS. 


liglit  of  an  original  philosophic  sagacity  upon  a  neg- 
lected province  of  history,  indispensable  to  the  arroU' 
dissement  of  Paganism  in  its  latest  stages,  and  o^*  anti- 
Paganism  in  its  earliest. 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


Few,  even  amongst  literary  people,  are  aware  of 
tlie  true  place  occupied  by  Herodotus  in  universal 
literature ;  secondly,  scarce  here  and  there  a  scholar 
up  and  down  a  century  is  led  to  reflect  upon  the 
multiplicity  of  his  relations  to  the  whole  range  of 
civilization.  We  endeavor  in  these  words  to  catch, 
as  in  a  net,  the  gross  prominent  faults  of  his  appre- 
ciation ;  on  which  account,  first,  we  say  pointedly, 
universal  literature,  not  Grecian  —  since  the  primary 
error  is,  to  regard  Herodotus  merely  in  relation  to  the 
literature  of  Greece ;  secondly,  on  which  account  we 
notice  the  circuit,  the  numerical  amount,  of  his  col- 
lisions with  science  —  because  the  second  and  greater 
error  is,  to  regard  him  exclusively  as  an  historian. 
But  now,  under  a  juster  allocation  of  his  rank,  as  the 
general  father  of  prose  composition,  Herodotus  is 
nearly  related  to  all  literature  whatsoever,  modern  not 
less  than  ancient ;  and  as  the  father  of  what  may  be 
called  ethnographical  geography,  as  a  man  who  specu- 
lated most  ably  on  all  the  humanities  of  science  — 
that  is,  on  all  the  scientific  questions  which  naturally 
interest  our  human  sensibilities  in  this  great  tempJe 
which  we  look  up  to,  the  pavilion  of  the  sky,  the  sun, 


378 


PHILOSOPHY  OP  HERODOTUS. 


the  moon,  the  atmosphere,  with  its  climates  and  its 
winds  ;  or  in  this  home  which  we  inherit,  the  earth, 
with  its  hills  and  rivers  —  Herodotus  ought  least  of 
all  to  be  classed  amongst  historians  :  that  is  but  a  sec- 
ondary title  for  Mm  ;  he  deserves  to  be  rated  as  the 
leader  amongst  philosophical  polyphistors,  which  is 
the  nearest  designation  to  that  of  encyclopaedist  cur- 
rent in  the  Greek  literature.  And  yet  is  not  this  word 
encyclojycEdist  much  lower  than  his  ancient  name  — 
father  of  history  ?  Doubtless  it  is  no  great  distinction 
at  present  to.  be  an  encyclopoedist,  which  is  often  but 
another  name  for  bookmaker,  craftsman,  mechanic, 
journeyman,  in  his  meanest  degeneration ;  yet  in  those 
early  days,  when  the  timid  muse  of  science  had  scarce- 
ly ventured  sandal  deep  into  waters  so  unfathomable, 
it  seems  to  us  a  great  thing  indeed,  that  one  young 
man  should  have  founded  an  entire  encyclopaedia  for 
his  countrymen  upon  those  difficult  problems  which 
challenged  their  primary  attention,  because  starting 
forward  from  the  very  roof — the  walls  —  the  floor 
of  that  beautiful  theatre  which  they  tenanted.  The 
habitable  world,  //  oUovuEvyj,  was  now  daily  becoming 
better  known  to  the  human  race  ;  but  how  ?  Chiefly 
through  Herodotus.  There  are .  amusing  evidences 
extant,  of  the  profound  ignorance  in  which  nations 
the  most  enlightened  had  hitherto  lived,  as  to  all 
lands  beyond  their  own  and  its  frontier  adjacencies. 
But  within  the  single  generation  (or  the  single  half 
century)  previous  to  the  birth  of  Herodotus,  vast 
changes  had  taken  place.  The  mere  revolutions  con- 
sequent upon  the  foundation  of  the  Persian  Empire, 
had  approximated  the  whole  world  of  civilization. 
First  came  the  conquest  of  Egypt  by  the  second  of 


PHILOSOPHY  OP  HERODOTUS. 


379 


the  new  emperors.  This  event,  had  it  stood  alone, 
was  immeasurable  in  its  effects  for  meeting  curiosity, 
and  in  its  immediate  excitement  for  prompting  it.  It 
brought  the  whole  vast  chain  of  Persian  dependencies, 
from  the  river  Indus  eastwards  to  the  Nile  westwards, 
or  even  through  Cyren^  to  the  gates  of  Carthage, 
under  the  unity  of  a  single  sceptre.  The  world  was 
open.  Jealous  interdicts,  inhospitable  laws,  national 
hostilities,  always  in  procinctu,  no  longer  fettered  the 
feet  of  the  merchant,  or  neutralized  the  exploring 
instincts  of  the  philosophic  traveller.  Next  came  the 
restoration  of  the  Jewish  people.  Judea,  no  longei 
weeping  by  the  Euphrates,  w^as  again  sitting  for 
another  half  millennium  of  divine  probation  under 
her  ancient  palm-tree.  Next  after  that  came  the 
convulsions  of  Greece,  earthquake  upon  earthquake  ; 
the  trampling  myriads  of  Darius,  but  six  years  before 
the  birth  of  Herodotus  ;  the  river- draining  millions  of 
Xerxes  in  the  fifth  year  of  his  wandering  infancy. 
Whilst  the  swell  from  this  great  storm  was  yet  angry, 
and  hardly  subsiding,  (a  metaphor  used  by  Herodotus 
himself,  en  olSeovrojv  Trprjydrojy,)  whilst  the  scars  of 
Greece  were  yet  raw  from  the  Persian  scymitar,  her 
towns  and  tem.ples  to  the  east  of  the  Corinthian  isth- 
mus smouldering  ruins  yet  reeking  from  the  Persian 
torch,  the  young  Herodotus  had  wandered  forth  in  a 
rapture  of  impassioned  curiosity,  to  see,  to  touch,  to 
measure,  all  those  great  objects,  whose  names  had 
been  so  recently  rife  in  men's  mouths.  The  luxurious 
Sardis,  the  nation  of  Babylon,  the  Nile,  the  oldest  of 
rivers,  Memphis,  and  Thebes  the  hundred-gated,  that 
were  but  amongst  his  youngest  daughters,  wdth  the 
pyramids  inscrutable  as  the  heavens — all  these  he 


380  PHILOSOrHY    OF  HEltODOTUS. 

had  visited.  As  far  up  tlie  Nile  as  Elephantine,  he 
had  personally  pushed  his  inquiries  ;  and  far  beyond 
that  by  his  obstinate  questions  from  all  men  presum- 
ably equal  to  the  answers.  Tyre,  even,  he  made  a 
separate  voyage  to  explore.  Palestine  he  had  trodden 
with  Grecian  feet ;  the  mysterious  Jerusalem  he  had 
visited,  and  had  computed  her  proportions.  Finally ^ 
as  to  Greece  continental,  though  not  otherwise  con- 
nected with  it  himself  than  by  the  bond  of  language, 
and  as  the  home  of  his  Ionian  ancestors,  (in  which 
view  he  often  calls  it  by  the  great  moral  name  of 
Hellas^  regions  that  geographically  belong  to  Asia  and 
even  to  Africa,)  he  seems  by  mere  casual  notices,  i 
now  prompted  by  an  historical  incident,  now  for  the  \ 
purpose  of  an  illustrative  comparison,  to  have  known 
so  familiarly,  that  Pausanias  in  after  ages  does  not 
describe  more  minutely  the  local  features  to  w^hich 
he  had  dedicated  a  life,  than  this  extraordinary  trav- 
eller, for  whom  they  did  but  point  a  period  or  cir- 
cumstantiate a  parenthesis.  As  a  geographer,  often  as 
a  hydrographor  —  witness  his  soundings  thirty  miles 
off  the  mouths  of  the  Nile  —  Herodotus  was  the  first 
great  parent  of  discovery,  as  between  nation  and  nation 
he  was  the  author  of  mutual  revelation ;  whatsoever 
any  one  nation  knew  of  its  own  little  ring-fence 
through  daily  use  and  experience,  or  had  received 
by  ancestral  tradition,  that  he  published  to  all  other 
nations.  He  was  the  first  central  interpreter,  the 
common  dragoman  to  the  general  college  of  civili- 
zation that  now  belted  the  Mediterranean,  holding 
up,  in  a  language  already  laying  the  foundations  of 
universality,  one  comprehensive  mirror,  reflecting  to 
them  all  the  separate  chorography,  habits,  institutions, 


PHILOSOPHY   OF   HEUOHOTUS.  381 

and  religious  systems  of  each.  Nor  was  it  in  the 
facts  merely,  that  he  retraced  the  portraits  of  all 
leading  states ;  whatsoever  in  these  facts  was  mys- 
terious, for  that  he  had  a  self-originated  solution ; 
whatsoe^  er  was  perplexing  by  equiponderant  counter- 
assumptions,  for  that  he  brought  a  determining  impulse 
to  the  one  side  or  the  other ;  whatsoever  seemed 
contradictory,  for  that  he  brought  a  reconciling  hypo- 
thesis. Were  it  the  annual  rise  of  a  river,  were  it  the. 
formation  of  a  famous  kingdom  by  alluvial  depositions,, 
were  it  the  unexpected  event  of  a  battle,  or  the 
apparently  capricious  migration  of  a  people  —  for  all. 
alike  Herodotus  had  such  resources  of  knowledge  as 
took  the  sting  out  of  the  marvellous,  or  such  resources 
of  ability  as  at  least  suggested  the  plausible.  Anti- 
quities or  mythology,  martial  institutions  or  pastoral, 
the  secret  motives  to  a  falsehood  which  he  exposes,  or 
the  hidden  nature  of  some  truth  which  he  deciphers  — 
all  alike  lay  within  the  searching  dissection  of  this 
astonishing  intellect,  the  rhost  powerful  lens  by  far 
that  has  ever  been  brought  to  bear  upon  the  mixed 
objects  of  a  speculative  traveller. 

To  have  classed  this  man  as  a  mere  fabling  annalist, 
or  even  if  it  should  be  said  on  better  thoughts  —  no, 
not  as  a  fabling  annalist,  but  as  a  great  scenical-histo- 
rian  —  is  so  monstrous  an  oversight,  so  mere  a  neglect 
of  the  proportions  maintained  amongst  the  topics 
treated  by  Herodotus,  that  we  do  not  conceive  any 
apology  requisite  for  revising,  in  this  place  or  at  this 
time,  the  general  estimate  on  a  subject  always  interest- 
ing. What  is  everybody's  business,  the  proverb  in- 
structs us  to  view  as  nobody's  by  duty ;  but  under  the 
same  rule  it  is  a/ii/body's  by  right ;  and  what  belongs 


882 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


to  all  hours  alike,  may,  for  that  reason,  belong,  without 
blame,  to  January  of  the  year  1842.  Yet,  if  any  man. 
obstinate  in  demanding  for  all  acts  a  '  sufficient  reason,' 
[to  speak  Leihnitice~\  demurs  to  our  revision,  as  having 
no  special  invitation  at  this  immediate  moment,  then 
we  are  happy  to  tell  him  that  Mr.  Hermann  Bobrik  has 
furnished  us  with  such  an  invitation,  by  a  recent  re- 
view of  Herodotus  as  a  geographer,^^  and  thus  furnished 
even  a  technical  plea  for  calling  up  the  great  man 
before  our  bar. 

We  have  already  said  something  towards  reconsider- 
ing the  thoughtless  classification  of  a  writer  whose 
works  do  actually,  in  their  major  proportion,  not  essen- 
tially concern  that  subject  to  which,  by  their  translated 
title,  they  are  exclusively  referred ;  for  even  that  part 
which  is  historical,  often  moves  by  mere  anecdotes  or 
personal  sketches.  And  the  uniform  object  of  these  is 
not  the  history,  but  the  political  condition  of  the  par- 
ticular state  or  province.  But  we  now  feel  disposed  to 
press  this  rectification  a  little  more  keenly,  by  asking 
—  What  was  the  reason  for  this  apparently  wilful  error  ? 
The  reason  is  palpable :  it  was  the  ignorance  of  irre- 
flectiveness. 

.1. — For  with  respect  to  the  first  oversight  on  the 
claim  of  Herodotus,  as  an  earliest  archetype  of  composi- 
tion, so  much  is  evident  —  that,  if  prose  were  simply 
the  negation  of  verse,  were  it  the  fact  that  prose  had  no 
separate  laws  of  its  own,  but  that,  to  be  a  composer  in 
prose  meant  only  his  privilege  of  being  inartificial  — - 
his  dispensation  from  the  restraints  of  metre  —  then, 
indeed,  it  would  be  a  slight  nominal  honor  to  have 
been  the  Father  of  Prose.  But  this  is  ignorance,,  though 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERODOTUS.  383 

A  pretty  common  ignorance.  To  walk  well,  it  is  not 
enough  that  a  man  abstains  from  dancing.  Walking 
has  rules  of  its  own,  the  more  difficult  to  perceive  or 
to  practise  as  they  are  less  broadly  prononces.  To 
forbear  singing  is  not,  therefore,  to  speak  well  or  to 
read  well :  each  of  which  offices  rests  upon  a  separate 
art  of  its  own.  Numerous  laws  of  transition,  connec- 
tion, preparation,  are  differenc  for  a  writer  in  verse  and 
a  writer  in  prose.  Each  mode  of  composition  is  a 
great  art  ;  well  executed,  is  the  highest  and  most  diffi- 
cult of  arts.  And  we  are  satisfied  that,  one  century 
before  the  age  of  Herodotus,  the  effort  must  have  been 
greater  to  wean  the  feelings  from  a  key  of  poetic  com- 
position to  which  all  minds  had  long  been  attuned  and 
prepared,  than  at  present  it  would  be  for  any  paragraphist 
in  the  newspapers  to  make  the  inverse  revolution  by 
suddenly  renouncing  the  modesty  of  prose  for  the  im- 
passioned forms  of  lyrical  poetry.  It  was  a  great 
thing  to  be  the  leader  of  prose  composition  ;  great 
even,  as  we  all  can  see  at  other  times,  to  be  absolutely 
first  in  any  one  subdivision  of  composition :  how  much 
more  in  one  whole  bisection  of  literature  !  And  if  it 
IS  objected  that  Herodotus  was  not  the  eldest  of  prose 
writers,  doubtless,  in  an  absolute  sense,  no  man  was. 
There  must  always  have  been  short  public  inscriptions, 
not  admitting  of  metre,  as  where  numbers,  quantities, 
dimensions  were  concerned.  It  is  enough  that  all  fee- 
ble tentative  explorers  of  the  art  had  been  too  meagre 
in  matter,  too  rude  in  manner,  like  Fabius  Pic  tor 
amongst  the  Romans,  to  captivate  the  ears  of  men, 
and  thus  to  ensure  their  own  propagation.  Without 
annoying  the  reader  by  the  cheap  erudition  of  parading 
lefunct  names  before  him,  it  is  certain  that  Scylax,  an 


384 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERODOTUS, 


duthor  still  surviving,  was  nearly  contemporary  with 
Herodotus  ;  and  not  very  wide  of  him  by  his  subject. 
In  his  case  it  is  probable  that  the  mere  practical  bene- 
fits of  his  book  to  the  navigators  of  the  Mediterranean 
in  that  early  period,  had  multiplied  his  book  so  as 
eventually  to  preserve  it.  Yet,  as  Major  Rennell  re- 
marks, '  Geog.  Syst.  of  Herod.,'  p.  610 — '  Scylax 
must  be  regarded  as  a  seaman  or  pilot,  and  the  author 
of  a  coasting  directory  ;  '  as  a  mechanic  artisan,  rank- 
ing with  Hamilton,  Moore,  or  Gunter,  not  as  a  great 
liberal  artist  —  an  intellectual  potentate  like  Herodotus. 
Such  now  upon  the  scale  of  intellectual  claims  as  was 
this  geographical  rival  by  comparison  with  Herodotus, 
such  doubtless  were  his  rivals  or  predecessors  in  his- 
tory, in  antiquities,  and  in  the  other  provinces  which 
he  occupied.  And,  generally,  the  fragments  of  these 
authors,  surviving  in  Pagan  as  well  as  Christian  collec- 
tions, show  that  they  were  such.  So  that,  in  a  high, 
virtual  sense,  Herodotus  was  to  prose  composition  what 
Homer,  six  hundred  years  earlier,  had  been  to  verse. 

II.  —  But  whence  arose  the  other  mistake  about  Her- 
odotus —  the  fancy  that  his  great  work  was  exclusively 
(or  even  chiefly)  a  history  ?  It  arose  simply  from  a , 
mistranslation,  which  subsists  everywhere  to  this  day. 
We  remember  that  Kant,  in  one  of  his  miscellaneous 
essays,  finding  a'  necessity  for  explaining  the  term 
Histoire^  [why  we  cannot  say,  since  the  Germans 
have  the  self-grown  word  GescJiichie  for  that  idea,' 
deduces  it,  of  course,  from  the  Greek  ' lojo^jia.  This 
brings  him  to  an  occasion  for  defining  the  term.  And 
how?  It  is  laughable  to  imagine  the  anxious  reader 
bending  his  ear  to  catch  the  Kantean  whisper,  and 


PHILOSOPHY   OF  HEEOJDOTUS. 


385 


finally  solemnly  hearing  that ' lajoqla  means  —  History, 
Really,  Professor  Kant,  we  should  almost  have  guessed 
as  much.  But  such  derivations  teach  no  more  than  the 
ample  circuit  of  Bardolph's  definition  - — 'accommo- 
dated —  that  whereby  a  man  is,  or  may  be  thought  to 
be  '  —  what  ?  *  accommodated.'  Kant  was  an  excellent 
Latin  scholar,  but  an  indifferent  Grecian.  And  spite 
of  the  old  traditional  '  Historiarum  Libri  Novem/ 
which  stands  upon  all  Latin  title-pages  of  Herodotus, 
we  need  scarcely  remind  a  Greek  scholar,  ^that  the 
verb  to-Topeo)  or  the  noun  laropta  never  bears,  in  this 
writer,  the  latter  sense  of  recording  and  memorializing. 
The  substantative  is  a  word  frequently  employed  by 
Herodotus  :  often  in  the  plural  number  ;  and  uniformly 
it  means  inquiries  or  investigations ;  so  that  the  proper 
English  version  of  the  title-page  would  be  —  'Of  the 
Researches  made  by  Herodotus,  Nine  Books.'  And,  in 
reality,  that  is  the  very  meaning,  and  the  secret  drift, 
the  conservation  running  overhead  through  these  nine 
sections  to  the  nine  muses.  Had  the  work  been  de- 
signed as  chiefly  historical,  it  would  have  been  placed 
under  the  patronage  of  the  one  sole  muse  presiding  over 
History.  But  because  the  very  opening  sentence  tells  us 
that  it  is  not  chiefly  historical,  that  it  is  so  partially,  that 
it  rehearses  the  acts  of  men,  [ra  yei/o/xcVa,]  together  with 
the  monumental  structures  of  human  labor,  [ra  epya] 
—  for  the  true  sense  of  which  word,  in  this  position, 
see  the  first  sentence  in  section  thirty-five  of  Euterpej 
and  other  things  besides,  [ra  re  aAAa,]  because,  in  short 
not  any  limited  annals,  because  the  mighty  revelation- 
of  the  world  to  its  scattered  inhabitants,  because  — 

•  Quicquid  agunt  homines,  votum,  timor,  ira,  voluptas, 
Gaudia,  discursus,  nostri  est  farrago  libel]  i  — ' 
25 


886  J^»HILOSOPHY   OF  HEKODOTUS. 

therefore  it  was  that  a  running  title,  or  super&criptioQ 
so  extensive  and  so  aspiring  had  at  some  time  been 
adopted.  Every  muse,  and  not  one  only,  is  presumed 
to  be  interested  in  the  work  ;  and,  in  simple  truth,  this 
legend  of  dedication  is  but  an  expansion  of  variety 
more  impressively  conveyed  of  what  had  been  already 
notified  in  the  inaugural  sentence ;  whilst  both  this 
sentence  and  that  dedication  were  designed  to  meet 
the  very  misconception  which  has  since,  notwithstand- 
ing, prevailed.^ 

These  rectifications  ought  to  have  some  efiect  in 
elevating  —  first,  the  rank  of  Herodotus  ;  secondly, 
his  present  attractions.  Most  certain  we  are  that  few 
readers  are  aware  of  the  various  amusement  conveyed 
from  all  sources  then  existing,  by  this  most  splendid 
of  travellers.  Dr.  Johnson  has  expressed  in  print, 
(and  not  merely  in  the  strife  of  conversation,)  the 
following  extravagant  idea  —  that  to  Homer,  as  its 
original  author,  may  be  traced  back,  at  least  in  out- 
line, every  tale  or  complication  of  incidents,  now  mov- 
ing in  modern  poems,  romances  or  novels.  Now,  it  is 
not  necessary  to  denounce  such  an  assertion  as  false, 
because,  upon  two  separate  reasons,  it  shows  itself  to 
be  impossible.  In  the  first  place,  the  motive  to  such 
(xn  assertion  was  —  to  emblazon  the  inventive  faculty 
of  Homer  ;  but  it  happens  that  Homer  could  not 
invent  anything,  small  or  great,  under  the  very  prin- 
ciples of  Grecian  art.  To  be  a  fiction,  as  to  matters 
of  action^  (for  in  embellishments  the  rule  might  be 
otherwise,)  was  to  be  ridiculous  and  unmeaning  in 
Grecian  eyes.  We  may  illustrate  the  Grecian  feeling 
on  this  point  (however  little  known  to  critics)  by  our 
own  dolorous  disappointment  when  we  opened  the 


PHILOSOPHY  OP   HERODOTUS.  387 

Alhambra  of  Mr.  Washington  Irving.  We  had  sup- 
posed it  to  be  some  real  Spanish  or  Moorish  legend 
connected  with  that  romantic  edifice  ;  and,  behold !  it 
was  a  mere  Sadler's  Wells  travesty,  (we  speak  of  its 
plan,  not  of  its  execution,)  applied  to  some  slender 
fragments  from  past  days.  Such,  but  far  stronger, 
would  have  been  the  disappointment  to  Grecian  feel- 
ings, in  finding  any  poetic  {d  fortiori,  any  prose) 
legend  to  be  a  fiction  of  the  writers  —  words  cannot 
measure  the  reaction  of  disgust.  And  thence  it  was  that 
no  tragic  poet  of  Athens  ever  took  for  his  theme  any 
tale  or  fable  not  already  pre-existing  in  some  version, 
though  now  and  then  it  might  be  the  least  popular 
version.  It  was  capital  as  an  ofi*ence  of  the  intellect, 
it  was  lunatic  to  do  otherwise.  This  is  a  most  impor- 
tant characteristic  of  ancient  taste ;  and  most  interest- 
ing in  its  philosophic  value  for  any  comparative  esti- 
mate of  modern  art,  as  against  ancient.  In  particular, 
no  just  commentary  can  ever  be  written  on  the  poetics 
of  Aristotle,  which  leaves  it  out  of  sight.  Secondly, 
it  is  evident  that  the  whole  character,  the  very  princi- 
ple of  movement,  in  many  modern  stories,  depends 
upon  sentiments  derived  remotely  from  Christianity ; 
and  others  upon  usages  or  manners  peculiar  to  modern 
civilization ;  so  as  in  either  case  to  involve  a  moral 
anachronism  if  viewed  as  Pagan.  Not  the  coloring 
only  of  the  fable,  but  the  very  incidents,  one  and  all, 
and  the  situations,  and  the  perplexities,  are  constantly 
the  product  of  something  characteristically  modern  in 
the  circumstances,  sometimes,  for  instance,  in  the 
climate  ;  for  the  ancients  had  no  experimental  knoW" 
ledge  of  severe  climates.  With  these  double  impossi- 
bilities before  us,  of  any  absolute  fictions  in  a  Pagan 


588 


PHILOSOPHY    OF  HEKODOTUS. 


author  that  could  be  generally  fitted  to  anticipate 
modern  tales,  we  shall  not  transfer  to  Herodotus  ^he 
impracticable  compliment  paid  by  Dr.  Johnson  to 
Homer.  But  it  is  certain  that  the  very  best  collection 
of  stories  furnished  by  Pagan  funds,  lies  dispersed 
through  his  great  work.  One  of  the  best  of  the  Ara- 
Man  Nights,  the  very  best  as  regards  the  structure 
of  the  plot  —  viz.,  the  tale  o1  Ali  Baba  and  the  Forty 
Thieves  —  is  evidently  derived  from  an  incident  in 
that  remarkable  Egyptian  legend,  connected  with  the 
treasury-house  of  Rhampsinitus.  This,  except  two  of 
his  Persian  legends,  (Cyrus  and  Darius,)  is  the  longest 
tale  in  Herodotus,  and  by  much  the  best  in  an  artist's 
sense  ;  indeed,  its  own  remarkable  merit,  as  a  fable  in 
which  the  incidents  successfully  generate  each  other, 
caused  it  to  be  transplanted  by  the  Greeks  to  their 
own  country.  Vossius,  in  his  work  on  the  Greek  his- 
torians, and  a  hundred  years  later,  Valckenaer,  with 
many  other  scholars,  had  pointed  out  the  singular  con- 
formity of  this  memorable  Egyptian  story  with  several 
that  afterwards  circulated  in  Greece.  The  eldest  of 
these  transfers  was  undoubtedly  the  Boeotian  tale  (but 
in  days  before  the  name  Boeotia  existed)  of  Agamedes 
and  Trophonius,  architects,  and  sons  to  the  King  of 
Orchomenos,  who  built  a  treasure-house  at  Hyria, 
(noticed  by  Homer  in  his  ship  'catalogue,)  followed 
by  tragical  circumstances,  the  very  same  as  those 
recorded  by  Herodotus.  It  is  true  that  the  latter 
incidents,  according  to  the  Egyptian  version  —  the 
monstrous  device  of  Bhampsinitus  for  discovering  the 
robber  at  the  price  of  his  daughter's  honor,  and  the  final 
toward  of  the  robber  for  his  petty  ingenuity,  (which, 
after  all,  belonged  chiefly  to  the  deceased  architect,) 


PHILOSOPHY  OP  HERODOTUS.  889 

mill  the  tale  as  a  whole.  But  these  latter  incidents 
are  obviously  forgeries  of  another  age  ;  '  angeschlossen ' 
fastened  on  by  fraud,  '  an  den  eisten  aelteren  theil,^  to 
the  first  and  elder  part,  as  Mueller  rightly  observes, 
p.  97,  of  his  Orchomenos,  And  even  here  it  is  pleasing 
to  notice  the  incredulity  of  Herodotus,  who  Avas  not, 
like  so  many  of  his  Christian  commentators,  sceptical 
upon  previous  system  and  by  wholesale,  but  equally 
prone  to  believe  wherever  his  heart  (naturally  reve- 
rential) suggested  an  interference  of  superior  natures, 
and  to  doubt  wherever  his  excellent  judgment  detected 
marks  of  incoherency.  He  records  the  entire  series 
of  incidents  as  ra  Aeyo.ueva  olkot],  reports  of  events  which 
had  reached  him  by  hearsay,  e/Aoi  Si  ov  Trto-ra  — '  but 
to  me,'  he  says  pointedly,  '  not  credible.' 

In  this  view,  as  a  thesaurus  fahuJarum^  a  great  re- 
pository of  anecdotes  and  legends,  tragic  or  romantic, 
Herodotus  is  so  far  beyond  all  Pagan  competition,  that 
we  are  thrown  upon  Christian  literatures  for  any  cor- 
responding form  of  merit.  The  case  has  often  been 
imagined  playfully,  that  a  man  were  restricted  to  one 
book ;  and,  supposing  all  books  so  solemn  as  those  of 
a  religious  interest  to  be  laid  out  of  the  question, 
many  are  the  answers  which  have  been  pronounced, 
according  to  the  difference  of  men's  minds.  Rousseau, 
as  is  well  known,  on  such  an  assumption  made  his 
election  for  Plutarch.  But  shall  we  tell  the  reader 
ichy  ?  It  was  not  altogether  his  taste,  or  his  judicious 
vhoice,  which  decided  him ;  for  choice  there  can  be 
Kone  amongst  elements  unexamined  —  it  was  his  lim- 
ted  reading.  Except  a  few  papers  in  the  French 
Encyclopedia  during  his  maturer  years,  and  some 
ilozen  of  works  presented  to  him  by  their  authors,  his 


390 


PHILOSOPHY   OF  HERODOTUS. 


own  friends,  Eousseau  had  read  little  or  nothing  "be- 
yond  Plutarch's  Lives  in  a  bad  French  translation, 
and  Montaigne.  Though  not  a  Frenchman,  having 
had  an  education  (if  such  one  can  call  it)  thoroughly 
French,  he  had  the  usual  puerile  French  craze  about 
Roman  virtue,  and  republican  simplicity,  and  Cato,  and 
'  all  that.'  So  that  his  decision  goes  for  little.  And 
even  he,  had  he  read  Herodotus,  would  have  thought 
twice  before  he  made  up  his  mind.  The  truth  is,  that 
in  such  a  case,  suppose,  for  example,  Robinson  Crusoe 
empowered  to  import  one  book  and  no  more  into  his 
insular  hermitage,  the  most  powerful  of  human  books 
must  be  unavoidably  excluded,  and  for  the  following  . 
reason  :  that  in  the  direct  ratio  of  its  profundity  will  ^ 
be  the  unity  of  any  fictitious  interest ;  a  Paradise  Lost, 
or  a  King  Lear,  could  not  agitate  or  possess  the  mind 
that  they  do,  if  they  were  at  leisure  to  '  amuse '  us. 
So  far  from  relying  on  its  unity,  the  work  which  should 
aim  at  the  maxijmim  of  amusement,  ought  to  rely  ] 
on  the  maxi?num  of  variety.  And  in  that  view  it  is  | 
that  we  urge  the  paramount  pretensions  of  Herodotus  :  i 
since  not  only  are  his  topics  separately  of  primary  j 
interest,  each  for  itself,  but  they  are  collectively  the 
aiost  varied  in  the  quality  of  that  interest,  and  they 
are  touched  with  the  most  flying  and  least  lingering 
pen  ;  for,  of  all  writers,  Herodotus  is  the  most  cautious 
not  to  trespass  oif  his  reader's  patience  :  his  transitions 
are  the  most  fluent  whilst  they  are  the  most  endless, 
justifying  themselves  to  the  understanding  as  much  as 
they  recommend  themselves  to  the  spirit  of  hurrying 
curiosity ;  and  his  narrations  or  descriptions  are  the 
most  animated  by  the  generality  of  their  abstractions, 
whilst  they  are  the  most  faithfully  indi\idual  by  the 
felicity  of  their  minute  circumstances. 


PHILOSOPHY   OP   HEE-ODOTUS.  391 

Once,  and  in  a  public  situation,  we  ourselves  de- 
nominated Herodotus  the  Froissart  of  antiquity.  But 
we  were  then  speaking  of  him  exclusively  as  an 
historian  ;  and  even  so,  we  did  him  injustice.  Thus 
far  it  is  true  the  two  men  agree,  that  both  are  less 
political,  or  reflecting,  or  moralizing,  as  historians, 
than  they  are  scenical  and  splendidly  picturesque. 
But  Froissart  is  little  else  than  an  historian,  \yhereas 
Herodotus  is  the  counterpart  of  some  ideal  Pandora, 
by  the  universality  of  his  accomplishments.  He  is  a 
traveller  of  discovery,  like  Captain  Cook  or  Park. 
He  is  a  naturalist,  the  earliest  that  existed.  He  is  a 
mythologist,  and  a  speculator  on  the  origin,  as  well  as 
value,  of  religious  rites.  He  is  a  political  economist 
by  instinct  of  genius,  before  the  science  of  economy 
had  a  name  or  a  conscious  function  ;  and  by  two  great 
records,  he  has  put  us  up  to  the  level  of  all  that  can 
excite  our  curiosity  at  that  great  era  of  moving  civi- 
lization :  —  first,  as  respects  Persia,  by  the  elaborate 
review  of  the  various  satrapies  or  great  lieutenancies 
of  the  empire  —  that  vast  empire  which  had  absorbed 
the  Assyrian,  Median,  Babylonian,  Little  Syrian,  and 
Egyptian  kingdoms,  registering  against  each  separate 
viceroyalty,  from  Algiers  to  Lahore  beyond  the  Indus, 
what  was  the  amount  of  its  annual  tribute  to  the 
gorgeous  exchequer  of  Susa ;  and  secondly,  as  re- 
spects Greece,  by  his  review  of  the  numerous  little 
Grecian  states,  and  their  several  contingents  in  ships, 
or  in  soldiers,  or  in  both,  (according  as  their  position 
\  happened  to  be  inland  or  maritime,)  towards  the  uni- 
I  versal  armament  against  the  second  and  greatest  of 
the  Persian  invasions.  Two  such  documents,  such 
archives  of  political  economy,  do  not  exist  elsewhere 


B92 


PHILOSOPHY   OF  HERODOTUS. 


in  History.    Egypt  had  now  ceased,  and  we  may  say 
that  (according  to  the  Scriptural  prophecy)  it  had 
ceased  forever  to  be  an  independent  realm.  Persia 
had  now  for  seventy  years  had  her  foot  upon  the  neck 
of  this  unhappy  land  ;  and,  in  one  century  beyond  the 
death  of  Herodotus,  the  two-horned  he-goat^^  of  Mace< 
don  was  destined  to  butt  it  down  into  hopeless  prostra- 
tion.   But  so  far  as  Egypt,  from  her  vast  antiquity,  oi  ^ 
from  her  great  resources,  was  entitled  to  a  more  cir- 
cumstantial notice  than  any  other  satrapy  of  the  great  ; 
empire,  such  a  notice  it  has  ;  and  we  do  not  scruple  | 
to  say,  though  it  may  seem  a  bold  word,  that,  from  ' 
the  many  scattered  features  of  Egyptian  habits  or] 
usages  incidentally  indicated  by  Herodotus,  a  better  [ 
portrait  of  Egyptian  life,  and  a  better  abstract  of 
Egyptian  political  economy,  might  even  yet  be  gath- 
ered, than  from  all  the  writers  of  Greece  for  the  cities  ; 
of  their  native  land.  i 
But  take  him  as  an  exploratory  traveller  and  as  a* 
naturalist,  who  had  to  break  ground  for  the  earliest^' 
entrenchments  in  these  new  functions  of  knowledge  ;| 
we  do  not  scruple  to  say  that  mutatis  mutandis,  and^ 
concessis  concedendis,  Herodotus   has   the  separate 
qualifications  of  the  two  men  whom  we  would  select 
by  preference  as   the   most  distinguished  amongst 
Christian  traveller-naturalists  ;  he  has  the  universality 
of  the  Prussian  Humboldt ;  and  he  has  the  picturesque  j 
Melity  to  nature  of  the  English  Dampier  —  of  whom  | 
the  last  was  a  simple  self-educated  seaman,  but  strong- 
minded   by  nature,  austerely  accurate  through  hisj 
moral  reverence  for  truth,  and  zealous  in  pursuit  of  I 
knowledge,  to  an  excess  which  raises  him  to  a  level 
with  the  noble  Greek.    Dampier,  when  in  the  last 


PHILOSOPHY   or  HERODOTUS.  393 

stage  of  exhaustion  from  a  malignant  dysentery,  unable 
to  stand  upright,  and  surrounded  by  perils  in  a  land 
of  infidel  fanatics,  crawled  on  his  hands  and  feet  to 
verify  some  fact  of  natural  history,  under  the  blazing 
forenoon  of  the  tropics  ;  and  Herodotus,  having  no 
motive  but  his  own  inexhaustible  thirst  of  knowledge, 
embarked  on  a  separate  voyage,  fraught  with  hardships, 
towards  a  chance  of  clearing  up  what  seemed  a  diffi- 
culty of  some  importance  in  deducing  the  religious 
mythology  of  his  country. 

But  it  is  in  those  characters  by  which  he  is  best 
known  to  the  world  —  viz.,  as  an  historian  and  a 
geographer  —  that  Herodotus  levies  the  heaviest  tribute 
on  our  reverence ;  and  precisely  in  those  charac- 
ters it  is  that  he  now  claims  the  amplest  atonement, 
having  formerly  sustained  the  grossest  outrages  of 
insult  and  slander  on  the  peculiar  merits  attached  to 
each  of  those  characters.  Credulous  he  was  supposed 
to  be,  in  a  degree  transcending  the  privilege  of  old 
garrulous  nurses  ;  hyperbolically  extravagant  beyond 
Sir  John  Mandeville  ;  and  lastly,  as  if  he  had  been  a 
Mendez  Pinto  or  a  Munchausen,  he  was  saluted  as  the 
'father  of  lies.'^^  Now,  on  these  calumnies,  it  is 
pleasant  to  know  that  his  most  fervent  admirer  no 
longer  feels  it  requisite  to  utter  one  word  in  the  way 
of  complaint  or  vindication.  Time  has  carried  him 
round  to  the  diametrical  counterpole  of  estimation. 
Examination  and  more  learned  study  have  justified 
every  iota  of  those  statements  to  which  he  pledged  his 
own  private  authority.  His  chronology  is  better  to 
this  day  than  any  single  svstem  opposed  to  it.  His 
dimensions  and  distances  are  so  far  superior  to  those 
*if  later  travellers,  whose  hands  were  strengthened  by 


394  pHiLosoniY  of  iierodotus. 

all  the  powers  of  military  command  and  legal  au- 
tocracy, that  Major  Rennell,  upon  a  deliberate  retro- 
spect of  his  works,  preferred  his  authority  to  that  of 
those  who  came  after  him  as  conquerors  and  rulers  of 
the  kingdoms  which  he  had  described  as  a  simple 
traveller  ;  nay,  to  the  -ate  authority  of  those  who  had 
conquered  those  conquerors.    It  is  gratifying  that  a 
judge,  so  just  and  thoughtful  as  the  Major,  should  , 
declare  the  reports  of  Alexander's  officers  on  the  dis-  ^ 
tances  and  stations  in  the  Asiatic  part  of  his  empire, 
less  trustworthy  by  much  than  the  reports  of  Herodo- 
tus :  yet,  who  was  more  liberally  devoted  to  science 
than  Alexander  ?  or  what  were  the  humble  powers  of 
the  foot  traveller  in  comparison  with  those   of  the 
mighty  earth-shaker,  for  whom  prophecy  had  been  on 
the  watch  for  centuries  ?    It  is  gratifying,  that  a  judge 
like  the  Major  should  find  the  same  advantage  on  the  ; 
side  of  Herodotus,  as  to  the  distances  in  the  Egyptian  | 
and  Libyan  part  of  this  empire,  on  a  comparison  with  | 
the  most  accomplished  of  Romans,   Pliny,   Strabo,  | 
Ptolemy,  (for  all  are  Romans  who  benefitted  by  any 
Roman  machinery,)   coming  five  and  six  centuries 
later.    We  indeed  hold  the  accuracy  of  Herodotus  to 
be  all  but  marvellous,  considering  the  wretched  appa- 
ratus which  he  could  then  command  in  the  popular 
measures.    The  stadium,  it  is  true,  was  more  accu- 
rate, because  less   equivocal  in  those  Grecian  days, 
than  afterwards,  when   it  inter-oscillated  with  the 
Roman  stadium  ;  but  all  the  multiples  of  that  stadium, 
euch  as  the  schcenus,  the  Persian  parasang,  or  the 
military  stat/imus,  were  only  less  vague  than  the  coss 
of  Hindo&tan  in  their  ideal  standards,  and  as  fluctua- 
ting practically  as  are  all  computed  distances  at  all 


PHILOSOPHY   OP   HERODOTUS.  895 


times  and  places.  The  close  approximations  of  Herod- 
otus to  the  returns  of  distances  upon  caravan  routes 
of  five  hundred  miles  by  the  most  vigilant  of  modern 
travellers,  checked  by  the  caravan  controllers,  is  a 
bitter  retort  upon  his  calumniators.  And,  as  to  the 
consummation  of  the  insults  against  him  in  the  charge 
of  wilful  falsehood,  we  explain  it  out  of  hasty  reading 
and  slight  acquaintance  with  Greek.  The  sensibility 
of  Herodotus  to  his  own  future  character  in  this  re- 
spect, under  a  deep  consciousness  of  his  upright  for- 
bearance on  the  one  side,  and  of  the  extreme  liability 
on  the  other  side  to  uncharitable  construction  for  any 
man  moving  amongst  Egyptian  thaumaturgical  tradi- 
tions, comes  forward  continually  in  his  anxious  dis- 
tinctions between  what  he  gives  on  his  own  ocular 
experience  (oi/zt?) — what  upon  his  own  inquiries,  or 
combination  of  inquiries  with  previous  knowledge 
{l(TTopia)  —  what  upon  hearsay  (d/co/y)  —  what  upon 
current  tradition  (Aoyos).  And  the  evidences  are  mul- 
tiplied over  and  above  these  distinctions,  of  the  irrita- 
tion which  beseiged  his  mind  as  to  the  future  wrongs 
he  might  sustain  from  the  careless  and  the  unprinci- 
pled. Had  truth  been  less  precious  in  his  eyes,  was 
it  tolerable  to  be  supposed  a  liar  for  so  vulgar  an 
object  as  that  of  creating  a  stare  by  wonder-making  ? 
The  high-minded  Grecian,  justly  proud  of  his  superb 
intellectual  resources  for  taking  captive  the  imagina- 
tions of  his  half-polished  countrymen,  disdained  such 
base  artifices,  which  belong  more  properly  to  an 
effeminate  and  over-stimulated  stage  of  civilization. 
A-nd,  once  for  all,  he  had  announced  at  an  early 
point  as  the  principle  of  his  work,  as  what  ran  along 
\he  whole  line  of  his  statements  by  way  of  basis  or 


Ilk. 


3y6  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERODOTUS. 

subsumption,  (Trapa  TTotiTa  rov  Xoyov  VTroKetrai)  —  that 
he  wrote  upon  tlie  f\iith  of  hearsay  from  the  Egyptians 
severally  :  meaning  by  '  severally/  (eKacrrcoi/)  —  that  he 
did  not  adopt  any  chance  hearsay,  but  such  as  was 
guarantied  by  the  men  who  presided  over  each  several 
department  of  Egyptian  official  or  ceremonial  life.  i 
Having  thus  said  something  towards  re- vindicating  i 
for  Herodotus  his  proper  station  —  first,  as  a  power  in  i 
literature  ;  next,  as  a  geographer,  economist,  mytholo-  ' 
gist,  antiquary,  historian  —  we  shall  draw  the  reader's  \ 
attention  to  the  remarkable  '  set  of  the  current '  to-  ; 
wards  that  very  consummation  and  result  of  justice 
amongst  the  learned  within  the  last  two  generations. 
There  is  no  such  case  extant  of  truth  slowly  righting 
itself.    Seventy  years  ago,  the  reputation  of  Herodotus 
for  veracity  was  at  the  lowest  ebb.    That  prejudice 
still  survives  popularly.    But  amongst  the  learned,  it 
has  gradually  given  way  to  better  scholarship,  and  to 
two  generations  of  travellers,  starting  with  far  superior  i 
preparation  for  their  difficult  labors.    Accordingly,  at  \ 
this  day,  each  successive  commentator,  better  able  to  J 
read  Greek,  and  better  provided  with  solutions  for  the  \ 
inevitable  errors  of  a  reporter,  drawing  upon  others 
for  his  facts,  with  only  an  occasional  interposition  of 
his  own  opinion,  comes  with  increasing  reverence  to 
his  author.     The  laudator  temporis  acti  takes  for 
granted  in  his  sweeping  ignorance,  that  we  of  the 
present  generation  are  less  learned  than  our  immediate 
predecessors.    It  happens,  that  all  over  Europe  the 
course  of  learning  has  been  precisely  in  the  inverse 
direction.    Poor  was  the  condition  of  Greek  learning 
in  England,  when  Dr.  Cooke  (one  of  the  five  wretched 
old  boys  who  operated  upon  Gray's  Elegy  in  the 


PHILOSOPHY   OF   HEUODOTUS.  o\)7 

character  of  Greek  translators)  presided  at  Cambridge 
as  their  Greek  professor.  See,  or  rather  touch  with 
the  tongs,  his  edition^^  of  Aristotle's  Poetics.  Equally 
poor  was  its  condition  in  Germany  ;  for,  if  one  swal- 
low could  make  a  summer,  we  had  that  in  England. 
Poorer  by  far  was  its  condition  (as  generally  it  is)  in 
France  :  where  a  great  Don  in  Greek  letters,  an  Abhe 
who  passed  for  unfathomably  learned,  having  occasion 
to  translate  a  Greek  sentence,  saying  that  '  Herodotus, 
even  whilst  lonicizing,  (using  the  Ionic  dialect,)  had 
yet  spelt  a  particular  name  with  the  alpha  and  not 
with  the  eta,'  rendered  the  passage  '  Herodote  et 
aussi  Jazon.'  The  Greek  words  were  these  three  — 
'  Hpo8oTos  Koi  ta{a>i'.^  He  had  never  heard  that  kul 
means  even  almost  as  often  as  it  means  and:  thus  he  in- 
troduced to  the  world,  a  fine  new  author,  one  Jazon, 
Esquire  ;  and  the  squire  holds  his  place  in  the  learned 
Abbe's  "book  to  this  day.  Good  Greek  .scholars  are 
now  in  the  proportion  of  perhaps  sixty  to  one  by 
comparison  with  the  penultimate  generation  ;  and  this 
proportion  holds  equally  for  Germany  and  for  Eng- 
land. So  that  the  restoration  of  Herodotus  to  his 
place  in  literature,  his  Palingenesia,  has  been  no 
caprice,  but  is  due  to  the  vast  depositions  of  knowl- 
edge, equal  for  the  last  seventy  or  eighty  years  to  the 
accumulated  product  of  the  entire  previous  interval 
from  Herodotus  to  1760,  in  every  one  of  those  par- 
ticular fields  which  this  author  was  led  by  his  situation 
to  cultivate. 

Meantime  the  work  of  cleansing  this  great  tank  or 
depository  of  archaeology  (the  one  sole  reservoir,  so 
placed  in  point  of  time  as  to  collect  and  draw  all  the 
contributions  from  the  frontier  ground  between  the 
*  Herodotus  even  whilst  lonicizing. 


398 


PHILOSOPHY   OP  HEKODOTUS. 


mythical  and  the  historical  period)  is  still  proceeding. 
Every  fresh  laborer,  by  new  accessions  of  direct  aid, 
or  by  new  combinations  of  old  suggestions,  finds  him- 
self able  to  purify  the  interpretation  of  Herodotus  by 
wider  analogies,  or  to  account  for  his  mistakes  by  more 
accurately  developing  the  situation  of  the  speaker. 
We  also  bring  our  own  unborrowed  contributions.  We 
also  w^ould  wish  to  promote  this  great  labor,  which,  be 
it  remembered,  concerns  no  secondary  section  of  hu- 
man progress,  searches  no  blind  corners  or  nooks  of 
history,  but  traverses  the  very  crests  and  summits  of 
human  annals,  with  a  solitary  exception  for  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures,  so  far  as  opening  civilization  is  concerned. 
The  commencement  —  the  solemn  inauguration  —  of 
history,  is  placed  no  doubt  in  the  commencement  of 
the  Olympiads,  777  years  before  Christ.  The  doors 
of  the  great  theatre  were  then  thrown  open.  That  is 
undeniable.  But  the  performance  did  not  'actually 
commence  till  555  B.  C,  (the  locus  of  Cyrus.)  Then 
began  the  great  tumult  of  nations  —  the  termashaiv,  to 
speak  Bengalice.  Then  Began  the  procession,  the 
pomp,  the  interweaving  of  the  western  tribes,  not 
always  by  bodily  presence,  but  by  the  actio  in  distans 
of  politics.  And  the  birth  of  Herodotus  was  precisely 
in  the  seventy-first  year  from  that  period.  It  is  the 
greatest  of  periods  that  is  concerned.  And  we  also  as 
willingly,  we  repeat,  would  offer  our  contingent.  What 
we  propose  to  do,  is  to  bring  forward  two  or  three  im- 
portant suggestions  of  others  not  yet  popularly  known 

—  shaping  and  pointing,  if  possible,  their  application 

—  brightening  their  justice,  or  strengthening  their  out- 
lines. And  with  these  we  propose  to  intermingle  one 
or  two  suggestions,  more  exclusively  our  own. 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERODOIUS. 


399 


[.  —  The  Non- Planetary  Earth  of  Herodotus  in  its 
relation  to  the  Planetary  Sun, 

Mr.  Hermann  Bobrik  is  the  first  torch- bearer  to  He- 
rodotus, who  has  thrown  a  strong  light  on  his  theory  of 
the  earth's  relation  to  the  solar  system.  This  is  one  of 
the  prcecog7iita,  literally  indispensable  to  the  compre- 
hension of  the  geographical  basis  assumed  by  Herodo- 
tus. And  it  is  really  interesting  to  see  how  one 
original  error  had  drawn  after  it  a  train  of  others  — 
how  one  restoration  of  light  has  now  illuminated  a 
whole  hemisphere  of  objects.  We  suppose  it  the  very 
next  thing  to  a  fatal  impossibility,  that  any  man  should 
at  once  rid  his  mind  so  profoundly  of  all  natural  biases 
from  education,  or  almost  from  human  instinct,  as 
barely  to  suspect  the  physical  theory  of  Herodotus  — 
barely  to  imagine  the  idea  of  a  divorce  occurring  in 
any  theory  between  the  solar  orb  and  the  great  phe- 
nomena of  summer  and  winter.  Prejudications,  hav- 
ing the  force  of  a  necessity,  had  blinded  generation 
after  generation  of  students  to  the  very  admission  in 
limine  of  such  a  theory  as  could  go  the  length  of  de- 
throning the  sun  himself  from  all  influence  over  the 
great  vicissitudes  of  heat  and  cold  —  seed-time  and 
harvest  —  for  man.  They  did  not  see  what  actually 
was,  what  lay  broadly  below  their  eyes,  in  Herodotus, 
because  it  seemed  too  fantastic  a  dream  to  suppose 
that  it  could  be.  The  case  is  far  more  common  than 
feeble  psychologists  imagine.  Numerous  are  the  in- 
stances in  which  we  actually  see  —  not  that  which  is 
eally  there  to  be  seen  —  but  that  which  we  believe  d 
priori  ought  to  be  there.  And  in  c^ses  so  palpable  as 
that  of  an  external  sense,  it  is  not  difficult  to  set  the 


400 


PHILOSOPHY  OP  HERODOTUS. 


student  on  his  guard.  But  in  cases  more  intellectual 
or  moral,  like  several  in  Herodotus,  it  is  difficult  for  the 
teacher  himself  to  be  effectually  vigilant.  It  was  not 
anything  actually  seen  by  Herodotus  which  led  him 
into  denying  the  solar  functions  ;  it  was  his  own  inde- 
pendent speculation.  This  suggested  to  him  a  plausi- 
ble hypothesis  ;  plausible  it  was  for  that  age  of  the 
world  ;  and  afterwards,  on  applying  it  to  the  actual 
difficulties  of  the  case,  this  hypothesis  seemed  so  far 
good,  that  it  did  really  unlock  them.  The  case  stood 
thus  :  —  Herodotus  contemplated  Cold  not  as  a  mere 
privation  of  Heat,  but  as  a  positive  quality  ;  quite  as 
much  entitled  to  '  high  consideration,'  in  the  language 
of  ambassadors,  as  its  rival  heat ;  and  quite  as  much 
to  a  '  retiring  pension,'  in  case  of  being  superannuated. 
Thus  we  all  know,  from  Addison's  fine  raillery,  that  a 
certain  philosopher  regarded  darkness  not  at  all  as  any 
result  from  the  absence  of  light,  but  fancied  that,  as 
some  heavenly  bodies  are  luminaries,  so  others  (which  J 
he  called  tenehrific  stars)  might  have  the  office  of  '  ray-  1 
ing  out  positive  darkness.'  In  the  infancy  of  science,  J 
the  idea  is  natural  to  the  human  mind  ;  and  we  re-  ^ 
member  hearing  a  great  man  of  our  own  times  declare, 
that  no  sense  of  conscious  power  had  ever  so  vividly 
dilated  his  mind,  nothing  so  like  a  revelation,  as  when 
one  day  in  broad  sunshine,  w^hilst  yet  a  child,  he 
discovered  that  his  own  shadow,  which  he  had  often 
angrily  hunted,  was  no  real  existence,  but  a  mere  hin- 
dering of  the  sun's  light  from  filling  up  the  space 
screened  by  his  own  body.  The  old  grudge,  which  he 
cherished  against  this  coy,  fugitive  shadow,  melted 
iway  in  the  rapture  of  this  great  discovery.  To  him 
the  discovery  had  doubtless  been  originally  half-sug- 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERODOTUS.  401 


gested  by  explanations  of  his  elders  imperfectly  com- 
prehended. But  in  itself  the  distinction  between  the 
affirmative  and  the  7iegative  is  a  step  perhaps  the  most 
costly  in  effort  of  any  that  the  human  mind  is  sum- 
moned to  take  ;  and  the  greatest  indulgence  is  due  to 
those  early  stages  of  civilization  when  this  step  had 
not  been  taken.  For  Herodotus,  there  existed  two 
great  counter-forces  in  absolute  hostility  —  heat  and 
cold  ;  and  these  forces  were  incarnated  in  the  winds. 
It  was  the  north  and  north-east  wind,  not  any  distance 
of  the  sun,  which  radiated  cold  and  frost ;  it  was  the 
southern  wind  from  Ethiopia,  not  at  all  the  sun,  which 
radiated  heat.  But  could  a  man  so  sagacious  as  He- 
rodotus stand  with  his  ample  Grecian  forehead  exposed 
to  the  noonday  sun,  and  suspect  no  part  of  the  calorific 
agency  to  be  seated  in  the  sun  ?  Certainly  he  could 
not.  But  this  partial  agency  is  no  more  than  what  we 
of  this  day  allow  to  secondary  or  tertiary  causes  apart 
from  the  principal.  We,  that  regard  the  sun  as  upon 
the  whole  our  planetary  fountain  of  light,  yet  recog- 
nize an  electrical  aurora,  a  zodiacal  light,  &c.,  as  sub- 
stitutes not  palpably  dependent.  We  that  regard  the 
sun  as  upon  the  whole  our  fountain  of  heat,  yet  recog- 
nize many  co-operative,  many  modifying  forces  having 
the  same  office  — -  such  as  the  local  configuration  of 
ground  —  such  as  sea  neighborhoods  or  land  neighbor- 
hoods, marshes  or  none,  forests  or  none,  strata  of  soil 
fitted  to  retain  heat  and  fund  it,  or  to  disperse  it  and 
cool  it.  Precisely  in  the  same  way  Herodotus  did 
allow  an  agency  to  the  sun  upon  the  daily  range  of 
heat,  though  he  allowed  none  to  the  same  luminary  in 
egulating  the  annual  range.  What  caused  the  spring 
md  autumn,  the  summer  and  winter,  (though  generally 


PHILOSOPHY  OP  HERODOTUS. 


in  tliose  ages  there  were  but  two  seasons  recognized,) 
was  the  action  of  the  winds.  The  diurnal  arch  of  heat 
(as  we  may  call  it)  ascending  from  sunrise  to  some 
hour,  (say  two  P.  M.,)  when  the  sum  of  the  two  heats 
(the  funded  annual  heat  and  the  fresh  increments  of 
daily  heat)  reaches  its  maximum^  and  the  descending 
limb  of  the  same  arch  from  this  hour  to  sunset  —  this 
he  explained  entirely  out  of  the  sun's  daily  revolution, 
which  to  him  was,  of  course,  no  apparent  motion,  but  a 
real  one  in  the  sun.  It  is  truly  amusing  to  hear  the 
great  man's  infantine  simplicity  In  describing  the 
effects  of  the  solar  journey.  The  sun  rises,  it  seems, 
in  India  and  these  poor  Indians,  roasted  by  whole 
nations  at  breakfast-time,  are  then  up  to  their  chins  in 
water,  whilst  we  thankless  Westerns  are  taking  '  tea 
and  toast'  at  our  ease.  However,  it  is  a  long  lane 
which  has  no  turning ;  and  by  noon  the  sun  has  driven 
BO  many  stages  away  from  India,  that  the  poor  crea- 
tures begin  to  come  out  of  their  rivers,  and  really  find 
things  tolerably  comfortable.  India  is  now  cooled 
down  to  a  balmy  Grecian  temperature.  '  All  right 
behind  ! '  as  the  mail-coach  guards  observe  ;  but  not 
quite  right  ahead,  when  the  sun  is  racing  away  over 
the  boiling  brains  of  the  Ethiopians,  Libyans,  &c.,  and 
driving  Jupiter- Ammon  perfectly  distracted  with  his 
furnace.  But  when  things  are  at  the  worst,  the  proverb 
assures  us  that  they  will  mend.  And  for  an  early  five 
o'clock  dinner,  Ethiopia  finds  that  she  has  no  great 
reason  to  complain.  All  civilized  people  are  now  cool 
and  happy  for  the  rest  of  the  day.  But,  as  to  the 
woolly-headed  rascals  on  the  west  coast  of  Africa,  they 
'  catch  it'  towards  sunset,  and  '  no  mistake.'  Yet  why 
trouble  our  heads  about  inconsiderable  black  fellows 


PHILOSOPHY   OF   HERODOTUS.  403 

like  them,  who  have  been  cool  all  day  whilst  bettei 
men  were  melting  away  by  pailfuls  ?  And  such  is  the 
history  of  a  summer's  day  in  the  heavens  above  and 
on  the  earth  beneath.  As  to  little  Greece,  she  is  but 
skirted  by  the  sun,  who  keeps  away  far  to  the  south  ; 
thus  she  is  maintained  in  a  charming  state  of  equilib- 
rium by  her  fortunate  position  on  the  very  frontier  line 
cf  the  fierce  Boreas  and  the  too  voluptuous  Notos. 

Meantime  one  effect  follows  from  this  transfer  of  the 
solar  functions  to  the  winds,  which  has  not  been  re- 
marked, —  viz.  that  Herodotus  has  a  double  north  ; 
one  governed  by  the  old  noisy  Boreas-,  another  by  the 
silent  constellation  Arktos.  And  the  consequence  of 
this  fluctuating  north,  as  might  be  guessed,  is  the  want 
of  any  true  nortli  at  all ;  for  the  two  points  of  the  wind 
and  tlie  constellation  do  not  coincide  in  the  first  place  ; 
and  secondly,  the  wind  does  not  coincide  with  itself, 
but  naturally  traverses  through  a  few  points  right  and 
left.  Next,  the  east  also  will  be  indeterminate  from  a 
different  cause.  Had  Herodotus  lived  in  a  high  north- 
ern latitude,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  ample  range  of 
difference  between  the  northerly  points  of  rising  in  the 
summer  and  the  southerly  in  winter,  would  have  forced 
his  attention  upon  the  fact,  that  only  at  the  equinox, 
vernal  or  autumnal,  does  the  sun's  rising  accurately 
coincide  with  the  east.  But  in  his  Ionian  climate,  the 
deflections  either  way,  to  the  north  or  to  the  south,  were 
too  inconsiderable  to  force  themselves  upon  the  eye ; 
and  thus  a  more  indeterminate  east  would  arise  — 
never  rigorously  corrected,  because  requiring  so  mode- 
rate a  correction.  Now,  a  vague  unsettled  east,  would 
support  a  vague  unsettled  north.  And  of  course, 
through  whatever  arch  of  variations  either  of  these 


404 


PHI-LOSOPHY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


points  vibrated,  precisely  upon  that  scale  the  west  and 
the  south  would  follow  them. 

Thus  arises,  upon  a  simple  and  easy  genesis,  that 
condition  of  the  compass  (to  use  the  word  by  anticipa- 
tion) which  must  have  tended  to  confuse  the  geograph- 
ical system  of  Herodotus,  and  which  does,  in  fact, 
account  for  the  else  unaccountable  obscurities  in  some 
of  its  leading  features.  These  anomalous  features 
would,  on  their  own  account,  have  deserved  notice  ; 
but  now,  after  this  explanation,  they  will  have  a  sepa- 
rate value  of  illustrated  proofs  in  relation  to  the  present 
article,  No.  I.  • 

II.  —  The  Danube  of  Herodotus  considered  as  a  conn- 
terpole  to  the  Nile, 
There  is  nothing  more  perplexing  to  some  of  the 
many  commentators  on  Herodotus  than  all 'which  he 
says  of  the  river  Danube  ;  nor  anything  easier,  under 
the  preparation  of  the  preceding  article.  The  Danube, 
or,  in  the  nomenclature  of  Herodotus,  the  Istros,  is 
described  as  being  in  all  respects  sx  jiaoaXXtjXov,  by  which 
we  must  understand  corresponding  rigorously,  but 
antistrophically,  (as  the  Greeks  express  it,)  similar 
angles,  similar  dimensions,  but  in  an  inverse  order,  to 
the  Egyptian  Nile.  The  Nile,  in  its  monstrous  section, 
flows  from  south  to  north.  Consequently  the  Danube, 
by  the  rule  of  parallelism,  ought  to  flow  through  a 
corresponding  section  from  north  to  south.  But,  say 
the  commentators,  it  does  not.  Now,  verbally  they 
might  seem  wrong  ;  but  substantially,  as  regards  the 
Justification  of  Herodotus,  they  are  right.  Our  business, 
however,  is  not  to  justify  Herodotus,  but  to  explain  him 
Undoubtedly  there  is  a  point  about  one  hundred  and 


PHILOSOPHY  OP  HEUODOTUS. 


405 


fifty  miles  east  of  Vienna,  where  the  Danube  descends 
almost  due  south  for  a  space  of  three  hundred  miles; 
and  this  is  a  very  memorable  reach  of  the  river  ;  foi 
somewhere  within  that  long  corridor  of  land  which  lief 
between  itself,  (this  Danube  section,)  and  a  direct 
parallel  section  equally  long,  of  the  Hungarian  rivei 
TheiSs,  once  lay,  in  the  fifth  century,'  the  royal  city  oi 
encampment  of  Attila.  Gibbon  placed  the  city  in  the 
northern  part  of  this  corridor,  (or,  strictly  speaking, 
this  Mesopotamia,)  consequently  about  two  hundred 
miles  to  the  east  of  Vienna :  but  others,  and  especially 
Hungarian  writers,  better  acquainted  by  personal  ex- 
amination with  the  ground,  remove  it  to  one  hundred 
and  fifty  miles  more  to  the  south  —  that  is,  to  the 
centre  of  the  corridor,  (or  gallery  of  land  enclosed  by 
the  two  rivers.)  Now,  undoubtedly,  except  along  the 
margin  of  this  Attila' s  corridor,  there  is  no  considerable 
section  of  the  Danube  which  flows  southward  ;  and  this 
will  not  answer  the  postulates  of  Herodotus.  Generally 
speaking,  the  Danube  holds  a  headlong  course  to  the 
east.  Undoubtedly  this  must  be  granted ;  and  so  fat 
it  might  seem  hopeless  to  seek  for  that  kind  of  parallel- 
ism to  the  Nile  which  Herodotus  asserts.  But  the 
question  for  us  does  not  concern  what  is  or  then  was — ■ 
the  question  is  solely  about  what  Herodotus  can  be 
shown  to  have  meant.  And  here  comes  in,  seasonably 
and  serviceably,  that  vagueness  as  to  the  points  of  the 
compass  which  we  have  explained  in  the  preceding 
article.  This,  connected  with  the  positive  assertion  of 
Herodotus  as  to  an  inverse  correspondency  with  the 
Nile,  (north  and  south,  therefore,  as  the  antistrophe  to 
south  and  north,)  would  place  beyond  a  doubt  the  creed 
vf  Herodotus  —  which  is  the  question  that  concerns 


406 


PHILOSOPHY   OF  HERODOTUS. 


US.  And,  vice  versa,  this  creed  of  Herodotus  as  to  the 
course  of  the  Danube,  in  its  main  latter  section  when 
approaching  the  Euxine  Sea,  re-acts  to  confirm  all  we 
have  said,  proprio  marte,  on  the  indeterminate  articu- 
lation of  the  Ionian  compass  then  current.  Here  we 
have  at  once  the  d  priori  reasons  making  it  probable 
that  Herodotus  would  have  a  vagrant  compass  ;  second- 
ly, many  separate  instances  confirming  this  probability  ; 
thirdly,  the  particular  instance  of  the  Danube,  as  aatis- 
trophizing  with  the  Nile,  not  reconcilable  with  any 
other  principle  ;  and  fourthly,  the  following  indepen- 
dent demonstration,  that  the  Ionian  compass  must  have 
been  confused  in  its  leading  divisions.  Mark,  reader, 
Herodotus  terminates  his  account  of  the  Danube  and 
its  course,  by  affirming  that  this  mighty  river  enters 
the  Euxine  —  at  what  point  ?  Opposite,  says  he,  to 
Sinope.  Could  that  have  been  imagined  ?  Sinope, 
being  a  Greek  settlement  in  a  region  where  such  settle- 
ments were  rare,  was  notorious  to  all  the  world  as  the 
flourishing  emporium,  on  the  south  shore  of  the  Black 
Sea,  of  a  civilized  people,  literally  hustled  by  barba- 
rians. Consequently  —  and  this  is  a  point  to  which  all 
commentators  alike  are  blind  —  the  Danube  descends 
upon  the  Euxine  in  a  long  line  running  due  south 
Else,  we  demand,  how  could  it  antistrophize  with  the 
Nile  ?  Else,  we  demand,  how  could  it  lie  right  over 
against  the  Sinope }  Else,  we  demand,  how  could  it 
make  that  right-angle  bend  to  the  west  in  the  earlier 
section  of  its  course,  which  is  presupposed  in  its  perfect 
analogy  to  the  Nile  of  Herodotus  ?  If  already  it  were 
^ying  east  and  west  in  that  lower  part  of  its  course 
which  approaches  the  Euxine,  what  occasion  could  it 
offer  for  a  right -angle  turn,  or  for  any  turn  at  all  — 


PHILOSOPHY   or  HEKODOTUS. 


4U7 


what  possibility  for  any  angle  whatever  between  this 
lower  reach  and  that  superior  reach  so  confessedly 
running  eastward,  according  to  all  accounts  of  its 
derivation  ? 

For  as  respects  the  Nile,  by  way  of  close  to  this 
article,  it  remains  to  inform  the  reader  —  that  He- 
rodotus had  evidently  met  in  Upper  Egypt  slaves  or 
captives  in  war  from  the  regions  of  Soudon,  Tombuc- 
too,  &c.  This  is  the  opinion  of  Rennell,  of  Browne, 
the  visiter  of  the  Ammonian  Oasis,  and  many  other 
principal  authorities ;  and  for  a  reason  which  we 
always  regard  with  more  respect,  though  it  were  the 
weakest  of  reasons,  than  all  the  authorities  of  this 
world  clubbed  together.  And  this  reason  was  the 
coincidence  of  what  Herodotus  reports,  with  the  trath 
of  facts  first  ascertained  thousands  of  years  later. 
These  slaves,  or  some  people  from  those  quarters,  had 
told  him  of  a  vast  river  lying  east  and  west,  of  course 
the  Niger,  but  (as  he  and  they  supposed)  a  superior 
section  of  the  Nile  ;  and  therefore,  by  geometrical 
necessity,  falling  at  right  angles  upon  that  other  section 
of  the  Nile,  so  familiar  to  himself,  lying  south  and 
north.  Hence  arose  a  faith  that  is  not  primarily  hence, 
but  hence  in  combination  with  a  previous  construction 
existing  in  his  mind  for  the  geometry  of  the  Danube, 
that  the  two  rivers  Danube  and  Nile  had  a  mystic 
relation  as  arctic  and  antarctic  powers  over  man. 
Herodotus  had  been  taught  to  figure  the  Danube  as  a 
stream  of  two  main  inclinations  —  an  upper  section 
rising  in  the  extreme  west  of  Europe,  (possibly  in 
Charlotte  Square,  Edinburgh,)  whence  he  travelled 
with  the  arrow's  flight  due  east  in  search  of  his  wife 
the  Euxine  ;   but  somewhere  in  the  middle  of  his 


408  PHILOSOPHY   OF  HERODOTUS. 

course,  hearing  that  her  dwelling  lay  far  to  the  south, 
and  having  then  completed  his  distance  in  longitude, 
afterwards  he  ran  down  his  latitude  with  the  headlong 
precipitation  of  a  lover,  and  surprised  the  bride  due 
north  from  Sinope.  This  construction  it  was  of  the 
Danube's  course  which  subsequently,  upon  his  hearing 
of  a  corresponding  western  limb  for  the  Nile,  led  him 
to  perceive  the  completion  of  that  analogy  between 
the  two  rivers,  its  absolute  perfection,  which  already 
he  had  partially  suspected.  Their  very  figurations 
now  appeared  to  reflect  and  repeat  each  other  in 
solemn  mimicry,  as  previously  he  had  discovered  the 
mimical  correspondence  of  their  functions ;  for  this 
latter  doctrine  had  been  revealed  to  him  by  the  Egyp- 
tian priests,  then  the  chief  depositaries  of  Egyptian 
learning.  They  had  informed  him,  and  evidently  had 
persuaded  him,  that  already  more  than  once  the  sun 
had  gone  round  to  the  region  of  Europe  ;  pursuing 
his  diurnal  arch  as  far  to  the  north  of  Greece  as  now 
he  did  to  the  south  ;  and  carrying  in  his  equipage  all 
the  changes  of  every  kind  which  were  required  to 
make  Scythia  an  Egypt,  and  consequently  to  make 
the  Istros  a  Nile.  The  same  annual  swelling  then 
filled  the  channel  of  the  Danube,  which  at  present 
gladdens  the  Nile.  The  same  luxuriance  of  vegeta- 
tion succeeded  as  a  dowry  to  the  gay  summer-land  of 
Trans-Euxine  and  Para-Danubian  Europe,  which  for 
thousands  of  years  had  seemed  the  peculiar  heirloom 
of  Egypt.  Old  Boreas  ■■ —  we  are  glad  of  that  —  was 
required  to  pack  up  '  his  alls,'  and  be  off ;  his  new 
business  was  to  plague  the  black  rascals,  and  to  bake 
them  ^v^ith  hoar-frost ;  which  must  have  caused  them 
to  shake  their  earn  in  some  astonishment  for  a  fe^v 


PHILOSOPHY    OF  HERODOTUS, 


409 


centuxies,  until  they  got  used  to  it.  Whereas  '  the 
sweet  south  wind '  of  the  ancient  mariner,  leaving 
Africa,  pursued  '  the  mariner's  holloa,  all  over  the 
Euxine  and  the  Palus  McEotis.  The  Danube,  in  short, 
became  the  Nile ;  and  the  same  deadly  curiosity 
haunted  its  fountains.  So  that  many  a  long-legged 
Bruce  would  strike  off  in  those  days  towards  Charlotte 
Square.  But  all  in  vain:  'Nec  licuit  populis '  —  or 
stop,  to  save  the  metre  — 

'  Nec  poteras,  Charlotte,  populis  turn  parva  videri.' 

Nobody  would  reach  the  fountains ;  particularly  as 
there  would  be  another  arm,  El-Abiad  or  white  river, 
perhaps  at  Stockbridge.  However,  the  explorers  must 
have  '  burned '  strongly  (as  children  say  at  hide-and- 
seek)  when  they  attained  a  point  so  near  to  the  foun- 
tains as  Blackwood' s  Magazine^  which  doubtless  was 
going  on  pretty  well  in  those  days. 

We  are  sorry  that  Herodotus  should  have  been  so 
vague  and  uncircumstantial  in  his  account  of  these 
vicissitudes ;  since  it  is  pretty  evident  to  any  man  who 
reflects  on  the  case  —  that,  had  he  pursued  the  train 
of  changes  inevitable  to  Egypt  under  the  one  single 
revolution  affecting  the  Nile  itself  as  a  slime-depositing 
river,  his  judicious  intellect  would  soon  have  descried 
the  obliteration  of  the  whole  Egyptian  valley,  [else- 
where he  himself  calls  that  valley  §wqov  tov  NsiXov  ~  a 
gift  of  the  Nile,]  consequently  the  obliteration  of  the 
people,  consequently  the  immemorial  extinction  of  all 
those  records  —  or,  if  they  were  posterior  to  the  last 
revolution  in  favor  of  Egypt,  at  any  rate  of  the  one 
record  —  which  could  have  transmitted  the  memory  of 
such  an  astonishing  transfer.    Meantime  the  reader  is 


410  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HEROD  :rUS 

now  in  possession  of  the  whole  theory  contemplated 
by  Herodotus.  It  was  no  mere  lusus  naturcE  that  the 
one  river  repeated  the  other,  and,  as  it  were,  mocked 
the  other  in  form  and  geographical  relations.  It  was 
no  joke  that  lurked  under  that  mask  of  resemblance. 
Each  was  the  other  alternately.  It  was  the  case  of 
Castor  and  Pollux,  one  brother  rising  as  the  other  set. 
The  Danube  could  always  comfort  himself  with  the 
idea  —  that  he  was  the  Nile  '  elect ; '  the  other,  oi 
provisional  Nile,  only  '  continuing  to  hold  the  seals 
until  his  successor  should  be  installed  in  office.'  The 
Nile,  in  fact,  appears  to  have  the  best  of  it  in  our 
time  ;  but  then  there  is  '  a  braw  time  coming,'  and 
after  all,  swelling  as  he  is  w  ith  annual  conceit,  Father 
Nile,  in  parliamentary  phrase,  is  but  the  '  warming- 
pan  '  for  the  Danube  ;  keeping  the  office  warm  for 
him.  A  new  administration  is  formed,  and  out  he 
goes  bag  and  baggage. 

It  is  less  important,  however,  for  us,  though  far  more 
so  for  the  two  rivers,  to  speculate  on  the  reversion  of 
their  final  prospects,  than  upon  the  present  symbols 
of  this  reversion  in  the  unity  of  their  forms.  That  is, 
it  less  concerns  us  to  deduce  the  harmony  of  their 
functions  from  the  harmony  of  their  geographical 
courses,  than  to  abide  by  the  inverse  argument  —  that, 
where  the  former  harmony  was  so  loudly  inferred 
from  the  latter,  at  any  rate,  that  fact  will  demonstrate 
vhe  existence  of  the  latter  harmony  in  the  judgment 
and  faith  of  Herodotus.  He  could  not  possibly  have 
insisted  on  the  analogy  between  the  two  channels 
geographically,  as  good  in  logic  for  authenticating  a 
Beciet  and  prophetic  analogy  between  their  alternating 
offices,  but  that  at  least  he  must  firmly  have  believed 


PHILOSOPHY   or   HEKODOTCrS.  411 

in  tlie  first  of  these  analogies  —  as  already  existing  and 
open  to  the  verification  of  the  human  eye.  The  second 
or  ulterior  analogy  might  be  false,  and  yet  affect  only 
its  own  separate  credit,  whilst  the  falsehood  of  the  first 
was  ruinous  to  the  credit  of  both.  Whence  it  is  evi- 
dent that  of  the  two  resemblances  in  form  and  function, 
the  resemblance  in  form  was  the  least  disputable  of  the 
two  for  Herodotus. 

This  argument,  and  the  others  which  we  have  indi- 
cated, and  amongst  those  others,  above  all,  the  position 
of  the  Danube's  mouths  right  over  against  a  city  situ- 
ated as  was  Sinope,  —  i.  e.  not  doubtfully  emerging 
from  either  flank  of  the  Euxine,  west  or  east,  but 
broadly  and  almost  centrally  planted  on  the  southern 
basis  of  that  sea,  —  we  offer  as  a  body  of  demonstra- 
tive proof,  that,  to  the  mature  faith  of  Herodotus,  the 
Danube  or  Istros  ran  north  and  south  in  its  Euxine 
section,  and  that  its  right-angled  section  ran  west  and 
east  —  a  very  important  element  towards  the  true 
Europe  of  Herodotus,  which,  as  we  contend,  has  not 
)et  been  justly  conceived  or  figured  by  his  geographi- 
cal commentators. 

III.  —  On  the  Africa  of  Herodotus, 

There  is  an  amusing  blunder  on  this  subject  com- 
mitted by  Major  Rennell.  How  often  do  we  hear 
people  commenting  on  the  Scriptures,  and  raising  up 
aerial  edifices  of  argument,  in  which  every  iota  of  the 
.  ogic  rests,  unconsciously  to  themselves,  upon  the  acci- 
dental words  of  the  English  version,  and  melts  away 
when  applied  to  the  original  text ;  so  that,  in  fact,  the 
whole  has  no  more  strength  than  if  it  were  built  upon 

pun  or  an  equivoque.    Such  is  the  blunder  of  the 

I 

1 


412  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERODOTUS. 

excellent  Major.  And  it  is  not  timidly  expressed.  Av 
p.  410,  Geog.  Hist,  of  Herodotus^  he  thus  delivers 
himself:  —  '  Although  the  term  Lybia  '  (so  thus  does 
Rennell  always  spell  it,  instead  of  Libya)  '  is  occa- 
sionally used  by  Herodotus  as  synonymous  to  Africa, 
(especially  in  Melpom.^  &c.  &c.)  yet  it  is  almost  ex- 
clusively applied  to  that  part  bordering  on  the  Mediter- 
ranean Sea  between  the  Greater  Syrtis  and  Egypt ;  ' 
and  he  concludes  the  paragraph  thus  :  —  'So  that 
Africa,  and  not  Lybia,  is  the  term  generally  employed 
oy  Herodotus.'  We  stared  on  reading  these  words,  as 
Aladdin  stared  when  he  found  his  palace  missing,  and 
the  old  thief,  who  had  bought  his  lamp,  trotting  off 
with  it  on  his  back  far  beyond  the  bills  of  mortality. 
iSTaturally  we  concluded  that  it  was  ourselves  who  must 
be  dreaming,  and  not  the  Major  ;  so,  taking  a  bed- 
candle,  off  we  marched  to  bed.  But  the  next  morning, 
ftir  clear  and  frosty,  ourselves  as  sagacious  as  a  grey- 
hound, we  pounced  at  first  sight  on  the  self-same  words. 
Thus,  after  all,  it  was  the  conceit  mantling  in  our  brain 
(of  being  in  that  instance  a  cut  above  the  Major)  which 
turned  out  to  be  the  sober  truth  ;  and  our  modesty,  our 
sobriety  of  mind,  it  was  which  turned  out  a  windy 
tympany.  Certainly,  said  we,  if  this  be  so,  and  that 
the  word  Africa  is  really  standing  in  Herodotus,  then 
it  must  be  like  that  secret  island  called  'EX^w^  lying  in 
:?ome  Egyptian  lake,  which  was  reported  to  Herodotus 
as  having  concealed  itself  from  human  eyes  for  five 
hundred  and  four  years  —  a  capital  place  it  must  have 
been  against  duns  and  the  sheriff ;  for  it  was  an  Eng- 
ish  mile  in  diameter,  and  yet  no  man  could  see  it  until 
a  fugitive  king,  happening  to  be  hard  pressed  in  the 
rear,  dived  into  the  water,  and  came  up  to  the  light  in 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  HEBODOTUS.  il3 

the  good  little  island  ;  where  he  lived  happily  for  fifty 
years,  and  every  day  got  bousy  as  a  piper,  in  spite  of 
all  his  enemies,  who  were  roaming  about  the  lake  night 
and  day  to  catch  his  most  gracious  majesty.  He  was 
king  of  Elbo,  at  least,  if  he  had  no  particular  subjects 
but  himself,  as  Nap  was  in  our  days  of  Elba  ;  and 
perhaps  both  were  less  plagued  with  rebels  than  when 
sitting  on  the  ampler  thrones  of  Egypt  and  France. 
But  surely  the  good  Major  must  have  dreamed  a  dream 
about  this  word  Africa ;  for  how  would  it  look  in  Ionic 
Greek —  I4^~(jiy.i]  ?  Did  any  man  ever  see  such  a  word  ? 
However,  let  not  the  reader  believe  that  we  are  tri^ 
umphing  meanly  in  the  advantage  of  our  Greek. 
Milton,  in  one  of  his  controversial  works,  exposing  an 
insolent  antagonist  who  pretended  to  a  knowledge  of 
Hebrew,  which  in  fact  he  had  not,  remarks,  that  the 
man  must  be  ignoble,  whoever  he  were,  that  would 
catch  at  a  spurious  credit,  though  it  were  but  from  a 
language  which  really  he  did  not  understand.  But  so 
far  was  Major  Bennell  from  doing  this,  that,  whon  no 
call  upon  him  existed  for  saying  one  word  upon  the 
subject,  frankly  he  volunteered  a  confession  to  all  the 
world  —  that  Greek  he  had  none.  The  marvel  is  the 
greater  that,  as  Saunderson,  blind  from  his  infancy, 
was  the  best  lecturer  on  colors  early  in  the  eighteenth 
century,  so  by  far  the  best  commentator  on  the  Greek 
Herodotus  has  proved  to  be  a  military  man,  who  knew 
nothing  at  all  of  Greek.  Yes,  mark  the  excellence  of 
upright  dealing.  Had  Major  Rennell  pretended  to 
Greek,  were  it  but  as  much  as  went  to  the  spelling  of 
ihe  word  Africa,  here  was  he  a  lost  man.  Blackwood/ s 
Magazine  would  now  have  exposed  him.  Whereas, 
things  being  as  they  are,  we  respect  him  and  admire 


114  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERODOTUS. 

him  sincerely.  And,  as  to  his  wajiting  this  one  accom- 
plisliment,  every  man  wants  some.  We  ourselves  can 
neither  dance  a  hornpipe  nor  whistle  Jim  Crow,  without 
driving  the  whole  musical  world  into  black  despair. 

Africa,  meantime,  is  a  word  imported  into  Herod- 
otus by  Mr.  Beloe  ;  whose  name,  we  have  been  given 
to  understand,  was  pronounced  like  that  of  our  old 
domesticated  friend  the  bellows,  shorn  of  the  s ;  and 
whose  translation,  judging  from  such  extracts  as  we 
have  seen  in  books,  may  be  better  than  Littlebury's : 
but,  if  so,  we  should  be  driven  into  a  mournful  opinion 
of  Mr.  Littlebury.  Strange  that  nearly  all  the  classics, 
Roman  as  well  as  Greek,  should  be  so  meanly  repre- 
sented by  their  English  reproducers.  The  French 
translators,  it  is  true,  are  worse  as  a  body.  But  in  this 
particular  instance  of  Herodotus  they  have  a  respecta- 
ble translator.  Larcher  read  Greek  sufficiently  ;  and 
was  as  much  master  of  his  author's  peculiar  learning 
as  any  one  general  commentator  that  can  be  men- 
tioned. 

But  Africa  the  thing,  not  Africa  the  name,  is  that 
which  puzzles  all  students  of  Herodotus,  as,  mdeed, 
no  little  it  puzzled  Herodotus  himself.  Ilennell  makes 
one  difficulty  where  in  fact  there  is  none  ;  viz.  that 
sometimes  Herodotus  refers  Egypt  to  Libya,  and 
sometimes  refuses  to  do  so.  But  in  this  there  is  no 
inconsistency,  and  no  forgetfulness.  Herodotus  wisely 
adopted  the  excellent  rule  of  '  thinking  with  the 
learned,  and  talking  with  the  people.'  Having  once 
firmly  explained  his  reasons  for  holding  Egypt  to  be 
neither  an  Asiatic  nor  an  African,  but  the  neutral 
frontier  artificially  created  by  the  Nile,  as  a  long  cor- 
ridor of  separation  between  Asia  and  Africa,  after- 


riiiLosoPHY  or  herodoxus.  415 

jvards,  and  generally,  lie  is  too  little  of  a  pedant  to 
make  war  upon  current  forms  of  speech.  What  is  the 
use  of  drawing  off  men's  attention,  in  questions  about 
things^  by  impertinent  provisions  of  diction  or  by  alien 
theories  ?  Some  people  have  made  it  a  question  — 
Whether  Great  Britain  were  not  extra  European  ?  and 
the  Island  of  Crete  is  generally  assumed  to  be  so. 
Some  lawyers  also,  nay,  some  courts  of  justice,  have 
entertained  the  question  —  Whether  a  man  could  be 
held  related  to  his  own  mother  ?  Not  as  though  too 
remotely  related,  but  as  too  nearly,  and  in  fact  absorbed 
within  the  lunar  beams.  Yet,  in  all  such  cases,  the 
publicist  —  the  geographer  —  the  lawyer,  continue  to 
talk  as  other  people  do  ;  and,  assuredly,  the  lawyer 
would  regard  a  witness  as  perjured  who  should  say,  in 
speaking  of  a  woman  notoriously  his  mother,  '  Oh !  I 
do  assure  you.  Sir,  the  woman  is  no  relation  of  mine.' 
The  world  of  that  day  (and,  indeed,  it  is  not  much 
more  candid  even  now)  would  have  it  that  Libya  com- 
prehended Egypt ;  and  Herodotus,  like  the  wise  man 
that  he  was,  having  once  or  twice  lodged  his  protest 
L\gainst  that  idea,  then  replies  to  the  world  —  '  Very 
well,  if  you  say  so,  it  is  so  ; '  precisely  as  Petruchio's 
wife,  to  soothe  her  mad  husband,  agrees  that  the  sun  is 
the  moon  ;  and,  back  again,  that  it  is  not  the  moon. 

Here  there  is  no  real  difficulty ;  for  the  arguments 
of  Herodotus  are  of  two  separate  classes,  and  both  too 
strong  to  leave  any  doubt  that  his  private  opinion  never 
varied  by  a  hair's  breadth  on  this  question.  And  it 
was  a  question  far  from  verbal,  of  which  any  man 
may  convince  himself  by  reflecting  on  the  disputes,  at 
different  periods,  with  regard  to  Macedon  (both  Mace- 
donis  the  original  germ,  and  Macedonia  the  expanded 


416 


PHILOSOPHY   or  HERODOTUS. 


kingdom)  as  a  claimant  of  co-membership  in  the  house- 
hold of  Greece  ;  or  on  the  disputes,  more  angry  if  less 
scornful,  between  Carthage  and  Cyrene  as  to  the  true 
limits  between  the  daughter  of  Tyre  and  the  daughter 
of  Greece.  The  very  color  of  the  soil  in  Egypt  — 
the  rich  black  loam,  precipitated  by  the  creative  river 
—  already  symbolized  to  Herodotus  the  deep  repulsion 
lying  between  Egypt  on  the  one  side,  and  Libya,  where 
all  was  red  ;  between  Egypt  on  the  one  side,  and  Asia, 
where  all  was  calcined  into  white  sand.  And,  as  to 
the  name,  does  not  the  reader  catch  us  still  using  the 
word  '  Africa  '  instead  of  Libya,  after  all  our  sparring 
against  that  word  as  scarcely  known  by  possibility  to 
Herodotus  ? 

But,  beyond  this  controversy  as  to  the  true  marches 
or  frontier  lines  of  the  two  great  continents  in  com- 
mon —  Asia  and  Africa  —  there  was  another  and  a 
more  grave  one  as  to  the  size,  shape  and  limitations 
of  Africa  in  particular.  It  is  true  that  both  Europe 
and  Asia  were  imperfectly  defined  for  Herodotus. 
But  he  fancied  otherwise ;  for  them  he  could  trace  a 
vague,  rambling  outline.  Not  so  for  Africa,  unless  a 
great  event  in  Egyptian  records  were  adopted  for 
true.  This  was  the  voyage  of  circumnavigation  ac- 
complished under  the  orders  of  Pharaoh  Necho.  Dis- 
allowing this  earliest  recorded  Periplus,  then  no  man 
.  ould  say  of  Africa  whether  it  were  a  large  island  or 
%  boundless  continent  having  no  outline  traceable  by 
man,  or  (which,  doubtless,  would  have  been  the 
favorite  creed)  whether  it  were  not  a  technical  akte 
such  as  Asia  Minor  ;  that  is,  not  a  peninsula  like  the 
Peloponnesus,  or  the  tongues  of  land  near  Mount 
Athos  —  because  in  that  case  the  idea   required  a 


PHILOSOPHY   OF  HEKODOTUS.  417 

narrow  neck  or  isthmus  at  the  point  of  junction  with 
the  adjacent  continent  —  but  a  square,  tabular  plate 
of  ground,  '  a  block  of  ground  '  (as  the  Americans 
Bay)  having  three  sides  washed  by  some  sea,  but  a 
fourth  side  absolutely  untouched  by  any  sea  whatever. 
On  this  word  akte^  as  a  term  but  recently  drawn  out 
of  obscurity,  we  shall  say  a  word  or  two  further  on ; 
at  present  we  proceed  with  the  great  African  Periplus, 
We,  like  the  rest  of  this  world,  held  this  to  be  a  pur<a 
fable,  so  long  as  we  had  never  anxiously  studied  the 
ancient  geography,  and  consequently  had  never  medi- 
tated on  the  circumstances  of  this  story  under  the 
light  of  that  geography,  or  of  the  current  astronomy. 
But  we  have  since  greatly  changed  our  opinion.  And, 
though  it  would  not  have  shaken  that  opinion  to  find 
Rennell  dissenting,  undoubtedly  it  much  strengthened 
our  opinion  to  find  so  cautious  a  judge  concurring. 
Perhaps  the  very  strongest  argument  in  favor  of  the 
voyage,  if  we  speak  of  any  single  argument,  is  that 
which  Rennell  insists  on  —  namely,  the  sole  circum- 
stance reported  by  the  voyagers  which  Herodotus 
pronounced  incredible,  the  assertion  that  in  one  part 
of  it  they  had  the  sun  on  the  right  hand.  And  as  we 
have  always  found  young  students  at  a  loss  for  the 
meaning  of  that  expression,  since  naturally  it  struck 
them  that  a  man  might  bring  the  sun  at  any  place 
on  either  hand,  or  on  neither,  we  will  stop  for  one 
moment  to  explain,  for  the  use  of  such  readers  and 
\adies,  that,  as  in  military  descriptions,  you  are  always 
presumed  to  look  down  the  current  of  a  river,  so  that 
the  '  right '  bank  of  the  Rhine,  for  instance,  is  always 
to  a  soldier  the  German  bank,  the  '  left '  always  the 
French  bank,  in  contempt  of  the  traveller's  position; 
27 


118  PHILOSOPHY  OP  HERODOTUS. 

SO,  in  speaking  of  the  sun,  you  are  presumed  tc  place 
your  back  to  the  east,  and  to  accompany  him  on  his 
daily  route.  In  that  position,  it  will  be  impossible  for 
a  man  in  our  latitudes  to  bring  the  sun  on  his  right 
shoulder,  since  the  sun  never  even  rises  to  be  verti- 
cally over  his  head.  First,  when  he  goes  south  so  far 
as  to  enter  the  northern  tropic,  would  such  a  phe- 
nomenon be  possible  ?  and  if  he  persisted  in  going 
beyond  the  equator  and  southern  tropic,  then  he  would 
find  all  things  inverted  as  regards  our  hemisphere. 
Then  he  would  find  it  as  impossible,  when  moving 
concurrently  with  the  sun,  not  to  have  the  sun  on 
his  right  hand,  as  with  us  to  realize  that  phenomenon. 
.  Now,  it  is  very  clear,  that  if  the  Egyptian  voyagers 
did  actually  double  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  so  far  to 
the  south  of  the  equator,  then,  by  mere  necessity,  this 
inexplicable  phenomenon  (for  to  them  it  was  inexpli- 
cable) would  pursue  them  for  months  in  succession. 
Here  is  the  point  in  this  argument  which  we  would 
press  on  the  reader's  consideration ;  and,  inadver- 
tently, Rennell  has  omitted  this  aspect  of  the  argu- 
ment altogether.  To  Herodotus,  as  we  have  seen,  it 
was  so  absolutely  incredible  a  romance,  that  he  re- 
jected it  summarily.  And  why  not,  therefore,  'go  the 
whole  hog,'  and  reject  the  total  voyage,  when  thus  in 
his  view  partially  discredited  r  That  question  recalls 
lis  to  the  certainty  that  there  must  have  been  otJier 
proofs,  independent  of  this  striking  allegation,  too 
strong  to  allow  of  scepticism  in  this  wise  man's  mind. 
He  fancied  (and  with  his  theory  of  the  heavens,  in 
vvhich  there  was  no  equator,  no  central  limit,  no  prov- 
ince of  equal  tropics  on  either  hand  of  that  limit, 
could  he  have  done  otherwise  than  fancy  ?)  that  Jack; 


PHILOSOPHY  or  HERODOTUS. 


419 


aftei  his  long  voyage,  having  then  no  tobacco  for  his 
recreation,  and  no  grog,  took  out  his  allowance  in  the 
shape  of  wonder- making.  He  '  bounced  '  a  little,  he 
'  Cretized ; '  and  who  could  be  angry  ?  And  laugha- 
ble it  is  to  reflect,  that,  like  the  poor  credulous  mother, 
who  listened  complacently  to  her  sea-fearing  son  whilst 
using  a  Sinbad's  license  of  romancing,  but  gravely 
reproved  him  for  the  sin  of  untruth  when  he  told  her 
of  flying  fish,  or  some  other  simple  zoological  fact  — 
so  Herodotus  would  have  made  careful  memoranda 
of  this  Egyptian  voyage  had  it  told  of  men  '  whose 
heads  do  grow  beneath  their  shoulders,'  (since,  if  he 
himself  doubted  about  the  one-eyed  Arimaspians,  he 
yet  thought  the  legend  entitled  to  a  report,)  but  scouted 
with  all  his  energy  the  one  great  truth  of  the  Periplus, 
and  eternal  monument  of  its  reality,  as  a  fable  too 
monstrous  for  toleration.  On  the  other  hand,  for  us, 
who  know  its  truth,  and  how  inevadihly  it  must  have 
haunted  for  months  the  Egyptians  in  the  face  of  all 
their  previous  impressions,  it  ought  to  stand  for  an 
argument,  strong  '  as  proofs  of  holy  writ,'  that  the 
voyage  did  really  take  place.  There  is  exactly  one 
possibility,  but  a  very  slight  one,  that  this  truth  might 
have  been  otherwise  learned  —  learned  independently; 
and  that  is,  from  the  chance  that  those  same  Africans 
of  the  interior  who  had  truly  reported  the  Niger  to 
Herodotus,  (though  erroneously  as  a  section  of  the 
Nile,)  might  simultaneously  have  reported  the  phenom- 
ena of  the  sun's  course.  But  we  reply  to  that  possible 
suggestion — that  in  fact  it  could  scarcely  have  hap- 
pened. Many  other  remarkable  phenomena  of  Nigri- 
tia  had  not  bsen  reported ;  or  had  been  dropped  out  of 
^he  record  as  idle  or  worthless.    Secondly,  as  slaves 


420 


PHILOSOPHY   or  HERODOTUS. 


they  would  have  obtained  little  credit,  except  when 
falling  in  with  a  previous  idea  or  belief.  Thirdly, 
none  of  these  men  would  be  derived  from  any  place 
to  the  south  of  the  line,  still  less  south  of  the  southern 
tropic.  Generally  they  would  belong  to  the  northern 
tropic  :  and  (that  being  premised)  what  would  have 
been  the  true  form  of  the  report  ?  Not  that  they  had 
the  sun  on  the  right  hand ;  but  that  sometimes  he  was 
directly  vertical,  sometimes  on  the  left  hand,  some- 
times on  the  right.  '  What,  ye  black  villains  !  The 
sun,  that  never  was  known  to  change,  unless  when  he 
reeled  a  little  at  seeing  the  anthropophagous  banquet 
of  Thyestes,  —  he  to  dance  cotillions  in  this  absurd 
way  up  and  down  the  heavens,  —  why,  hamstringing 
is  too  light  a  punishment  for  such  insults  to  Apollo,'  — 
so  would  a  Greek  have  spoken.  And,  at  least,  if  the 
report  had  survived  at  all,  it  would  have  been  in  thih 
shape  —  as  the  report  of  an  uncertain  movement  in 
the  African  sun. 

But  as  a  regular  nautical  report  made  to  the  Pharaoh 
of  the  day,  as  an  extract  from  the  log-book,  for  this 
reason  it  must  be  received  as  unanswerable  evidence, 
as  an  argument  that  7iever  Qdin.  be  surmounted  on  be- 
half of  the  voyage,  that  it  contradicted  all  theories 
whatsoever  —  Greek  no  less  than  Egyptian —  and  v/as 
irreconcilable  with  all  systems  that  the  wit  of  men  had 
yet  devised  [viz.,  two  centuries  before  Herodotus]  for 
explaining  the  solar  motions.  Upon  this  logic  we  will 
take  our  stand.  Here  is  the  strong-hold,  the  citadel,  of 
the  truth.  Many  a  thing  has  been  fabled,  many  a  thing 
carefully  passed  down  by  tradition  as  a  fact  of  abso- 
lute experience,  simply  because  it  fell  in  with  some 
previous  fancy  or  prejudice  of  men.    And  even  Baron. 


PHILOSOPHY   OF  HERODOTUS. 


421 


MunchauseD's  amusing  falsehoods,  if  examined  by  a 
logician,  vill  uniformly  be  found  squared  or  adjusted; 
not  indeed  to  a  belief,  but  to  a  whimsical  sort  of  plausi- 
bility, that  reconciles  the  mind  to  the  extravagance  for 
the  single  instant  that  is  required.  If  he  drives  up  a 
hill  of  snow,  and  next  morning  finds  his  horse  and  gig 
hanging  from  the  top  of  a  church  steeple,  the  mon- 
strous fiction  is  still  countenanced  by  the  sudden  thaw 
tliat  had  taken  place  in  the  night-time,  and  so  far 
physically  possible  as  to  be  removed  beyond  the  limits 
of  magic.  And  the  very  disgust,  which  revolts  us  in.- 
a  supplement  to  the  baron,  that  we  remember  to  have 
seen,  arises  from  the  neglect  of  those  smooth  plausi- 
bilities. We  are  there  summoned  to  believe  blank 
impossibilities,  without  a  particle  of  the  baron's  most 
ingenious  and  winning  speciousness  of  preparation. 
The  baron  candidly  admits  the  impossibility;  faces  it; 
regrets  it  for  the  sake  of  truth  :  but  a  fact  is  e.  fact ; 
and  he  puts  it  to  our  equity  —  whether  we  also  have  not 
met  with  strange  events.  And  never  in  a  single  instance 
does  the  baron  build  upwards,  without  a  massy  founda- 
tion of  specious  physical  possibility.  Whereas  the  fic- 
tion, if  it  had  been  a  fiction,  recorded  by  Herodotus, 
is  precisely  of  that  order  which  must  have  roused  the 
^  incredulus  odi'  in  the  fulness  of  perfection.  Neither 
in  the  wisdom  of  man,  nor  in  his  follies,  was  there  one 
resource  for  mitigating  the  disgust  which  would  have 
pursued  it.  This  powerful  reason  for  believing  the 
main  fact  of  the  circumnavigation  —  let  the  reader, 
courteous  or  not,  if  he  is  but  the  logical  reader,  conde- 
scend to  balance  in  his  judgment. 

Other  arguments,  only  less  strong  on  behalf  of  the 
voyage,  we  will  not  here  notice  —  except  this  one. 


422 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


most  reasonably  urged  by  Kennell,  from  bis  peculiai 
familiarity,  even  in  that  day,  (1799,)  with  the  currents 
and  the  prevalent  winds  of  the  Indian  Ocean  ;  viz., 
that  such  a  circumnavigation  of  Africa  was  almost 
sure  to  prosper  if  commenced  from  the  Red  Sea,  (as 
it  was,)  and  even  more  sure  to  fail  if  taken  in  the 
inverse  order ;  that  is  to  say,  through  the  Straits  of 
Gibraltar,  and  so  down  the  western  shore  of  Africa  in 
the  first  place.  Under  that  order,  which  was  peculiarly 
tempting  for  two  reasons  to  the  Carthaginian  sailor  or 
a  Phoenician,  Rennell  has  shown  how  all  the  currents, 
the  monsoons^  &;c.,  would  baffie  the  navigator  ;  whilst, 
taken  in  the  opposite  series,  they  might  easily  co- 
operate with  the  bold  enterpriser,  so  as  to  waft  him,  if 
once  starting  at  a  proper  season,  almost  to  the  Cape, 
before  (to  use  Sir  Bingo  Binks'  phrase)  he  could  say 
dumpling.  Accordingly,  a  Persian  nobleman  of  high 
rank,  having  been  allowed  to  commute  his  sentence 
of  capital  punishment  for  that  of  sailing  round  Africa, 
did  actually  fail  from  the  cause  developed  by  Rennell. 
Naturally  he  had  a  Phoenician  crew,  as  the  king's  best 
nautical  subjects.  Naturally  they  preferred  the  false 
route.  Naturally  they  failed.  And  the  nobleman, 
returning  from  transportation  before  his  time,  as  well 
as  re  infectd,  was  executed. 

But  (ah,  villanous  word  !)  some  ugly  objector  puts 
in  his  oar,  and  demands  to  know  —  why,  if  so  vast  an 
event  had  actually  occurred,  it  could  have  ever  been 
forgotten,  or  at  all  have  faded  ?  To  this  we  answer 
briefly,  what  properly  ought  to  form  a  separate  section 
in  our  notice  of  Herodotus.  The  event  was  not  so 
vast  as  we,  with  our  present  knowledge  of  Africa, 
should  regard  it. 


PHILOSOPHY   OF   HERODOTUS.  423 

This  is  a  very  interesting  aspect  of  the  subject.  We 
taugli  long  and  loud  when  we  hear  De-s  Cartes  (great 
man  as  he  was)  laying  it  down  amongst  the  golden 
inles  for  guiding  his  studies,  that  he  would  guard  him- 
self against  all  '  prejudices  ; '  because  we  know  that 
when  a  prejudice  of  any  class  whatever  is  seen  as  such, 
when  it  is  recognized  for  a  prejudice,  from  that  moment 
it  ceases  to  he  a  prejudice.  Those  are  the  true  baffling 
prejudices  for  man,  which  he  never  suspects  for  preju- 
dices. How  widely,  from  the  truisms  of  experience, 
could  we  illustrate  this  truth  !  But  we  abstain.  We 
content  ourselves  with  this  case.  Even  Major  Rennell, 
starting  semi-consciously  from  his  own  previous  know- 
ledge, (the  fruit  of  researches  a  thousand  years  later 
than  Herodotus,)  lays  down  an  Africa  at  least  ten 
times  too  great  for  meeting  the  Greek  idea.  Unavoid- 
ably Herodotus  knew  the  Mediterranean  dimensions  of 
Africa  ;  else  he  would  have  figured  it  to  himself  as  an 
island,  equal  perhaps  to  Greece,  Macedon  and  Thrace. 
As  it  was,  there  is  no  doubt  to  us,  from  many  indica- 
tions, that  'the  Libya  of  Herodotus,  after  all,  did  not 
exceed  the  total  bulk  of  Asia  Minor  carried  eastwards 
to  the  Tigris.  But  there  is  not  such  an  awful  corrupter 
of  truth  in  the  whole  world  —  there  is  not  such  an 
unconquerable  enslaver  of  men's  minds  —  as  the  blind 
instinct  by  which  they  yield  to  the  ancient  root-bound, 
trebly-anchored  prejudications  of  their  childhood  and 
original  belief.  Misconceive  us  not,  reader.  We  do 
not  mean  that,  having  learned  such  and  such  doctrines, 
afterwards  they  cling  to  them  by  affection.  Not  at  all. 
We  mean  that,  duped  by  a  word  and  the  associations 
clinging  to  it,  they  cleave  to  certain  notions,  not  from 
dny  partiality  to  them,  but  because  this  pre-occupati.oii 


424  PHILOSOPHY   OF  HERODOrUS. 

intercepts  the  very  earliest  dawn  of  a  possible  concep« 
tion  or  conjecture  in  the  opposite  direction.  The  most 
tremendous  error  in  human  annals  is  of  that  order.  It 
has  existed  for  seventeen  centuries  in  strength  ;  and 
is  not  extinct,  though  public  in  its  action,  as  upon 
another  occasion  we  shall  show.  In  this  case  of  Africa, 
it  was  not  that  men  resisted  the  truth  according  to  the 
ordinary  notion  of  a  'prejudice;'  it  was  that  every 
commentator  in  succession  upon  Herodotus,  coming  to 
the  case  with  the  fullest  knowledge  that  Africa  was  a 
vast  continent,  ranging  far  and  wide  in  both  hemis- 
pheres, unconsciously  slipped  into  the  feeling,  that  this 
had  always  been  the  belief  of  men  ;  possibly  some 
might  a  little  fall  short  of  the  true  estimate,  some  a 
little  exceed  it  ;  but  that,  on  the  whole,  it  was  at  least 
as  truly  figured  to  men's  minds  as  either  of  the  two 
other  continents.  Accordingly,  one  and  all  have  pre- 
sumed a  bulk  for  the  Libya  of  Herodotus  absolutely 
at  war  with  the  whole  indications.  And  if  they  had 
once  again  read  Herodotus  under  the  guiding  light 
furnished  by  a  blank  denial  of  this  notion,  they  would 
have  found  a  meaning  in  many  a  word  of  Herodotus, 
such  as  they  never  suspected  whilst  trying  it  only 
from  one  side.  In  this  blind  submission  to  a  preju- 
dice of  words  and  clustering  associations,  Rennell  also 
shares. 

It  will  be  retorted,  however,  that  the  long  time 
allowed  by  Herodotus  for  the  voyage  argues  a  corres- 
ponding amplitude  of  dimensions.  Doubtless  a  time 
upwards  of  two  years,  is  long  for  a  modern  Periplus, 
even  of  that  vast  continent.  But  Herodotus  knew 
nothing  of  monsoons,  or  trade-winds  or  currents  :  he 
allowed  nothing  for  these  accelerating  forces,  which 


PHILOSOPHY    OP   HERODOTUS.  425 

were  enormous,  though,  allowing  fully  [could  any 
Greek  have  neglected  to  allow  r]  for  all  the  retarding 
forces.  Daily  advances  of  thirty-three  miles  at  most ; 
nightly  reposes,  of  necessity  to  men  without  the  com- 
pass ;  above  all,  a  coasting  navigation,  searching  (if  it 
were  only  for  water)  every  nook  and  inlet,  bay,  and 
river's  mouth,  except  only  where  the  winds  or  currents 
might  violently  sweep  them  past  these  objects.  Then 
we  are  to  allow  for  a  long  stay  on  the  shore  of  Western 
Africa,  for  the  sake  of  reaping,  or  having  reaped  by 
natives,  a  wheat  harvest  —  a  fact  which  strengthens 
the  probability  of  the  voyage,  but  diminishes  the  dis- 
posable time  which  Herodotus  would  use  as  the  expo- 
nent of  the  space.  We  must  remember  the  want  of 
sails  aloft  in  ancient  vessels,  the  awkwardness  of  their 
build  for  fast  sailing,  and,  above  all,  their  cautious 
policy  of  never  tempting  the  deep,  unless  when  the 
wind  would  not  be  denied.  And,  in  the  meantime, 
all  the  compensatory  forces  of  air  and  water,  as  utterly 
unsuspected  by  Herodotus,  we  must  subtract  from  his 
final  summation  of  the  effective  motion,  leaving  for  the 
actual  measure  of  the  sailing,  as  inferred  by  Herodotus 
—  consequently  for  the  measure  of  the  virtual  time, 
consequently  of  the  African  space,  as  only  to  be  col- 
lected from  the  time  so  collected  —  a  very  small  pro- 
portion indeed,  compared  with  the  results  of  a  similar 
voyage,  even  by  the  Portuguese,  about  A.  D.  1500. 
To  Herodotus  we  are  satisfied  that  Libya  (disarming 
it  of  its  power  over  the  world's  mind,  in  the  pompous 
name  of  Africa)  was  not  bigger  than  the  true  Arabia 
as  known  to  ourselves. 

And  hence,  also,  by  a  natural  result,  the  obliteration 
of  this  Periplus  from  the  minds  of  men.    It  accom- 


426  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HEKODOTUS. 

plislied  QO  great  service,  as  men  judged.  It  put  a  zone 
about  a  large  region,  undoubtedly  ;  but  what  sort  of  a 
region  ?  A  mere  worthless  wilderness,  now  &tiQid)di]g, 
dedicated  by  the  gods  to  wild  beasts,  now  a^ifMiig, 
trackless  from  sands,  and  everywhere  fountainless, 
arid,  scorched  (as  they  believed)  in  the  interior.  Sub- 
tract Egypt,  as  not  being  part,  and  to  the  world  of 
civilization  at  that  time  Africa  must  have  seemed  a 
worthless  desert,  except  for  Cyrene  and  Carthage,  its 
two  choice  gardens,  already  occupied  by  Phoenicians 
and  Greeks.  This,  by  the  way,  suggests  a  new  con- 
sideration, viz.  that  even  the  Mediterranean  extent  of 
Africa  must  have  been  unknown  to  Herodotus  —  since 
all  beyond  Carthage,  as  Mauritania,  &c.,  would  wind 
up  into  a  small  inconsiderable  tract,  as  being,  dispuncted 
by  no  great  states  or  colonies. 

Therefore  it  was  that  this  most  interesting  of  all 
circumnavigations  at  the  present  day  did  virtually  and 
could  not  but  perish  as  a  vivid  record.  It  measured  a 
region  which  touched  no  man's  prosperity.  It  recorded 
a  discovery,  for  which  there  was  no  permanent  appre- 
ciator.  A  case  exists  at  this  moment,  in  London,  pre- 
cisely parallel.  There  is  a  chart  of  New  Holland  still 
preserved  among  the  xuuijXia  of  the  British  Museum, 
which  exhibits  a  Periplus  of  that  vast  region,  from 
some  navigator,  almost  by  three  centuries  prior  to 
Captain  Cook.  A  rude  outline  of  Cook's  labors  in 
that  section  had  been  anticipated  at  a  time  when  it  was 
uot  wanted.  Nobody  cared  about  it :  value  it  had  none, 
or  interest ;  and  it  was  utterly  forgotten.  That  it  did 
not  also  perish  in  the  literal  sense,  as  well  as  in  spirit 
was  owing  to  an  accident. 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  HEUODOTUS. 


427 


IV.  —  The  Geographical  Akte  of  Gixece. 

We  had  intended  to  transfer,  for  the  use  of  our 
readers,  the  diagram  imagined  by  Niebuhr  in  illus- 
tration of  this  idea.  But  our  growing  exorbitance 
from  our  limits  warns  us  to  desist.  Two  points  only 
we  shall  notice  :  —  1 .  That  Niebuhr  —  not  the  travel- 
ler, as  might  have  been  expected,  but  his  son,  the  phi- 
losophic historian  —  first  threw  light  on  this  idea,  which 
had  puzzled  multitudes  of  honest  men.  Here  we  see 
the  same  similarity  as  in  the  case  of  Rennell  ;  in  that 
instance,  a  man  without  a  particle  of  Greek,  '  whip- 
ped' (to  speak  Kentuckice)  whole  crowds  of  sleeping 
drones  who  had  more  than  they  could  turn  to  any 
good  account.  And  in  the  other  instance,  we  see  a 
sedentary  scholar,  travelling  chiefly  between  his  study 
and  his  bedroom,  doing  the  work  that  properly  belong- 
ed to  active  travellers.  2.  Though  we  have  already 
given  one  illustration  of  an  Atke  in  Asia  Minor,  it  may 
be  well  to  mention  as  another,  the  vast  region  of  Ara- 
bia. In  fact,  to  Herodotus  the  tract  of  Arabia  and 
Syria  on  the  one  hand,  made  up  one  akte  (the  south- 
ern) for  the  Persian  empire  ;  Asia  Minor,  with  part  of 
Armenia,  made  up  another  akte  (the  western)  for  the 
same  empire  ;  the  two  being  at  right  angles,  and  both 
abutting  on  imaginary  lines  drawn  from  different  points 
of  the  Euphrates. 

V.  —  Chronology  of  Herodotus 
The  commentator  of  Herodotus,  who  enjoys  the 
reputation  of  having  best  unfolded  his  chronology,  is 
the  French  President  Buhier.    We  cannot  say  that 
this  opinion  coincides  with  our  own.    There  is  a  la- 


428 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


mentable  imbecility  in  all  the  chronological  commenta- 
tors, of  two  opposite  tendencies.  Either  they  fall  into 
that  felly  of  drivelling  infidelity,  which  shivers  at  every 
fresh  revelation  of  geology,  and  every  fresh  romance 
of  fabulous  chronology,  as  fatal  to  religious  truths  ;  or, 
with  wiser  feelings  but  equal  silliness,  they  seek  to 
protect  Christianity  by  feeble  parryings,  from  a  danger 
which  exists  only  for  those  who  never  had  any  rational 
principles  of  faith  ;  as  if  the  mighty  spiritual  power 
of  Christianity  were  to  be  thrown  upon  her  defence, 
as  often  as  any  old  woman's  legend  from  Hindostan,. 
(see  Bailly's  Astronomic,)  or  from  Egypt,  (see  the 
whole  series  of  chronological  commentators  on  Herod- 
otus,) became  immeasurably  extravagant,  and  exactly 
in  proportion  to  that  extravagance.  Amongst  these 
latter  chronologers,  perhaps  Larcher  is  the  most  false 
and  treacherous.  He  affects  a  tragical  start  as  often 
as  he  rehearses  the  traditions  of  the  Egyptian  priests, 
and  assumes  a  holy  shuddering.  '  Eh  quoi !  Ce  seroit 
done  ces  gens-la,  qui  auroient  ose  insulter  a  notre 
sainte  religion  ! '  But,  all  the  while,  beneath  his  mask 
the  reader  can  perceive,  not  obscurely,  a  perfidious 
smile  ;  as  on  the  face  of  some  indulgent  mother,  who 
affects  to  menace  with  her  hand  some  favorite  child  at 
a  distance,  whilst  the  present  subject  of  a  stranger's 
complaint,  but,  in  fact,  ill  disguises  her  foolish  applause 
to  its  petulance. 

Two  remarks  only  we  shall  allow  ourselves  upon  this 
extensive  theme,  which,  if  once  entered  in  good  earnest, 
would  go  on  to  a  length  more  than  commensurate  with 
iill  the  rest  of  our  discussion. 

1.  The  three  hundred  and  thirty  kings  of  Egypt, 
'vho  were  interposed  by  the  Egyptian  priests,  between 


PHILOSOPHY   OP  HERODOTUS. 


429 


the  endless  dynasty  of  the  gods,  and  the  pretty  long 
dynasty  of  real  kings,  (the  Shepherds,  the  Pharaohs, 
&c.)  are  upon  this  argument  to  be  objected  us  mere 
unmeaning  fictions,  viz.  that  they  did  nothing.  This 
argument  is  reported  as  a  fact,  {iiot  as  an  argument  of 
rejection,)  by  Herodotus  himself,  and  reported  from 
the  volunteer  testimony  of  the  priests  themselves  ;  so 
that  the  authority  for  the  number  of  kings,  is  also  their 
inertia.  Can  there  be  better  proof  needed,  than  that 
they  were  men  of  straw,  got  up  to  color  the  legend  of 
a  prodigious  antiquity  ?  The  reign  of  the  gods  was 
felt  to  be  somewhat  equivocal,  as  susceptible  of 
allegoric  explanations.  So  this  long  human  dynasty 
is  invented  to  furnish  a  substantial  basis  for  the 
extravagant  genealogy.  Meantime,  the  whole  three 
hundred  and  thirty  are  such  absolute  fainearis,  that, 
confessedly,  not  one  act  —  not  one  monument  of  art 
or  labor  —  is  ascribed  to  their  auspices  ;  whilst  every 
one  of  the  real  unquestionable  sovereigns,  coinciding 
with  known  periods  in  the  tradition  of  Greece,  or 
with  undeniable  events  in  the  divine  simplicity  of  the 
Hebrew  Scriptures,  is  memorable  for  some  warlike  act, 
some  munificent  institution,  or  some  almost  imperish- 
able monument  of  architectural  power. 

2.  But  weaker  even  than  the  fabling  spirit  of  these 
genealogical  inanities,  is  the  idle  attempt  to  explode 
them,  by  turning  the  years  into  days.  In  this  way,  it 
is  true,  we  get  rid  of  pretensions  to  a  cloudy  antiquity, 
by  wholesale  clusters.  The  moonshine  and  the  fairy 
tales  vanish  —  but  how  ?  To  leave  us  ail  in  a  moon- 
less quagmire  of  substantial  difficulties,  from  which 
(as  has  been  suggested  more  than  once)  there  is  no 
extrication  at  all  ;  for  if  the  diurnal  years  are  to  rec* 


430 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  HERODOTUS. 


oncile  us  to  the  three  hundred  and  thirty  kings,  what 
becomes  of  the  incomprehensibly  short  reigns,  (not 
averaging  above  two  or  three  months  for  each,)  on  the 
long  basis  of  time  assumed  by  the  priests  ;  and  this  in 
the  most  peaceful  of  realms,  and  in  fatal  contradiction 
to  another  estimate  of  the  priests,  by  which  the  kings 
are  made  to  tally  with  as  many  yiveai,  or  generations  of 
men  ?  Herodotus,  and  doubtless  the  priests,  under- 
stood a  generation  in  the  sense  then  universally  cur- 
rent, agreeably  to  which,  three  generations  were  valued 
to  a  century. 

But  the  questions  are  endless  which  grow  out  of 
Herodotus.  Pliny's  Natural  History  has  been  usually 
thought  the  greatest  treasure-house  of  ancient  learning. 
Jjut  we  hold  that  Herodotus  furnishes  by  much  the 
largest  basis  for  vast  commentaries  revealing  the  ar- 
chaeologies of  the  human  race :  whilst,  as  the  eldest  of 
prose  writers,  he  justifies  his  majestic  station  as  a 
brotherly  assessor  on  the  same  throne  with  Homer. 


PLATO'S  REPUBLIC. 


There  is  no  reader  who  has  not  heard  of  Solon's 
apologetic  distinction  between  the  actual  system  of 
laws,  framed  by  himself  for  the  Athenian  people, 
under  his  personal  knowledge  of  the  Athenian  temper, 
and  that  better  system  which  he  would  have  framed 
in  a  case  where  either  the  docility  of  the  national 
character  had  been  greater,  or  the  temptations  to 
insubordination  had  been  less.  Something  of  the 
same  distinction  must  be  taken  on  behalf  of  Plato, 
between  the  ideal  form  of  Civil  Polity  which  he  con- 
templated in  the  ten  books  of  his  Republic,  and  the 
practical  form  which  he  contemplated  in  the  thirteen 
books  of  his  Legislative  System^'  In  the  former 
work  he  supposes  himself  to  be  instituting  an  inde- 
pendent state,  on  such  principles  as  were  philosophi- 
cally best ;  in  the  latter,  upon  the  assumption  that 
what  might  be  the  best  as  an  abstraction,  was  not 
always  the  best  as  adapted   to  a  perverse  human 

*  Thirteen  books,  — There  are  twelve  books  of  the  Laws  ;  but 
'   the  closing  book,  entitled  the  EpinomoSy  or  Supplement  to  the 
Laws^  adds  a  thirteenth.    We  have  thought  it  convenient  to 
designate  the  entire  work  by  the  collective  name  of  the  Legis- 
lative  System 


432 


PLATO  S  REPUBLIC. 


nature,  nor  under  ordinary  circumstances  the  most 
likely  to  be  durable.  He  professes  to  make  a  com- 
promise between  his  sense  of  duty  as  a  philosopher, 
and  his  sense  of  expedience  as  a  man  of  the  world. 
Like  Solon,  he  quits  the  normal  for  the  attainable  ; 
and  from  the  ideal  man,  flexible  to  all  the  purposes  of 
a  haughty  philosophy,  he  descends  in  his  subsequent 
speculations  to  the  refractory  Athenian  as  he  really 
existed  in  the  generation  of  Pericles.  And  this  fact 
gives  a  great  value  to  the  more  abstract  work;  since 
no  inferences  against  Greek  sentiment  or  Greek  prin- 
ciples could  have  been  drawn  from  a  work  applying 
itself  to  Grecian  habits  as  he  found  them,  which  it 
would  not  be  easy  to  evade.  '  This,'  it  would  have 
been  said,  '  is  not  what  Plato  approved  —  but  what 
Plato  conceived  to  be  the  best  compromise  with  the 
difficulties  of  the  case  under  the  given  civilization.' 
Now,  on  the  contrary,  we  have  Plato's  view  of  abso- 
lute optimism,  the  true  maximum  perfectionis  for 
social  man,  in  a  condition  openly  assumed  to  be 
modelled  after  a  philosopher's  ideal.  There  is  no 
work,  therefore,  from  which  profounder  draughts  can 
be  derived  of  human  frailty  and  degradation,  under 
its  highest  intellectual  expansion,  previously  to  the 
rise  of  Christianity.  Just  one  century  dated  from 
the  birth  of  Plato,  v/hich,  by  the  most  plausible 
chronology,  very  little  preceded  the  death  of  Pericles, 
the  great  Macedonian  expedition  under  Alexander 
was  proceeding  against  Persia.  By  that  time  the 
bloom  of  Greek  civility  had  suffered.  That  war, 
taken  in  connection  with  the  bloody  feuds  that  suc- 
ceeded it  amongst  the  great  captains  of  Alexander, 
gave  a  shock  to  the  civilization  of  Greece  ;   so  that 


4 


Plato's  bepublic.  433 

upon  the  \\hole,  until  the  dawn  of  the  Christian  era, 
more  than  four  centuries  later,  it  would  not  be  pos- 
sible to  fix  on  any  epoch  more  illustrative  of  Greek 
intellect,  or  Greek  refinement,  than  precisely  that 
youth  of  Plato,  which  united  itself  by  immediate 
consecutive  succession  to  the  most  brilliant  section 
in  the  administration  of  Pericles.  It  was,  in  fact, 
throughout  the  course  of  the  Peloponnesian  war  — 
the  one  sole  war  that  divided  the  whole  household  of 
Greece  against  itself,  giving  motive  to  efforts,  and 
dignity  to  personal  competitions  —  contemporary  with 
Xenophon  and  the  younger  Cyrus,  during  the  man- 
hood of  Alcibiades,  and  the  declining  years  of  So- 
crates —  amongst  such  coevals  and  such  circumstances 
of  war  and  revolutionary  truce  —  that  Plato  passed 
his  fervent  youth.  The  bright  sunset  of  Pericles  still 
burned  in  the  Athenian  heavens  ;  the  gorgeous  trag- 
edy and  the  luxuriant  comedy,  so  recently  created, 
were  now  in  full  possession  of  the  Athenian  stage  ; 
the  city  was  yet  fresh  from  the  hands  of  its  creators 
—  Pericles  and  Phidias  ;  the  fine  arts  were  towering 
into  their  meridian  altitude  ;  and  about  the  period 
when  Plato  might  be  considered  an  adult  sui  juris, 
that  is,  just  four  hundred  and  ten  years  before  the 
birth  of  Christ,  the  Grecian  intellect  might  be  said  to 
culminate  in  Athens.  Any  more  favorable  era  for 
estimating  the  Greek  character,  cannot,  we  presume, 
be  suggested.  For,  although  personally  there  might 
be  a  brighter  constellation  gathered  about  Pericles,  at 
a  date  twenty-five  years  antecedent  to  this  era  of 
Plato's  maturity,  still,  as  regarded  the  results  upon 
the  collective  populace  of  Athens,  that  must  have 
become  most  conspiruous  and  palpable  in  the  gene- 
28 


434 


Plato's  kepublic. 


ration  immediately  succeeding.  The  thoughtfulnesff 
impressed  by  the  new  theatre,  the  patriotic  fervor 
generated  by  the  administration  of  Pericles,  must 
have  revealed  themselves  most  effectually  after  both 
causes  had  been  operating  through  one  entire  geneia- 
tion.  And  Plato,  who  might  have  been  kissed  as  an 
infant  by  Pericles,  but  never  could  have  looked  at 
that  great  man  with  an  eye  of  intelligent  admiration 

—  to  whose  ear  the  name  of  Pericles  must  have 
sounded  with  the  same  effect  as  that  of  Pitt  to  the 
young  men  of  our  'British  Reform  Bill  —  could  yet 
better  appreciate  the  elevation  which  he  had  impressed 
upon  the  Athenian  character,  than  those  who,  as  direct 
coevals  of  Pericles,  could  not  gain  a  sufficient  '  elonga- 
tion '  from  his  beams  to  appreciate  his  lustre.  Our 
inference  is  —  that  Plato,  more  even  than  Pericles, 
saw  the  consummation  of  the  Athenian  intellect,  and 
witnessed  more  than  Pericles  himself  the  civilization 
effected  by  Pericles. 

This  consideration  gives  a  value  to  every  sentiment 
expressed  by  Plato.  The  Greek  mind  was  then  more 
intensely  Greek  than  at  any  subsequent  period.  After 
the  period  of  Alexander,  it  fell  under  exotic  influences 

—  alien  and  Asiatic  in  some  cases,  regal  and  despotic 
in  others.  One  hundred  and  fifty  years  more  brought 
the  country  under  the  Boman  yoke  ;  after  which  the 
true  Grecian  intellect  never  spoke  a  natural  or  genial 
language  again.  The  originality  of  the  Athenian 
mind  had  exhaled  under  the  sense  of  constraint.  But 
as  yet,  and  throughout  the  life  of  Plato,  Greece  was 
essentially  Grecian,  and  Athens  radically  Athenian. 

With  respect  to  those  particular  works  of  Plato 
which  concern  the  constitution  of  governments,  there 


Plato's  hepublic. 


435 


.s  this  si)ecial  reason  for  building  upon  tliem  any 
inferences  as  to  the  culture  of  Athenian  society  — • 
that  probably  these  are  the  most  direct  emanations 
from  the  Platonic  intellect,  the  most  purely  represen- 
tative of  Plato  individually,  and  the  most  prolonged 
or  sustained  effort  of  his  peculiar  mind.  It  is  cus- 
tomary to  talk  of  a  Platonic  philosophy  as  a  coherent 
whole,  that  may  be  gathered  by  concentration  from 
his  disjointed  dialogues.  Our  belief  is,  that  no  such 
systematic  whole  exists.  Fragmentary  notices  are  all 
that  remain  in  his  works.  The  four  minds,  from 
whom  we  ha\e  received  the  nearest  approximation  to 
an  orbicular  system,  or  total  body  of  philosophy,  are 
those  of  Aristotle,  of  Des  Cartes,  of  Leibnitz,  and 
lastly,  of  Immanuel  Kant.  All  these  men  have  mani- 
fested an  ambition  to  complete  the  cycle  of  their 
philosophic  speculations  ;  but,  for  all  that,  not  one  of 
them  has  come  near  to  his  object.  How  much  less 
can  any  such  cycle  or  systematic  whole  be  ascribed 
to  Plato  !  His  dialogues  are  a  succession  of  insulated 
essays,  upon  problems  just  then  engaging  the  atten- 
tion of  thoughtful  men  in  Greece.  But  we  know  not 
how  much  of  these  speculations  may  really  belong  to 
Socrates,  into  whose  mouth  so  large  a  proportion  is 
thrown ;  nor  have  we  any  means  of  discriminating 
between  such  doctrines  as  were  put  forward  occa- 
sionally by  way  of  tentative  explorations,  or  trials  of 
dialetic  address,  and  on  the  other  hand,  such  as  Plato 
adopted  in  sincerity  of  heart,  whether  originated  by 
his  master  or  by  himself.  There  is,  besides,  a  very 
awkward  argument  for  suspending  our  faith  in  any 
one  doctrine  as  rigorously  Platonic.  We  are  assured 
beforehand,  that  the  intolerance  of  the  Athenian  peo- 


436 


Plato's  republic. 


pie  in  the  affair  of  Socrates,  must  have  damped  the 
speculating  spirit  in  all  philosophers  who  were  not 
prepared  to  fly  from  Athens.  It  is  no  time  to  bp 
prating  as  a  philosophical  free-thinker,  when  bigotry 
takes  the  shape  of  judicial  persecution.  That  one 
cup  of  poison  administered  to  Socrates,  must  have 
stifled  the  bold  spirit  of  philosophy  for  a  century  to 
come.  This  is  a  reasonable  presumption.  But  the 
same  argument  takes  another  and  a  more  self-con- 
fessing form  in  another  feature  of  Plato's  writings  ; 
viz.,  in  his  afl^ectation  of  a  double  doctrine  —  esoteric, 
the  private  and  confidential  form  authorized  by  his 
final  ratification  —  and  exoteric,  which  was  but  another 
name  for  impostures  with  which  he  duped  those  who 
might  else  have  been  calumniators.  But  what  a  world 
of  falsehoods  is  wrapped  up  in  this  pretence  !  First 
of  all,  what  unreflecting  levity  to  talk  of  this  twofold 
doctrine  as  at  all  open  to  the  human  mind  on  ques- 
tions taken  generally  !  How  many  problems  of  a 
philosophic  nature  can  be  mentioned,  in  which  it 
would  be  at  all  possible  to  maintain  this  double  cur- 
rent, flowing  collaterally,  of  truth  absolute  and  truth' 
plausible  r  No  such  double  view  would  be  often 
available  under  any  possible  sacrifice  of  truth.  Sec- 
ondly, if  it  were,  how  thoroughly  would  that  be  to 
adopt  and  renew  those  theatrical  pretences  of  the 
itinerant  SophistcE,  or  encyclopaedic  hawkers  of  know- 
ledge, whom  elsewhere  and  so  repeatedly,  Plato,  in 
the  assumed  person  of  Socrates,  had  contemptuously 
exposed.  Thirdly,  in  a  philosophy  by  no  means 
remarkable  for  its  opulence  in  ideas,  which  moves  at 
•all  only  by  its  cumbrous  superfluity  of  words,  (partly 
In  disguise  of  which,  under  the  forms  of  conversation, 


Plato's  republic. 


437 


we  believe  tlie  mode  of  dialogue  to  have  been  first 
adopted,)  how  was  this  double  expenditure  to  be 
maintained  ?  What  tenfold  contempt  it  impresses 
upon  a  man's  poverty,  where  he  himself  forces  it 
into  public  exposure  by  insisting  on  keeping  up  a 
double  establishment  in  the  town  and  in  the  country, 
at  the  very  moment  that  his  utmost  means  are  below 
the  decent  maintenance  of  one  very  humble  house- 
h  Id  !  Or  let  the  reader  represent  to  himself  the 
miserable  charlatanerie  of  a  gasconading  secretary 
affecting  to  place  himself  upon  a  level  with  Caesar, 
by  dictating  to  three  amanuenses  at  once,  when  the 
slender  result  makes  it  painfully  evident,  that  to  have 
kept  one  moving  in  any  respectable  manner,  would 
have  bankrupted  his  resources.  But,  lastly,  when  this 
affectation  is  maintained  of  a  double  doctrine,  by  what 
test  is  the  future  student  to  distinguish  the  one  from 
another  ?  Never  was  there  an  instance  in  which 
vanity  was  more  short-sighted.  It  would  not  be  pos- 
sible by  any  art  or  invention  more  effectually  to 
extinguish  our  interest  in  a  scheme  of  philosophy  — 
by  summarily  extinguishing  all  hope  of  our  separating 
the  true  from  the  false,  the  authentic  from  the  spuri- 
ous —  than  by  sending  down  to  posterity  this  claim  to 
a  secret  meaning  lurking  behind  a  mask.  If  the  key 
to  the  distinction  between  true  and  false  is  set  down 
with  the  philosophy,  then  what  purpose  of  conceal- 
ment is  attained  ?  Who  is  it  that  is  duped  ?  On  the 
other  hand,  if  it  is  not  sent  down,  what  purpose  of 
truth  is  attained  ?  Who  is  it  then  that  is  not  duped  ? 
And  if  Plato  relied  upon  a  confidential  successor  aa 
Jie  oral  expounder  of  his  secret  meaning,  how  blind 
must  he  have  been  to  the  course  of  hviraan  contiDgen- 


4:38 


PJLATO'S  REPUBLIC. 


cies,  wLo  should  not  see  that  this  tradition  of  explana-. 
tion  could  not  flow  onwards  through  foui  successive 
generations  without  inevitably  suffering  some  fatal  in- 
terruption ;  after  which,  once  let  the  chain  be  dropped, 
the  links  would  never  be  recoverable,  as,  in  effect,  we 
now  see  to  be  the  result.  No  man  can  venture  to  say, 
amidst  many  blank  contradictions  and  startling  incon- 
sistencies, which  it  is  that  represents  the  genuine 
opinion  of  Plato  ;  which  the  ostensible  opinion  foi 
evading  a  momentary  objection,  or  for  provoking 
opposition,  or  perhaps  simply  for  prolonging  the  con- 
versation. And  upon  the  whole,  this  one  explosion 
of  vanity,  of  hunger  —  bitter  penury  aff*ecting  the 
riotous  superfluity  of  wealth  —  has  done  more  to 
check  the  interest  in  Plato's  opinions  than  all  his 
mysticism  and  all  his  vagueness  of  purpose.  In  other 
philosophers,  even  in  him  who  professedly  adopted 
the  rule  of  '  oxortaov^'  'darken  your  meaning,^  theie 
is  some  chance  of  arriving  at  the  real  doctrine,  b3- 
cause,  though  hidden,  it  is  one.  But  with  a  man  who 
avows  a  purpose  of  double-dealing,  to  understand  is, 
after  all,  the  smallest  part  of  your  task.  Having 
perhaps  with  difficulty  framed  a  coherent  construction 
for  the  passage,  having  with  much  pains  entitled 
yourself  to  say,  —  '  Now  I  comprehend,' — next  comes 
ihe  question.  What  is  it  you  comprehend  Wh} , 
perhaps  a  doctrine  which  the  author  secretly  abjured ; 
n  which  he  was  misleading  the  world  :  in  which  he 
l>ut  forward  a  false  opinion  for  the  benefit  of  other 
passages,  and  for  the  sake  of  securing  safety  to  those 
in  which  he  revealed  what  he  supposed  to  be  the 
truth.  j 
There  is,  however,  in  the  following  political  hypoth  ^ 


Plato's  republic. 


439 


£sis  of  Plato,  less  real  danger  from  this  conflict  of 
two  meanings,  than  in  those  cases  where  he  treated  a 
great  pre-existing  problem  of  speculation.  Here, 
from  the  practical  nature  of  the  problem,  and  its  more 
ad  libitum  choice  of  topics,  he  was  not  forced  upon 
those  questions,  which,  in  a  more  formal  theorem,  he 
could  not  uniformly  evade.  But  one  difficulty  will 
always  remain  for  the  perplexity  of  the  student  —  viz. 
in  what  point  it  was  that  Socrates  had  found  it  dan- 
gerous to  tamjDer  with  the  religion  of  Greece,  if  Plato 
could  safely  publish  the  free-thinking  objections  which 
are  here  avowed.  In  other  respects,  the  Ideal  Republic 
of  Plato  will  surprise  those  who  have  connected  with 
the  very  name  of  Plato  a  sort  of  starry  elevation,  and 
a  visionary  dedication  to  what  is  pure.  Of  purity,  in 
any  relation,  there  will  be  found  no  traces  :  of  vision- 
ariness,  more  than  enough. 

The  First  book  of  the  Polity,  or  general  form  of 
Commonwealths,  is  occupied  with  a  natural,  but  very 
immethodical  discussion  of  justice.  Justice  —  as  one 
of  those  original  problems  unattainable  in  solitary  life, 
which  drove  men  into  social  union,  that  by  a  common 
application  of  their  forces  that  might  be  obtained  which 
else  was  at  the  mercy  of  accident  —  should  naturally 
occupy  the  preliminary  place  in  a  speculation  upon 
the  possible  varieties  of  government.  Accordingly, 
some  later  authors,  like  Mr.  Godwin,  in  his  Political 
TuHice,  have  transmuted  the  whole  question  as  to  forms 
of  social  organization  into  a  transcendent  question  of 
Justice  ;  and  how  it  can  be  fairly  distributed  in  recon- 
cilement with  the  necessities  of  a  practical  adminis- 
tration or  the  general  prejudices  of  men.  A  state,  a 
commonwealth,  for  example,  is  not  simply  a  head  OT 


t40 


Plato's  republic. 


supremacy  in  relation  to  the  other  members  of  a  polit- 
ical union  ;  it  is  also  itself  a  body  amongst  other  co 
equal  bodies  —  one  republic  amongst  other  co-ordinate 
republics.  War  may  happen  to  arise  ;  taxation  ;  and 
many  other  burdens.  How  are  these  to  be  distributed 
so  as  not  to  wound  the  fundamental  principle  of  justice  ? 
They  may  be  apportioned  unequally.  That  would  be 
injustice  without  a  question.  There  may  be  scruples 
of  conscience  as  to  war,  or  contributions  to  war. 
That  would  be  a  more  questionable  case ;  but  it 
would  demand  a  consideration,  and  must  be  brought 
into  harmony  with  the  general  theory  of  justice.  For 
the  supreme  problem  in  such  a  speculation  seems  to 
be  this  —  how  to  draw  the  greatest  amount  of  strength 
from  civil  union  ;  "how  to  carry  the  powers  of  man  to 
the  greatest  height  of  improvement,  or  to  place  him  in 
the  way  of  such  improvement ;  and  lastly,  to  do  all 
this  in  reconciliation  with  the  least  possible  infringe- 
ment or  suspension  of  man's  individual  rights.  Under 
any  view,  therefore,  of  a  commonwealth,  nobody  will 
object  to  the  investigation  of  justice  —  as  a  proper 
basis  for  the  whole  edifice.  But  the  student  is  dissat- 
isfied with  this  Platonic  introduction — 1st,  as  being 
too  casual  and  occasional,  consequently  as  not  pre- 
figuring in  its  course  the  order  of  those  speculations 
which  are  to  follow  ;  2dly,  as  too  verbal  and  hair- 
splitting ;  3dly,  that  it  does  not  connect  itself  with 
what  follows.  It  stands  inertly  and  uselessly  before 
the  main  disquisition  as  a  sort  of  vestibule,  but  we  are 
not  made  to  see  any  transition  from  one  to  the  other. 

Meantime,  the  outline  of  this  nominal  introduction 
is  what  follows  :  —  Socrates  has  received  an  invitation 
to  a  dinner  party  Idstnvov]  from  the  son  of  Cephalus,  a 


Plato's  kepublic. 


respectable  citizen  of  xltliens.  This  citizen,  whose 
sons  are  grown  up,  is  naturally  himself  advanced  in 
years  ;  and  is  led,  therefore,  reasonably  to  speak  of  old 
age.  This  he  does  in  the  tone  of  Cicero's  Cato  ;  con- 
tending that,  upon  the  whole,  it  is  made  burdensome 
only  by  men's  vices.  But  the  value  of  his  testimony 
is  somewhat  lowered  by  the  fact,  that  he  is  moderately 
wealthy;  and  secondly,  (which  is  more  important,) 
that  he  is  constitutionally  moderate  in  his  desires. 
Towards  the  close  of  his  remarks,  he  says  something 
on  the  use  of  riches  in  protecting  us  from  injurious 
treatment  — whether  of  our  own  towards  others,  or  of 
others  towards  us. 

This  calls  up  Socrates,  who  takes  occasion  to  put  a 
general  question  as  to  the  nature  and  definition  of  injus- 
tice. Cephalus  declines  the  further  prosecution  of  the 
dialogue  for  himself,  but  devolves  it  on  his  son.  Some 
of  the  usual  Attic  word-sparring  follows  —  of  which 
this  may  be  taken  as  a  specimen :  —  a  definition  hav- 
ing been  given  of  justice  in  a  tentative  way  by  Socrates 
himself,  as  though  it  might  be  that  quality  which  re- 
stores to  every  one  what  we  know  to  be  his  own ;  and 
the  eldest  son  having  adopted  this  definition  as  true, 
Socrates  then  opposes  the  cases  in  which,  having  bor- 
rowed a  sword  from  a  man,  we  should  be  required 
deliberately  to  replace  it  in  the  hands  of  the  owner, 
knowing  him  to  be  mad.  An  angry  interruption  takes 
place  from  one  of  the  company  called  Thrasymachus. 
This  is  appeased  by  the  obliging  behavior  of  Socrates. 
But  it  produces  this  efi'ect  upon  what  follows,  that  in 
fact  from  one  illustration  adduced  by  this  Thrasy- 
machus, the  whole  subsequent  discipline  arises.  He, 
amongst  other  arts  which  he  alleges  in  evidence  of  his 


i42 


Plato's  republic. 


views,  cites  that  of  government;  and  by  a  confusion 
between  mere  municipal  law  and  the  moial  law  of 
universal  obligation,  he  contends  that  in  every  land 
that  is  just  which  promotes  the  interest  or.  wishes  of 
the  governing  power  —  be  it  king ,  nobles,  or  people  as 
a  body,  Socrates  opposes  him  by  illustrations,  such 
as  Xonoplion's  Memorahilia,  here  made  familiar  to  all 
the  world,  drawn  from  the  arts  of  cooks,  shepherds, 
pilots,  ;  and  the  book  closes  with  a  general  de- 
fence of  justice  as  requisite  to  the  very  existence  of 
political  states  ;  since  without  some  trust  reposed  in 
each  other,  wars  would  be  endless,  it  is  also  presuma- 
ble, that  man,  if  generally  unjust,  would  be  less  pros- 
perous —  as  enjoying  less  of  favor  from  the  gods  ;  and 
finally,  that  the  mind  in  a  temper  of  injustice,  may  be 
regarded  as  diseased ;  that  it  is  less  qualified  for  dis- 
charging its  natural  functions ;  and  that  thus,  whether 
looking  at  bodies  politic  or  individuals,  the  sum  of 
happiness  would  be  greatly  diminished,  if  injustice 
were  allowed  to  prevail. 


BOOK   THE  SBCOND. 

In  the  beginning  of  this  Book,  two  brothers,  Glauco 
and  Adeimantus,  undertake  the  defence  of  injustice ; 
but  upon  such  arguments  as  have  not  even  a  colorable 
plausibility.  They  suppose  the  case  that  a  man  were 
possessed  of  the  ring  which  conferred  the  privilege  of 
invisibility  ;  a  fiction  so  multiplied  in  modern  fairy 
tales,  but  which  in  the  barren  legends  of  the  Pagan 
world  was  confined  to  the  ring  of  Gyges.  Armed  with 
fchis  advantage,  they  contend  that  every  man  would  be 
\mjust.    But  this  is  change  only  of  fact     Next,  how- 


PliATo's  EEPUBLIC. 


443 


3vei%  thoy  suppose  a  case  still  more  monstrous  ;  viz 
that  moiral  distinctions  should  be  so  far  confounded,  as 
that  a  man  practising  all  injustice,  should  pass  for  a 
man  exquisitely  just,  and  that  a  corresponding  transfer 
of  reputation  should  take  place  with  regard  to  the  just 
man  :  under  such  circumstances,  they  contend  that 
every  man  would  hasten  to  be  unjust ;  and  that  the 
unjust  would  reap  all  the  honors  together  with  all  the 
advantages  of  life.  From  all  which  they  infer  two 
things  —  First,  that  injustice  is  not  valued  for  anything 
in  its  own  nature  or  essence,  but  for  its  consequences ; 
and  secondly,  that  it  is  a  combination  of  the  weak  many 
against  the  few  who  happen  to  be  strong,  which  has 
invested  justice  with  so  much  splendor  by  means  of 
written  laws.  It  seems  strange  that  even  for  a  mo- 
mentary effect  in  conversation,  such  trivial  sophistry 
as  this  could  avail.  Because,  if  in  order  to  represent 
justice  and  injustice  as  masquerading  amongst  men, 
and  losing  their  customary  effects,  or  losing  their 
corresponding  impressions  upon  men's  feelings,  it  is 
necessary  first  of  all  to  suppose  the  whole  realities 
of  life  confounded,  and  fantastic  impossibilities  estab- 
lished, no  result  at  all  from  such  premises  could  be 
worthy  of  attention  ;  and,  after  all,  the  particular  result 
supposed  does  not  militate  in  any  respect  against  the 
received  notions  as  to  moral  distinctions.  Injustice 
might  certainly  pass  for  justice  ;  and  as  a  second  case, 
injustice  having  a  bribe  attached  to  it,  might  blind  the 
moral  sense  to  its  true  proportions  of  evil.  But  that 
will  not  prove  that  injustice  can  ever  fascinate  as  in- 
justice, or  again,  that  it  will  ever  prosper  as  regards  its 
effects  in  that  undisguised  manifestation.  If,  to  win 
^pon  men's  esteem,  it  must  privately  wear  the  mask  of 


444 


Plato's  republic. 


justice ;  or  if,  to  win  upon  men's  practice,  it  must  pre- 
viously connect  itself  with  artificial  bounties  of  honor 
and  preferment  —  all  this  is  but  another  way  of  pro- 
nouncing an  eulogy  on  justice.  It  is  agreeable,  how- 
ever, to  find,  that  these  barren  speculations  are  soon 
made  to  lead  into  questions  more  directly  pertinent  t'> 
the  constitution  of  bodies  politic.  Socrates  observes 
that  large  models  are  best  fitted  to  exhibit  the  course 
of  any  action  or  process ;  and  therefore  he  shifts  the 
field  of  obstruction  from  the  individual  man,  armed 
or  not  with  the  ring  of  Gyges,  to  regular  common- 
wealths ;  in  which  it  is,  and  in  their  relations  to  other 
commonwealths  or  to  their  own  internal  parts,  that  he 
proposes  to  answer  these  wild  sophisms  on  the  subject 
of  justice  as  a  moral  obligation. 

Socrates  lays  the  original  foundation  of  all  political 
states  in  want  or  reciprocal  necessity.  And  of  human 
necessity  the  very  primal  shape  is  that  which  regards 
our  livelihood.  Here  it  is  interesting  to  notice  what 
is  the  minimum  which  Plato  assumes  for  the  '  outfit ' 
(according  to  our  parliamentary  term)  of  social  life. 
We  moderns,  for  the  mounting  a  colony  or  other  social 
establishment,  are  obliged  to  assume  at  least  five  heads 
of  expenditure;  viz.,  1,  food;  2,  shelter,  or  housing; 
3,  clothing ;  4,  warmth  (or  fuel)  ;  5,  light.  But  the 
two  last  we  owe  to  our  colder  climate,  and  (which  is  a 
consequence  of  that)  to  our  far  more  unequal  distribu- 
tion of  daylight.  As  the  ancients  knew  nothing  of  our 
very  short  days,  so  on  the  other  hand  they  knew  noth 
ing,  it  is  true,  of  our  very  long  ones  ;  and  at  first  sigh 
it  might  seem  as  if  the  one  balanced  the  other.  But 
it  is  not  so  ;  sunrise  and  sunset  were  far  more  nearly 
for  the  ancients,  than  they  ever  can  be  for  nations  in 


Plato's  hepublic. 


445 


iiiglier  latitudes,  coincident  with  the  periods  of  retiring 
to  rest  and  rising  ;  and  thus  it  was  that  they  obtained 
another  advantage  —  that  of  evading  much  call  foi 
fuel.  Neither  artificial  light,  nor  artificial  heat,  were 
much  needed  in  ancient  times.  Hot  climates,  often 
more  than  cold  ones,  require  (it  is  true)  artificial  heat 
after  sunset.  But  the  ancient  Greeks  and  E^omans,  d 
fortiori  all  nations  less  refined,  were  in  bed  by  that 
jtime  during  the  periods  of  their  early  simplicity,  that 
IS,  during  the  periods  of  their  poverty.  The  total 
expense  in  fuel  amongst  the  Greeks,  was  upon  a  scale 
suited  to  ages  in  which  fossil  coal  was  an  unknown  staff 
i  of  life  :  it  v\^as  no  more  than  met  the  simple  demands 
of  cookers,  and  of  severe  winters  ;  these,  it  is  true, 
even  in  Spain,  nay  in  Syria,  are  sometimes  accompa- 
nied with  heavy  storms  of  snow."^'  But,  on  the  other 
^  hand,  the  winters  are  short ;  and  even  so  far  north  in 
I  Italy  as  Milan,  the  season  of  genial  spring,  and  of 
1  luxuriant  flowers,  often  commences  in  February.  In 
'  contrast  with  our  five  requisitions  of  northern  latitudes, 
which,  as  implying  a  higher  (because  a  more  provi- 
dent) scale  of  existence,  have  a  philosophic  value,  it  is 
interesting  to  find  Plato,  under  the  person  of  Socrates, 
requiring  only  three;  viz.  food,  clothes,  and  lodging. 
The  arts,  therefore,  which  he  presumes  requisite  for 
establishing  a  city,  are  four:  one  occupied  with  the 
culture  of  the  ground  ;  one  with  the  building  of  habita- 
tions ;  and  two,  ministerial  to  the  adorning,  or  at  least 
to  the  protecting  of  the  person.  The  ploughman 
'before  all  others  for  our  food  —  in  the  second  rank, 

*  *  Storms  of  snow.^  —  For  an  instance  of  a  very  critical  fall  of 
Know  near  Jerusalem  not  long  before  our  Saviour's  time,  see 
'  Joseplius. 


PLATO*S  KEPUBLIC. 


the  mason  for  raising  dwelling-houses  —  and  in  the 
last  place,  the  weaver  combined  with  the  shoemaker 
for  the  manufacturing  our  dress  ;  these  four  artists*, 
Bays  Plato,  are  the  very  minimum  establishment  on 
which  a  city  or  a  colony  can  begin  to  move.    But  a 
very  few  steps  will  bring  us,  he  remarks,  to  a  call  for 
further  arts  ;  in  particular,  it  will  soon  be  found  that  it 
is  a  sad  waste  of  time  for  any  of  the  four  already 
mentioned  to  be  interrupted  by  the  necessity  of  making 
their  several  tools  and  implements.    A  fifth  artist  will 
therefore  be  found  necessary,  in  the  character  of  tool- 
maker,  in  common  with  all  the  rest.    A  sixth  and  a 
seventh  will  be  soon  called  for,  in  the  character  of 
shepherds  and  herdsmen ;  for  if  sheep  and  oxen  are ; 
not  indispensable  as  food,  they  are  so  as  furnishing  the 
leather  required  by  the  shoemaker.    And  lastly,  mer- 
chants, for  the  purpose  of  exporting  the  surplus  pro- 
ducts, and  of  importing  such  as  are  defective,  together 
with  resident  dealers  in  all  articles  of  household  us 
are  contemplated  as  completing  the  establishment.  Th 
gradual  accession  of  luxuries  in  every  class  is  nexj 
presumed  as  what  would  follow  in  general,  but  woul 
not  be  allowed  in  Plato's  republic  ;  and,  as  the  increas 
of  population  will  require  additional  territory,  (thoug 
it  is  an  oversight  not  to  have  assigned  from  the  firsl 
the  quantity  of  soil  occupied,  and  the  circumstances  o 
position  in  regard  to  neighbors,)  this  will  make  an 
opening  for  war  ;  and  that  again  for  a  regular  class  of 
men  dedicated  to  the  arts  of  attack  and  defence.    It  is 
singular  that  Plato  should  thus  arbitrarily  lay  his 
ground  of  war  in  aggressive  principles  —  because,  if 
he  assumed  his  territory  spacious  enough,  and  the 
3X^ansion  of  population  as  slow  as  it  really  was  in 


PLATO  S  REPUBLIC. 


447 


Greece,  the  case  in  which  he  finally  plants  his  neces- 
sity for  war  might  not  occur  until  the  new  state  should 
be  rich  enough  to  find,  in  the  difiiculty  supposed,  a  cause 
for  throwing  ofi*  colonies,  rather  than  for  unprovoked 
attacks  on  neighboring  states.  It  is  remarkable,  how- 
ever, that  Plato,  a  pagan  writer,  makes  war  a  subse- 
quent and  ministerial  phenomenon  in  civil  societies ; 
whereas  Hobbes,  nominally  a .  Christian,  makes  the 
belligerent  condition  to  be  that  transcendent  and 
original  condition  of  man,  out  of  which  society  itself 
arose. 

War,  however,  has  begun ;  and  soldiers,  as  a  merce* 
nary  class,  are  henceforwards  required.  Upon  which 
Plato  unfolds  his  ideas  as  to  the  proper  qualifications 
of  a  soldier.  Of  course  he  insists  upon  courage, 
athletic  powers  of  body  in  general,  (qualifications  so 
pre-eminently  required  before  the  invention  of  fire- 
arms,and  especially  upon  the  power  of  speed  and 
agility.  But  it  is  singular  that  in  describing  the  tem- 
perament likely  to  argue  courage,  he  insists  upon 
irascibility ;  whereas,  with  far  more  truth  of  philoso- 
phy, his  pupil  Aristotle,  in  after  years,  speaks  con- 
temptuously of  all  courage  founded  upon  anger,  as 
generally  spurious  in  its  nature,  and  liable  to  the  same 
suspicion  as  that  which  is  foiinded  upon  intoxication. 

It  is  upon  this  occasion,  and  in  connection  with  the 

*  'Fire-arms.'*  —  It  is  very  true  that  the  essential  principle  dis- 
tinguishing fire-arms,  viz.,  their  apphcation  to  distant  warfare 
making  men  independent  of  personal  strength,  was  found  in 
sMngers  and  archers.  But  these  arms  of  the  martial  service 
were  always  in  some  disrepute  in  Greece  ;  even  Hercules  (in 
the  Here.  Fur  ens)  is  described  by  Euripides  as  subject  to 
ridicule  and  reproach  from  Lycus,  his  enemy,  on  account  of 
\is  having  resorted  to  archery. 


448 


PLATO  S  REPUELIC. 


education  of  this  state  soldiery,  as  a  professional  class 
needing  to  be  trained  expressly  for  a  life  of  adventur- 
ous service,  and  of  hardship,  that  Plato  introduces  his 
celebrated  doctrine  imputing  mischievous  falsehood  to 
the  poets.  The  mythology  of  paganism,  it  is  needless 
to  say,  represented  the  gods  under  characters  the  most 
hideous  and  disgusting.  But  the  main  circumstances 
in  these  representations,  according  to  Plato,  are  mere 
fictions  of  Hesiod  and  of  Homer.  Strange,  indeed, 
that  Plato  should  ascribe  to  any  poets  whatever,  so 
prodigious  a  power  as  that  of  having  created  a  national 
religion.  For  the  religion  of  paganism  was  not  some- 
thing independent  of  the  mythology.  It  was  wholly 
involved  in  the  mythology.  Take  away  the  mytho- 
logic  legends,  and  you  take  away  all  the  objects  of 
worship.  The  characteristics  by  which  Latona  is  dis- 
tinguished from  Ceres,  Apollo  from  Mercury,  Diana 
^rom  Minerva,  Hebe  from  Aurora,  all  vanish,  and 
leave  mere  nonentities,  if  the  traditional  circumstance 
of  their  theogony  and  history  is  laid  aside  as  fabulous. 
Besides,  if  this  could  be  surmounted,  and  if  Plato 
could  account  for  all  the  tribes  of  Hellas  having  adopt- 
ed what  he  supposes  to  be  the  reveries  of  two  solitary 
poets,  how  could  he  account  for  the  general  argument 
in  these  traditions  of  other  distant  nations,  who  never 
heard  so  much  as  the  names  of  the  two  Greek  poets, 
nor  could  have  read  them  if  they  had.^  The  whole 
Bpeculation  is  like  too  many  in  Plato  —  without  a 
shadow  of  coherency  ;  and  at  every  angle  presenting 
some  fresh  incongruity.  The  fact  really  was,  that  the 
human  intellect  had  been  for  some  time  outgrowing  its 
foul  religions ;  clamorously  it  began  to  demand  some 
change ;  hut  how  little  it  was  able  to  effect  that  change 


Plato's  kepublic. 


449 


for  ifcself,  is  evident  from  no  example  more  than  that  of 
Plato ;  for  he,  whilst  dismissing  as  fables  some  of  the 
grosser  monstrosities  which  the  Pagan  pantheon  offered, 
loaded  in  effect  that  deity,  whom  he  made  a  concurrent 
party  to  his  own  schemes  for  man,  with  vile  qualities, 
quite  as  degrading  as  any  which  he  removed ;  and  in 
effect  so  much  the  worse,  as  regarded  the  result,  be- 
cause, wanting  the  childish  monstrosities  of  the  mytho- 
logic  legends,  they  had  no  benefit  from  any  allegoric 
interpretations  in  the  background.  Thus  cruelty  and 
sensuality,  if  they  happen  to  fall  in  with  a  pagan  phi- 
losopher's notions  of  state  utility,  instantly  assume  a 
place  in  his  theories;  and  thence  is  transferred  upon 
the  deities,  who  are  supposed  to  sanction  this  system, 
a  far  deeper  taint  of  moral  pollution  than  that  which, 
being  connected  with  extravagant  or  ludicrous  tales, 
might  provoke  an  enlightened  mind  to  reject  it  with 
incredulity,  or  receive  it  as  symbolic.  Meantime,  it  is 
remarkable  that  Plato  should  connect  this  reform  in 
education  specially  with  his  soldiers  ;  and  still  more  so., 
when  we  understand  his  reason.  It  was  apparently  on 
two  grounds  that  he  fancied  the  pagan  superstitions 
injurious  to  a  class  of  men  whom  it  was  important  to 
keep  clear  of  panics.  First,  on  an  argument  derived 
from  the  Hades  of  the  poets',  Plato  believed  the  modes 
of  punishment  exhibited  by  these  poets  to  be  too  alarm- 
ing, and  likely  to  check  by  intimidation  that  career  of 
violence  which  apparently  he  thinks  requisite  in  a 
BO.iier.  Surely  he  might  have  spared  his  anxiety  ;  for 
if,  in  any  quarter  of  its  barren  superstitions,  paganism 
betrayed  its  impoverished  fancy,  it  was  in  its  pictures 
Df  Tartarus,  where,  besides  that  the  several  cases  are, 
st,  so  scanty,  and  applied  only  to  monstrous  offences ; 


450 


Plato's  republic. 


and  ^2d,  so  ludicrous,  they  are,  3d,  all  of  them  ineffec- 
tual for  terror,  were  it  only  by  the  general  impression 
conveyed  that  they  are  allegoric,  and  meant  to  be 
allegoric.  Secondly,  Plato  seems  to  have  had  in  his 
thoughts  those  panic  terrors  which  sometimes  arose 
from  the  belief  that  superior  beings  suddenly  revealed 
themselves  in  strange  shapes  ;  —  both  in  Roman  and 
Grecian  experience,  these  fancied  revelations  had  pro- 
duced unexpected  victories,  but  also  unexpected  flights. 
He  argues,  accordingly,  against  the  possibility  of  a 
god  adopting  any  metamorphosis  ;  but  upon  the  weak 
scholastic  argument,  weaker  than  a  cobweb  to  any 
superstitious  heart,  that  a  celestial  being  would  not 
leave  a  better  state  for  a  worse.  How  visionary  to 
suppose  that  any  mind  previously  inclined  to  shadowy 
terrors,  and  under  the  operation  of  solitude,  of  awful 
silence,  and  of  wild  grotesque  scenery  in  forests  or 
mountains,  would  be  charmed  into  sudden  courage  by 
an  d  jpriori  little  conundrum  of  the  logic  school !  Oh ! 
philosopher,  laid  by  the  side  of  a  simple-hearted  primi- 
tive Christian,  what  a  fool  dost  thou  appear !  And 
after  all,  if  such  evils  arose  from  familiarity  with  the 
poets,  and  on  that  account  the  soldiery  was  to  be  se- 
cluded from  all  such  reading  —  how  were  they  to  be 
preserved  from  contagion  of  general  conversation  with 
their  fellow-citizens  ?  Or,  again,  on  foreign  expedi- 
tions, how  -were  they  to  be  sequestered  from  such  tra- 
ditions as  were  generally  current,  and  were  everywhere 
made  the  subject  of  dinner  recitations,  or  prelections 
or  of  national  music  ? 

In  the  midst  of  these  impracticable  solicitudes  foi 
the  welfare  of  his  soldiers,  Plato  does  not  overlook  the 
probability  that  men  trained  to  violence  may  mutiny 


Plato's  bepublic. 


451 


and  (being  consciously  the  sole  depositaries  of  the 
public  weapons  and  skill,  as  well  as  originally  selected 
for  superior  promise  of  strength)  may  happen  to  com- 
bine, and  to  turn  their  arms  against  their  fellow-citi- 
zens. It  is  painful  to  see  so  grave  a  danger  dismissed 
so  carelessly  —  taiitanine  rem  tarn  negUgenter  J  The 
sole  provision  which  Plato  makes  against  the  for- 
midable danger,  is  by  moral  precepts,  impressing  on 
the  soldier  kindness  and  affability  to  those  whom  it 
was  his  professional  mission  to  protect.  But  such 
mere  sanctions  of  decorum  or  usage  —  how  weak 
must  they  be  found  to  protect  any  institution  merely 
human,  against  a  strong  interest  moving  in  an  adverse 
direction  !  The  institutions  of  Romulus,  in  a  simple 
and  credulous  age,  had  the  consecration  (perhaps  not 
imaginary,  but,  beyond  a  doubt,  universally  believed) 
of  heaven  itself —  a  real  sanctity  guarded  the  insti- 
tutions of  Rome,  which  yet  rocked  and  quaked  for 
centuries  under  the  conflicting  interests  of  the  citizens. 
But  a  philosopher's  republic,  in  an  age  of  philosophy 
and  free-thinking,  must  repose  upon  human  securities. 
Show  any  order  of  men  a  strong  change  setting  in 
upon  the  current  of  their  civil  interests,  and  they  will 
soon  be  led  to  see  a  corresponding  change  in  their 
duties.  Not  to  mention  that  the  sense  of  duty  must 
be  weak  at  all  times  amongst  men  whom  Plato  sup- 
poses expressly  trained  to  acts  of  violence,  w^hom  he 
t  seeks  lo  wean  from  the  compunction  of  religion,  and 
I  whose  very  service  and  profession  had  its  first  origin 
I  Ln  acknowledged  rapacity.  Thus,  by  express  institu- 
tion of  Plato,  and  by  his  own  forecasting,  had  the 
soldiery  arisen.  Thus  had  the  storm  been  called  up  ; 
and  it  would  be  too  late  to  bid  it  wheel  this  way  ol 


A52 


PLATO  S  REPUBLIC. 


that,  dfter  its  power  had  been  consciously  developed, 
and  the  principles  which  should  control  this  power 
w^ere  found  to  be  nothing  more  than  the  ancient  inten- 
tions of  a  theoretic  founder,  or  the  particular  interests 
of  a  favored  class.  Besides,  it  will  be  seen  further  on, 
that  the  soldiers  are  placed  under  peculiar  disadvan- 
tages —  they  are  to  possess  nothing ;  and  thus,  in 
addition  to  the  strong  temptation  of  conscious  power, 
they  are  furnished  with  a  second  temptation  in  their 
painful  poverty,  contrasted  with  the  comparative 
wealth  of  the  cowardly  citizens  whom  they  protect; 
and  finally,  with  a  third,  (w^hich  also  furnished  an  ex- 
cuse,") in  the  feeling  that  they  are  an  injured  class. 

EOOK   THE  THIRD. 

Plato  is  neither  methodic  nor  systematic  ;  he  has 
neither  that  sort  of  order  w^hich  respects  the  connec- 
tion of  what  he  teaches  as  a  thing  to  be  understood, 
nor  that  which  respects  its  connection  as  a  thing  w^hich 
is  to  be  realized  —  neither  that  which  concerns  the 
ratio  cognoscendi,  (to  adopt  a  great  distinction  revived 
by  Leibnitz  from  the  schoolmen,)  nor  that,  on  the 
other  hand,  which  regards  the  ratio  essendi.  This 
last  neglect  he  could  not  have  designed  ;  the  other 
perhaps  he  did.  And  the  very  form  of  dialogue  or 
conversations  was  probably  adopted  to  intimate  as 
much.  Be  that  as  it  may,  we  look  in  vain  for  any 
such  distribution  of  the  subject  as  should  justify  the 
modern  division  into  separate  books.  The  loose  order 
of  colloquial  discussion,  sometimes  going  back,  some- 
times leaping  forward  with  impatient  anticipation,  and 
then  again  thoughtfully  resuming  a  topic  insufficiently 
examined  —  such  is  the  law  of  succession  by  which 


Plato's  hepublic. 


453 


the  general  theme  is  slowly  advanced,  and  its  partic* 
ular  heads  are  casually  unfolded. 

Accordingly,  in  this  third  book  the  subject  of  the 
soldiery  is  resumed ;  and  the  proper  education  for  that 
main  column  of  the  state,  on  which  its  very  existence 
is  openly  founded,  engages  the  more  circumstantial 
attention  of  Plato.  The  leading  object  kept  in  view, 
^as  regards  the  mental  discipline,  is  to  brace  the  mind 
against  fear.  ,And  here,  again,  Plato  comes  back 
upon  the  poets,  whom  he  taxes  with  arts  of  emascula- 
tion, in  reference  to  the  hardy  courage  which  his 
system  demands.  He  distributes  the  poets*  into  the 
two  great  classes  of  narrative  and  dramatic ;  those 
who  speak  directly  in  their  own  person,  like  Homer 
and  those  who  utter  their  sentiments  as  ventriloquists, 
throwing  their  voice  first  upon  this  character  of  a 
drama,  next  upon  that.  It  is  difficult  to  see  what  pur- 
pose Plato  had  in  this  distribution  ;  but  it  is  highly 
interesting  to  us  of  this  day,  because  we  might  other- 
wise have  supposed  that,  upon  a  point  of  delicacy, 
Plato  had  forborne  to  involve  in  his  censure  of  the 
poets  that  body  of  great  dramatists,  so  recently  drawn 
into  existence,  and  of  whom  two  at  least  (Euripides 
and  Aristophanes)  were  in  part  of  their  lives  contem- 
porary with  himself.  He  does,  however,  expressly 
notice  them  ;  and,  what  is  more  to  the  purpose,  he 
applies  to  them  his  heaviest  censure :  though  on  what 
principle,  is  somewhat  obscure.  The  nominal  rea- 
son for  his  anger  is  —  that  they  proceed  by  means  of 
imitation ;  and  that  even  mimetically  to  represent 
woman,  has  the  effect  of  transfusing  effeminacy,  by 
some  une  >cplained  process,  into  the  manners  of  the 
\mitator.    Now,  really,  this  at  the  best  would  be  too 


454 


Plato's  republic. 


fantastic.  But  when  we  reflect  on  the  great  tragic 
poets  of  Greece,  and  consider  that  in  the  midst  of 
pagan  darkness  the  only  rays  of  moral  light  are  to 
be  found  in  them,  and  that  Milton,  almost  a  bigot, 
as  being  a  Puritan,  yet  with  that  exalted  standard  ot 
scriptural  truth  which  he  carried  forever  in  his  mind, 
refers  to  these  poets,  and  the  great  theatre  which  they 
founded,  for  the  next  best  thing  to  Christian  teach- 
ing—  we  feel  our  hearts  alienated  froj:n  Plato.  But 
when  we  also  contrast  with  this  Greek  scenical  moral- 
ity and  its  occasional  elevation,  the  brutal,  sensual, 
and  cruel  principles  which  we  sometimes  find  in  Plato 
himself,  (more  frequently  indeed,  and  more  outra- 
geously, than  in  any  other  pagan  author  of  eminence,) 
—  it  cannot  be  thought  unreasonable  that  our  aliena- 
tion should  amount  to  disgust.  Euripides  was  truly  a 
great  man,  struggling  for  a  higher  light  than  he  could 
find.  Plato  was  a  thorough  Greek,  satisfied,  so  far  as 
ethics  were  concerned,  with  the  light  which  existed, 
uor  dreaming  of  anything  higher.  And,  with  respect 
to  the  Greek  religion,  Euripides  forestalled,  by  twenty 
years,  all  that  Plato  has  said  ;  we  have  his  words  to 
this  day,  and  they  are  much  more  impressive  than 
Plato's  ;  and  probably^^  these  very  words  of  Euripides 
first  suggested  to  Plato  the  doctrine  which  he  so  mali- 
ciously directs  in  this  place  against  the  very  poets  as  a 
body,  who,  through  one  of  their  number,  first  gave 
currency  to  such  a  bold  speculation,  and  first  tried  as 
enfans  perdus,  (or  the  leaders  of  a  forlorn  hope,) 
whether  the  timid  superstition  of  the  Athenians-,  and 
the  fanaticism  founded  on  their  fear,  would  tolerate 
such  innovations. 

After  this  second  sentence  of  exile  against  the  poets 


Plato's  republic. 


455 


—  which  we  cannot  but  secretly  trace  to  the  jealous)/ 
of  Plato,  armed  against  that  section  of  the  iVthenian 
literati  most  in  the  public  favor  —  we  are  carried 
forward  tc  the  music  of  the  Greeks.  The  soldiery 
are  excluded  from  all  acquaintance  with  any  but  the 
austerer  modes.  But  as  this  is  a  subject  still  mysteri- 
ous even  to  those  who  come  armed  with  the  knowledge 
of  music  as  a  science,  and  as  no  more  than  a  general 
caution  is  given,  this  topic  is  not  one  of  those  which 
we  are  called  on  to  discuss. 

So  slight  was  the  Grecian  circuit  of  education, 
and  especially  where  mathematics  happened  to  be 
excluded,  that  poetry  and  music  apparently  bound 
the  practical  encyclopaedia  of  Plato.  From  the  mind, 
therefore,  he  passes  to  the  physical  education.  And 
here  we  find  two  leading  cautions,  of  which  one,  at 
least,  is  built  on  more  accurate  observation  of  medical 
truths  than  we  should  have  expected  in  the  age  of 
Plato.  The  first  will,  perhaps,  not  much  strike  the 
reader,  for  it  expresses  only  the  stern  injunction  upon 
every  soldier  of  that  temperance  as  to  strong  liquors, 
which  in  our  days  has  descended  (with  what  pernia 
nence  we  fear  to  ask)  amongst  the  very  lowest  and 
most  sufi'ering  of  human  beings.  It  is,  however, 
creditable  to  Plato,  that  he  should  have  perceived  the 
mischievous  operation  of  inebriation  upon  the  health 
and  strength  ;  for  in  his  age,  the  evil  of  such  a 
practice  was  chiefiy  thrown  upon  its  moral  efi^ects^  — 
the  indecorums  which  it  caused,  the  quarrels,  thei 
murderous  contests,  the  lasting  alienations,  and  the 
perilous  breaches  of  confidence.  There  was  little 
general  sense  of  any  evil  in  wine  as  a  relaxer  of  the 
bodily  system ;  as,  on  the  other  hand,  neither  then 


456 


PLATO  S  KEPUBLIC. 


Dor  ia  our  clays  is  there  any  just  appreciation  of  the 
subsidiary  benefits  which  sometimes  arise  from  strong 
liquors,  or  at  least  the  clamorous  call  for  such  liquors, 
in  cold  climates  where  the  diet  is  cold  and  watery. 
Edmund  Burke,  as  we  remember,  in  his  enlarged 
wisdom  did  not  overlook  this  case  ;  we  individually 
have  seen  too  large  a  series  of  cases  to  doubt  the  fact 
—  that  in  vast  cities,  wherever  the  diet  of  poor  families 
happens  to  be  thrown  too  much  upon  mere  watery 
broths,  it  is  a  pure  instinct  of  nature,  and  often  a  very 
salutary  instinct,  which  forces  them  into  a  compen- 
satory stimulus  of  alcohol.  The  same  natural  instinct 
for  strong  liquor  as  a  partial  relief,  is  said  to  be 
prompted  by  scrofula.  In  a  Grecian  climate,  and 
with  a  limited  population,  this  anomalous  use  of  wine 
was  not  requisite  ;  and  for  the  soldiery,  enjoying  a 
select  diet,  it  could  least  of  all  be  needful.  Plato  shows 
his  good  sense,  therefore,  as  well  as  the  accuracy  of 
his  observation,  in  forbidding  it.  For  he  notices  one 
effect  which  invariably  follows  from  the  addiction  to 
strong  liquors,  even  where  as  yet  they  have  not  mas- 
tered the  constitutional  vigor  ;  viz.  their  tendency  to 
produce  a  morbid  sensibility  to  cold.  We  ourselves 
have  seen  a  large  party  of  stout  men  travelling  on  a 
morning  of  intense  severity.  Amongst  the  whole 
number,  nine  or  ten,  there  were  two  only  who  did 
not  occasionally  shiver,  or  express  some  unpleasant 
feeling  connected  with  the  cold  ;  and  these  two  were  i 
the  sole  water-drinkers  of  the  party.  The  otherj 
caution  of  Plato  shows  even  more  accuracy  of  at-| 
tention ;  and  it  is  completely  verified  by  modern  I 
experience.  He  is  naturally  anxious  that  the  diet  of  J 
the  soldiery  should  be  simple  and  wholesome.    No^  J 


Plato's  repuelic. 


457 


it  was  almost  certain  that  those  who  reflected  on  the 
final  object  he  had  in  view,  would  at  onc3  interpret 
his  meaning  as  pointing  to  the  diet  of  professional 
athletes.  These  men  for  Greece  were  the  forerunners 
of  the  lloman  gladiators  ;  as  the  Greek  hippodrome 
bisected  itself  into  the  Roman  circus  and  amphitheatre. 
And  as  Plato's  object  was  to  secure  the  means  of 
unusual  strength,  what  more  natural  than  to  consult 
the  experience  of  those  who,  having  long  had  the  very 
same  end,  must  by  this  time  have  accumulated  a  large 
science  of  the  appropriate  means  ?  Now,  on  closer 
examination,  Plato  perceived  that  the  end  was  7wt  the 
same.  The  gladiatorial  schools  had  before  them  some 
day,  well  known  and  immutable,  of  public  festivities 
and  games,  against  which  they  were  to  prepare  their 
maximum  of  bodily  power.  By  the  modern  and  by 
the  ancient  system  of  training,  it  is  notorious  that  this 
preparatory  discipline  can  be  calculated  to  a  nicety. 
When  the  '  fancy '  was  in  favor  amongst  ourselves, 
the  pugilist,  after  entering  into  any  legal  engagement, 
under  strong  penalties,  to  fight  on  a  day  assigned, 
went  into  training  about  six  weeks  previously  ;  and  by 
the  appointed  time  he  had,  through  diet,  exercise, 
sleep,  all  nicely  adjusted  to  the  rules  of  this  discipline, 
brought  up  his  muscular  strength  and  his  wind  to  the 
summit  of-  what  his  constitution  allowed.  Now,  cer- 
tainly, in  a  general  view,  the  purpose  of  the  Platonic 
soldier  was  the  same,  but  with  this  important  differ- 
ence —  that  his  fighting  condition  was  needed  not  on 
one  or  two  days  consecutively,  but  on  many  days,  and 
not  against  a  day  punctually  assignable,  but  against  a 
season  or  period  perhaps  of  months,  quite  indeter- 
minate as  to  its  beginning,  end,  or  duration.    This  one 


458 


Plato's  hepublic. 


difierence  made  the  whole  difference  ;  for  both  ancient 
and  modern  training  concur  in  these  two  remarkable 
facts-— 1st.  That  a  condition  of  physical  power  thus 
preternaturally  produced  cannot  be  maintained,  but 
that  uniformly  a  very  rapid  relapse  follows  to  a  con- 
dition of  debility.  Like  the  stone  of  Sisyphus,  the 
more  painfully  and  with  unnatural  effort  a  rc^sisting 
object  has  been  rolled  up  to  a  high  summit,  with  so 
much  the  more  thundering  violence  does  it  run  back. 
The  state  was  too  intense  not  to  be  succeeded  by 
sudden  recoil.  2dly.  It  has  been  found  that  these 
spasms  of  preternatural  tension  are  not  without  dan- 
ger :  apoplexes,  ruptures  of  large  blood-vessels,  and 
other  modes  of  sudden  death,  are  apt  to  follow  from 
the  perilous  tampering  with  the  exquisite  machinery  of 
nature.  This  also  had  been  the  experience  of  Greece. 
Time,  as  a  great  element  in  all  powerful  changes,  j 
must  be  allowed  in  order  to  secure  their  safety.  Plato, 
therefore,  lays  down  as  a  great  law  for  the  physical 
discipline,  that  in  no  part  of  its  elements,  whether  diet, 
exercise,  abstinence,  or  gymnastic  feats  of  strength  and 
address,  shall  the  ritual  for  the  soldiers  borrow  any- 
thing  from  the  schools  of  the  athletce.  [ 
In  the  remaining  part  of  this  Book,  we  have  some  ! 
organic  arrangements  proposed.  First,  as  to  the  local  ■ 
situation  —  a  strong  military  position  is  requisite  for 
the  soldiery,  and  ground  must  therefore  be  selected 
originally  which  offers  this  advantage.  The  position 
is  to  be  such  as  may  at  once  resist  a  foreign  enemj^ 
and  command  the  other  orders  in  the  state.  Upon  this 
ground,  a  body  of  lodgings  is  to  be  built  ;  and  in  these 
lodgings  a  single  regard  is  prescribed  to  the  purpose 
in  view.  Direct  utility  and  convenience,  without  osten* 


PILATO  S    HEPU  BLIC. 


150 


*ation,  are  to  preside  in  the  distribution  of  the  parts 
and  in  the  architectural  style  ;  the  buildings  are,  in 
fact,  to  unite  at  once  the  uses  of  a  barrack  and  a 
fortress. 

Next,  as  this  fortress,  distinct  from  the  other  parts 
of  the  city,  when  connected  with  arms,  and  the  use  ot 
arms,  and  regular  discipline,  and  select  qualities  of 
body,  cannot  but  throw  vast  power  into  the  hands  of 
the  soldiery,  so  that  from  being  guardians  of  the  city, 
(as  by  direct  title  they  are,)  they  might  easily  become 
its  oppressors  and  pillagers,  universally  the  soldiers  are 
to  be  incapable  by  law  of  holding  any  property  what- 
ever, without  regard  to  quality,  without  regard  to  tenure. 
They  can  inherit  nothing  ;  they  can  possess  nothing  ; 
neither  gold  nor  silver,  metals  which  must  not  even 
find  an  entrance  into  their  dwellings  under  pretence  of 
custody  ;  nor  land  ;  nor  any  other  article  ;  nor,  finally, 
must  they  exercise  a  trade. 

Thirdly,  the  administration  of  affairs,  the  executive 
power,  and  the  supreme  rank,  are  vested  in  the  persons 
of  the  highest  military  officers  —  those  who  rise  to  that 
station  by  seniority  and  by  extraordinary  merit.  This 
is  very  vaguely  developed  ;  but  enough  exists  to  show 
that  the  form  of  polity  would  be  a  martial  aristocracy, 
a  qualified  '  stratocracy.''  In  this  state,  it  is  not  so 
much  true  that  an  opening  or  a  temptation  is  offered 
to  a  martial  tyranny,  as  that,  in  fact,  such  a  tyranny  is 
planted  and  rooted  from  the  first  with  all  the  organs 
of  administration  at  its  disposal. 

Lastly,  in  what  way  is  the  succession  to  be  regulated 
through  the  several  ranks  and  functions  of  the  state  ? 
Not  exactly,  or  under  positive  settlement,  by  castes,  or 
an  Egyptian  succession  of  a  son  to  his  father's  trade, 


Plato's  republic. 


&c.  This  is  denounced  in  the  sense  of  an  ancon- 
ditional  or  unbending  system ;  for  it  is  admitted  tha* 
fathers  of  talent  may  have  incompetent  sons,  and  stupid 
fathers  may  have  sons  of  brilliant  promise.  But,  on 
the  whole,  it  seems  to  be  assumed  that,  amongst  ths 
highest,  or  martial  order,  the  care  dedicated  to  the 
selection  of  the  parents  will  ensure  children  of  similai 
excellence, 

*  Fortes  creantur  fortibus  et  bonis,' 

and  that  amongst  the  artisans  one  average  level  of 
mediocrity  will  usually  prevail  ;  in  which  case,  the 
advantage  of  personal  training  to  the  art,  under 
domestic  tutor  who  never  leaves  him,  must  give  such 
a  bias  to  the  children  of  the  citizens  for  their  several 
pursuits,  as  will  justify  the  principle  of  hereditary  sue 
cession.  Still,  in  any  case  where  this  expectation  fails 
a  door  is  constantly  kept  open  for  meeting  any  unusual 
indication  of  nature,  by  corresponding  changes  in  the 
destiny  of  the  young  people.  Nature,  therefore,  in 
the  last  resort,  will  regulate  the  succession,  since  the 
law  interposes  no  further  than  in  confirmation  of  that 
order  in  the  succession  which  it  is  presumed  that  nature 
will  have  settled  by  clear  expressions  of  fitness.  But 
in  whatever  case  nature  indicates  determinately  some 
different  predisposition  in  the  individual,  then  the  law 
gives  way ;  for,  says  Plato,  with  emphasis,  '  the  para 
mount  object  in  my  commonwealth  is  —  that  ever 
human  creature  should  find  his  proper  level,  and  ever 
man  settle  into  that  place  for  which  his  natural  quali 
lies  have  fitted  him.' 


PLATO  S  HEPUBLIC. 


461 


BOOK  THE  FOURTH. 

These  last  words  are  not  a  mere  flourish  of  rhetoric, 
[t  is,  according  to  Plato's  view,  the  very  distinguishing 
feature  in  his  polity,  that  each  man  occupies  his  own 
natural  place.  Accordingly,  it  is  the  business  of  this 
Book  to  favor  that  view  by  a  sort  of  fanciful  analogy 
between  what  we  in  modern  times  call  the  four  cardinal 
virtues,  and  the  four  capital  varieties  of  state  polity,  and 
also  between  these  virtues  and  the  constituent  order  in 
a  community.  This,  however,  may  be  looked  upon  as 
no  step  in  advance  towards  the  development  of  his  own 
Republic,  but  rather  as  a  halt  for  the  purpc  se  of  look- 
ing back  upon  what  has  been  already  developed. 

The  cardinal  virtues,  as  we  see  them  adopted  nearly 
four  hundred  years  after  Plato  by  Cicero,  are  prudence, 
fortitude,  temperance  and  justice.  The  first  will  find 
its  illustration  according  to  Plato,  in  the  governing  pari 
of  a  state  ;  the  second  in  the  defending  part,  or  the 
military  ;  the  third  in  the  relation  between  all  the  parts  ; 
but  the  fourth  has  its  essence  in  assigning  to  every 
individual,  and  to  every  order,  the  appropriate  right, 
whether  that  be  property,  duty,  function,  or  rank. 
Other  states,  therefore,  present  some  analogy  to  the 
tAree  first  virtues,  according  to  the  predominant  object 
which  they  pursue.  But  his  own,  as  Plato  contends, 
is  a  model  analogous  to  the  very  highest  of  the  virtues, 
or  justice  ;  for  that  in  this  state  only  the  object  is  kept 
ap,  as  a  transcendent  object,  of  suffering  no  man  to 
assume  functions  by  mere  inheritance,  but  to  every 
mdividual  assigning  that  office  and  station  for  which 
nature  seems  to  have  prepared  his  qualifications. 

This  principle,  so  broadly  expressed,  would  seem  to 


4G2 


PLATO  S  REPUBLIC. 


require  more  frequent  disturbances  in  tlie  scries  of 
bereditary  employments  than  Plato  had  contemplated 
in  his  last  Book.  Accordingly,  he  again  acknowledges 
the  importance  of  vigilantly  reviewing  the  several  quali- 
fications of  the  citizens.  The  rest  of  the  Book  is  chiefly 
occupied  with  a  psychological  inquiry  into  a  problem 
sometimes  discussed  in  modern  times,  (but  thoroughly 
alien  to  the  political  problem  of  Plato ;)  viz.  whether, 
upon  dividing  the  internal  constitution  of  man  into 
three  elements  —  the  irascible  passions,  the  appetites 
of  desire,  and  the  rational  principle  —  we  are  warranted 
in  supposing  three  separate  substances  or  hypostases  in 
the  human  system,  or  merely  three  separate  offices  of 
some  common  substance  :  whether,  in  short,  these 
differences  are  organic  or  simply  functional.  But,  be- 
sides that  the  discussion  is  both  obscure  and  conducted 
by  scholastic  hair-splitting,  it  has  too  slight  a  relation 
to  the  main  theme  before  us,  to  justify  our  digressing 
for  what  is  so  little  interesting. 

.     BOOK  THE  FIFTH. 

At  this  point  of  the  conversation,  Adeimantus,  at  the 
suggestion  of  another  person,  recalls  Socrates  to  the 
'consideration  of  that  foul  blot  upon  his  theory  which 
concerns  the  matrimonial  connections  of  the  army. 
Not  only  were  these  to  commence  in  a  principle  of 
unmitigated  sensuality  —  selection  of  wives  by  public, 
not  by  individual  choice,  and  with  a  single  reference 
to  physical  qualities  of  strength,  size,  agility  —  but, 
which  riveted  the  brutal  tendencies  of  such  a  law,  the 
wives,  if  wives  they  could  be  called,  and  the  children 
that  might  arise  from  such  promiscuous  connections, 
were  to  be  held  the  common  property  of  the  ordr?T, 


Plato's  hepublic. 


463 


Ties  of  any  separate  kindness,  or  affection  for  this 
woman  or  for  that  child,  were  forbidden  as  a  species 
of  treason  ;  and  if  (as  in  rare  cases  might  happen) 
after  all  they  should  arise,  the  parties  to  such  holy, 
but,  Platonically  speaking,  such  criminal  feelings,  must 
conceal  them  from  all  the  world  —  must  cherish  them 
as  a  secret  cancer  at  the  heart,  or  as  a  martyrdom  re- 
peated in  every  hour.  We  represent  marriages  under 
the  beautiful  idea  of  unions.  But  these  Platonic  mar- 
riages would  be  the  foulest  dispersions  of  the  nuptial 
sanctities.  We  call  them  self-dedications  of  one 
human  creature  to  another,  through  the  one  sole  means 
by  which  nature  has  made  it  possible  for  any  exclusive 
dedication  to  be  effected.  But  these  Platonic  marriages 
would  be  a  daily  renovation  of  disloyalty,  revolt,  and 
mutual  abjuration.  We,  from  human  society,  transfer 
a  reflex  of  human  charities  upon  inferior  natures,  when 
we  see  the  roe-deer,  for  instance,  gathering  not  into 
herds  and  communities  like  their  larger  brethren,  the 
fallow-deer  or  the  gigantic  red-deer,  but  into  families 
' —  two  parents  everywhere  followed  by  their  own 
fawns,  loving  and  beloved.  Plato,  from  the  brutal 
world,  and  from  that  aspect  of  the  brutal  world  in 
fvhich  it  is  most  brutal,  transfers  a  feature  of  savage 
gregariousness  which  would  ultimately  disorganize  as 
much  as  it  would  immediately  degrade.  In  fact,  the 
mere  feuds  of  jealousy,  frantic  hatred,  and  competi- 
tions cf  authority,  growing  out  of  such  an  institution, 
would  break  up  the  cohesion  of  Plato's  republic  within 
seven  years.  We  all  know  of  such  institutions  as 
actually  realized  ;  one  case  of  former  ages  is  recorded 
by  Cgesar,  Strabo,  &c.  ;  another  of  the  ]u*esent  day 
'3xiv3ts  amongst  the  ranges  of  the  Himalaya,  and  has 


464 


Plato's  republic. 


been  brought  by  the  course  of  our  growing  empire 
within  British  control.  But  they  are,  and  have  been, 
connected  with  the  most  abject  condition  in  other 
respscts  ;  and  probably  it  would  be  found,  if  such 
societies  were  not  merely  traversed  by  the  glasses  of 
philosophers  in  one  stage  of  their  existence,  but  steadily 
watched  through  a  succession  of  generations,  that  it  is 
their  very  necessity  rapidly  to  decay,  either  by  absorp- 
tion into  more  powerful  societies,  built  on  sounder 
principles,  or  by  inevitable  self-extinction.  Certain  it 
is,  that  a  society  so  constituted*  through  all  its  orders, 
could  breed  no  conservative  or  renovating  impulses, 
since  all  motives  of  shame,  glory,  emulation,  would 
operate  upon  a  system  untuned,  or  pitched  in  a  far 
lower  key,  wherever  sexual  love  and  the  tenderness  of 
exclusive  preferences  were  forbidden  by  law. 

Adeimantus,  by  thus  calling  for  a  revision  of  a  prin- 
ciple so  revolting,  impersonates  to  the  reader  his  own 
feelings.  He,  like  the  young  Athenian,  is  anxious  to 
find  himself  in  sympathy  with  one  reputed  to  be  so 
great  a  philosopher  ;  or  at  least,  he  is  unwilling  to 
suppose  himself  so  immeasurably  removed  from  sym- 
pathy. Still  less  can  he  concede,  or  even  suspend,  his 
own  principles  in  a  point  which  does  not  concern 
taste,  or  refinement  of  feeling,  or  transitory  modes  of 
decorum,  or  even  the  deduction  of  logic  ;  in  all  these 
points,  however  rudely  shocked,  he  would,  in  modest 
submission  to  a  great  name,  have  consented  to  suppose 
himself  wrong.  But  this  scruple  belongs  to  no  such 
faculty  of  taste,  or  judgment,  or  reasoning;  it  belongs 
to  the  primary  conscience.  It  belongs  to  a  region  in 
which  no  hypothetic  assumptions  for  the  sake  of  argu- 
ment, no  provisional  concessions,  no  neutralizing  com- 


Plato's  republic. 


465 


promises,  are  ever  possible.  By  two  tests  is  man 
raised  above  the  brutes  ;  1st,  As  a  being  capable  of 
religion,  (wliich  presupposes  him  a  being  endowed 
with  reason ;)  2dly,  As  a  being  capable  of  marriage. 
And  effectually  both  capacities  are  thus  far  defeated 
by  Plato  —  that  both  have  a  worm,  a  principle  of  cor- 
rosion, introduced  into  their  several  tenures.  He  does 
not,  indeed,  formally  destroy  religion  ;  he  supposes 
himself  even  to  purify  it ;  but  by  tearing  away  as 
impostures  those  legends  in  which,  for  a  pagan,  the 
effectual  truth  of  the  pagan  mythology,  as  a  revelation 
of  power,  had  its  origin  and  its  residence,  he  would 
have  shattered  it  as  an  agency  or  a  sanction  operating 
on  men's  oaths,  &c.  He  does  not  absolutely  abolish 
marriage,  but  by  limiting  its  possibility,  (and  how  ? 
Under  two  restrictions,  the  most  insidious  that  can  be 
imagined,  totally  abolishing  it  for  the  most  honored 
order  of  his  citizens,  viz.  —  the  military  order ;  and 
abolishing  it  for  those  men  and  women  whom  nature 
had  previously  most  adorned  with  her  external  gifts,) 
he  does  his  utmost  to  degrade  marriage,  even  so  far  as 
it  is  tolerated.  Whether  he  designed  it  or  not,  mar- 
riage is  now  no  longer  a  privilege,  a  reward,  a  decora- 
tion. On  the  contrary,  not  to  be  married,  is  a  silent 
proclamation  that  you  are  amongst  the  select  children 
of  the  state  —  honored  by  your  fellow-citizens  as  one 
of  their  defenders  —  admired  by  the  female  half  of  the 
society  as  dedicated  to  a  service  of  danger  —  marked 
Hit  universally  by  the  public  zeal  as  one  who  possesses 
h  physical  superiority  to  other  men  —  lastly,  pointed 
out  to  foreigners  for  distinction,  as  belonging  to  a 
privileged  class.  Are  you  married  7  would  be  a 
|uestion  from  which  every  man  travelling  abroad  would 
30 


Plato's  republic. 


shrink,  unless  lie  could  say  — No.  It  would  be  asking, 
in  effect  —  Are  you  of  the  inferior  classes,  a  subaltern 
commanded  by  others,  or  a  noble  ?  And  the  result 
would  be,  that,  like  poverty  (not  pauperism,  but  indi- 
gence or  scanty  means)  at  this  day,  marriage  would 
still  have  its  true,  peculiar  and  secret  blessings,  but, 
like  poverty  again,  it  would  not  flourish  in  the  world^s 
esteem  ;  and,  like  that,  it  would  prompt  a  system  of 
efforts  and  of  opinions  tending  universally  in  the  very 
opposite  direction. 

Feeliug  —  but,  as  a  pagan,  feeling  not  very  pro- 
foundly —  these  truths,  Adeimantus  calls  for  explana- 
tions (secretly  expecting  modifications)  of  this  offen- 
sive doctrine.  Socrates,  however,  (that  is,  Plato,) 
offers  none  but  such  as  are  re-afhrmations  of  the 
doctrine  in  other  words,  and  with  some  little  expan- 
sion of  its  details.  The  women  selected  as  wives  in 
these  military  marriages,  are  to  be  partners  with  the 
men  in  martial  labors.  This  unsexual  distinction  will 
require  an  unsexual  training.  It  is,  therefore,  one 
derivative  law  in  Plato's  Republic,  that  a  certain 
proportion  of  the  young  girls  are  to  receive  a  mascu- 
line education,  not  merely  assimilated  to  that  of  the 
men,  but  by  personal  association  of  both  sexes  in  the 
same  palcEstra,  identical  with  that,  and  going  on  con 
currently. 

To  this  there  are  two  objections  anticipated. 

1st.   That,  as  the  gymnastic  exercises  of  the  an 
cients  were  performed  in  a  state  of  nudity,  (to  which 
fact,  combined  with  the  vast  variety  of  marbles  easily 
worked  by  Grecian  tools,  some  people  have  ascribe 
the  premature  excellence  in   Greece  of  the  plastic 


Plato's  republic 


467 


arts,)  such  a  personal  exposure  would  be  very  trying 
to  female  modesty,  and  revolting  to  m.asculine  sensi- 
bilities. Perhaps  no  one  passage  in  the  whole  works 
of  Plato  so  powerfully  reveals  his  visionary  state  of 
disregard  to  the  actual  in  human  nature,  and  his  con- 
tempt of  human  instincts,  as  this  horrible  transition 
(so  abrupt  and  so  total)  from  the  superstitious  reserve 
of  Grecian  society,  combined,  as  in  this  place  it  is, 
with  levity  so  perfect.  Plato  repudiates  this  scruple 
with  something  like  contempt.  He  contends  that  it 
is  all  custom  and  use  which  regulate  such  feelings, 
and  that  a  new  training  made  operative,  will  soon 
generate  a  new  standard  of  propriety.  Now,  with 
our  better  views  on  such  points,  a  plain  man  would 
tell  the  philosopher,  that  although  use,  no  doubt,  will 
reconcile  us  to  much,  still,  after  all,  a  better  and  a 
worse  in  such  things  does  exist,  previously  to  any 
use  at  all,  one  way  or  the  other  ;  and  that  it  is  the 

*  '  Superstitious  reserve  of  Greece.''  The  possibility,  however, 
of  this  Platonic  reverie  as  an  idealism,  together  with  the  known 
practice  of  Sparta  as  a  reality,  are  interesting  as  a  commentary 
on  the  real  tendencies  of  that  Oriental  seclusion  and  spurious 
delicacy  imposed  upon  women,  which  finally  died  away  in  the 
Roman  system  of  manners;  by  what  steps,  it  would  be  very 
instructive  to  trace.  Meantime,  this  much  is  evident  —  that 
precisely  in  a  land  where  this  morbid  delicacy  was  enforced 
upon  women,  precisjely  in  that  land  (the  only^one  in  such  cir- 
cumstances that  ever  reached  an  intellectual  civilization)  where 
women  were  abridged  in  their  liberty,  men  in  their  social  refine- 
ment, the  human  race  in  its  dignity,  by  the  false  requisitions 
as  to  seclusion,  and  by  a  delicacy  spurious,  hollow,  and  sensual, 
precisely  there  the  other  extreme  was  possible,  of  forcing  upon 
women  the  most  profligate  exposure,  and  compelling  them, 
amidst  tears  and  shame,  to  trample  on  the  very  instincts  of 
female  dignity.  So  reconcilable  are  extremes,  when  the  earliest 
fixtreme  is  laid  in  the  unnatural. 


468 


Plato's  republic. 


business  of  pliilosophy  to  ascertain  this  better  and 
worse,  per  se,  so  as  afterwards  to  apply  the  best 
gravitation  of  this  moral  agency,  called  custom,  in  a 
way  to  uphold  a  known  benefit,  not  to  waste  it  upon  a 
doubtful  one,  still  less  upon  one  which,  to  the  first 
guiding  sensibilities  of  man,  appears  dangerous  and 
shocking.  If,  hereafter,  in  these  martial  women, 
Plato  should,  under  any  dilemma,  have  to  rely  upon 
feminine  qualities  of  delicacy  or  tenderness,  he  might 
happen  to  find  that,  with  the  characteristic  and  sexual 
qualities  of  his  women,  he  has  uprooted  all  the  rest  of 
their  distinguishing  graces  ;  that  for  a  single  purpose, 
arbitrary  even  in  his  system,  he  had  sacrificed  a  power 
that  could  not  be  replaced.  All  this,  however,  is  dis- 
missed as  a  trivial  scruple. 

2dly.  There  is  another  scruple,  however,  which 
weighs  more  heavily  with  Plato,  and  receives  a  more 
pointed  answer.  The  objection  to  a  female  soldier  or 
a  gladiatrix  might  be  applied  on  a  far  difi'erent  prin- 
ciple —  not  to  what  seems,  but  to  what  actually  is  — 
not  by  mor-al  sentiment,  but  by  physiology.  Habit 
might  make  us  callous  to  the  spectacle  of  unfeminine 
exposures  ;  but  habit  cannot  create  qualities  of  mus- 
cular strength,  hardihood,  or  patient  endurance,  where 
nature  has  denied  them.  These  qualities  may  be 
improved,  certainly  in  women,  as  they  may  in  men  ; 
but  still,  as  the  improved  woman  in  her  athletic  char- 
acter must  still  be  compared  with  the  improved  man, 
the  scale,  the  proportions  of  difference,  will  be  kept 
at  the  old  level.  And  thus  the  old  prejudice — that 
women  are  not  meant  (because  not  fitted  by  nature) 
for  warlike  tasks  —  will  revolve  upon  us  in  the  shape 
of  a  philosophic  truth. 


Plato's  republic. 


469 


To  a  certain  extent,  Plato  indirectly  admits  this,  for 
(as  will  be  seen)  practically  he  allows  for  it  in  his 
subsequent  institutions.  But  he  restricts  the  principle 
of  female  inaptitude  for  war  by  the  following  sugges- 
tion :  —  The  present  broad  distribution  of  the  human 
species,  according  to  which  courage  and  the  want  of 
courage  —  muscular  strength  and  weakness  —  are 
made  to  coincide  with  mere  sexual  distinctions,  he 
rejects  as  false  —  not  groundless  —  for  there  is  a 
perceptible  tendency  to  that  difference  —  but  still  false 
for  ordinary  purposes.  It  may  have  a  popular  truth. 
But  here,  when  the  question  is  about  philosophic  pos- 
sibilities and  extreme  ideals,  he  insists  upon  sub- 
stituting for  this  popular  generality  a  more  severe 
valuation  of  the  known  facts.  He  proposes,  there- 
fore, to  divide  the  human  race  upon  another  principle. 
Men,  though  it  is  the  characteristic  tendency  of  their 
sex  to  be  courageous,  are  not  all  courageous  ;  men, 
though  sexually  it  is  their  tendency  to  be  strong,  are 
not  all  strong  :  many  are  so  ;  but  some,  in  the  other 
extreme,  are  both  timid  and  feeble  :  others,  again, 
present  us  with  a  compromise  between  both  extremes. 
By  a  parity  of  logic,  women,  though  sexually  and 
constitutionally  un warlike,  pass  through  the  same 
graduated  range  ;  upon  which  scale,  the  middle  quali- 
ties in  them  may  answer  to  the  lower  qualities  in  the 
other  sex  —  the  higher  to  the  middle.  It  is  possible, 
therefore,  to  make  '  a  selection  amongst  the  entire 
female  population,  of  such  as  are  fitted  to  take  their 
share  in  garrison  duty,  in  the  duty  of  m'ilitary  posts 
or  of  sentries,  and  even,  to  a  certain  extent,  in  the 
extreme  labors  of  the  field.  Plato  countenances  the 
Delief  that,  allowing  for  the  difference  in  muscular 


470 


Plato's  republic. 


power  of  women,  considered  as  animals,  (a  mere 
difference  of  degree,)  there  is  no  essential  difference- 
as  to  power  and  capacities,  between  the  human  male 
and  the  female.  Considering  the  splendor  of  his 
name,  (weighty  we  cannot  call  a  man's  authority 
whom  so  few  profess  to  have  read,  but  imposing  at  the 
least,)  it  is  astonishing  that  in  the  agitation  stirred  by 
the  modern  brawlers,  from  Mary  Wollstonecraft  down- 
wards, in  behalf  of  female  pretensions  to  power,  no 
more  use  should  have  been  drawn  from  the  disinter- 
ested sanction  of  Plato  to  these  wild  innovations. 
However,  it  will  strike  many,  that  even  out  of  that 
one  inferiority  conceded  by  Plato,  taken  in  connection 
with  the  frequent  dependencies  of  wives  and  mothers 
upon  human  forbearance  and  human  aids,  in  a  way 
irreconcilable  with  war,  those  inferences  might  be 
forced  one  after  one,  which  would  soon  restore  (as  a 
direct  logical  consequence)  that  state  of  female  de- 
pendency, which  at  present  nature  and  providence  so 
beautifully  accomplish  through  the  gentlest  of  human 
feelings.  Even  Plato  is  obliged  in  practice  to  allow 
rather  more  on  account  of  his  one  sole  concession 
than  his  promises  would  have  warranted  ;  for  he 
stipulates  that  these,  young  gladiatrices  and  other  figu- 
rantes in  the  paJcBstra,  shall  not  be  put  upon  difficult 
or  dangerous  trials ;  living  in  our  day,  he  would  have 
introduced  into  H.  M.'s  navy  a  class  of  midship 
women  ;  but  would  have  exempted  them,  we  presume 
from  all  the  night  watches,  and  from  going  aloft 
This,  however,  might  have  been  mere  consideration 
/or  the  tenderness  of  youth.  But  again,  in  mature 
life,  though  he  orders  that  the  wives  and  the  childre 
shall  march  with  the  armed  force  to  the  seat  of  th 


Plato's  hepublic. 


471 


campaign,  and  on  thew  day  of  battle  shall  make  their 
'  appearance  in  the  rear,  (an  unpleasant  arrangement 
in  our  day  of  flying  artillery  and  rocket  brigade,)  he 
does  not  insist  on  their  mixing  in  the  melee.  Their 
influence  with  the  fighting  division  of  the  army,  is  to 
lie  in  their  visible  presence.  But  surely  at  this  point, 
Plato  overlooked  the  elaborate  depression  of  that  influ- 
ence which  his  own  system  had  been  nursing.  Per- 
sonal presence  of  near  female  relations,  whether  in 
storms  at  sea,  or  in  battles,  has  always  been  supposed 
to  work  more  mischief  by  distracting  the  comniander's 
attention,  than  good  by  reminding  him  of  his  domestic 
ties.  And  since  the  loss  of  an  East  Indiaman,  (the 
Halsewell,)  about  sixty  years  ago,  in  part  ascribed  to 
the  presence  .  of  the  captain's  daughter,  the  rules  of 
the  British  service,  we  believe,  have  circumscribed  the 
possibility  of  such  very  doubtful  influences.  But,  in 
Plato's  Republic,  the  influences  must  have  been  much 
more  equivocal.  A  num.ber  of  women  and  a  number 
of  children  are  supposed  to  be  ranged  on  an  eminence 
in  the  background.  The  women  were  undoubtedly, 
or  had  been,  mothers  :  but  to  which  of  the  children 
individually,  and  whether  to  any  living  child,  was 
beyond  their  power  to  guess.  Giving  the  fact  that 
any  child  to  which,  in  former  years,  they  might  give 
birth,  were  still  in  existence,  then  probably  that  child 
would  be  found  amongst  the  young  column  of  battle- 
gazers  on  the  ground.  But,  as  to  the  men,  even  this 
conditional  knowledge  is  impossible. Multiplied  pre- 
cautions have  been  taken,  that  it  may  be  impossible. 
From  the  moment  of  birth  the  child  has  been  removed 
to  an  establishment  where  the  sternest  measures  are 
enforced  to  confound  it  beyond  all  power  of  reccgni- 


i72 


Plato's  hefuelic. 


tion  with  the  crowd  of  previous  ^children.  The  object 
is  to  place  a  bar  between  this  recognition  and  every- 
body ;  the  mother  and  all  others  alike.  Can  a  cup  of 
water  be  recovered  when  poured  off  into  the  Danube? 
Equally  impossible,  if  Plato's  intentions  are  fulfilled, 
to  recover  traces  of  identification  with  respect  to  any 
one  of  the  public  children.  The  public  family,  there- 
fore, of  wives  and  children  are  present,  but  with  what 
probable  result  upon  the  sensibilities  of  the  men,  we 
leave  the  reader  to  determine,  when  we  have  put  him 
in  possession  of  Plato's  motive  to  all  this  unnatural 
interference  with  human  affections.  Why  had  he 
from  the  first  applied  so  large  a  body  of  power 
(wasted  power,  if  not  requisite)  to  the  suppression  of 
what  most  legislators  would  look  to  for  their  highest 
resources  ?  It  seems  bad  mechanics  —  to  convert 
that  into  a  resistance,  requiring  vast  expense  of  engi- 
neering to  overcome  it,  which  might  obviously  have 
been  treated  as  a  power  of  the  first  magnitude  fo 
overcoming  other  and  inevitable  resistance.  Stron 
reasons  must  be  brought  for  such  an  inversion  of  th 
ordinary  procedure.  What  are  they  in  Plato's  sys 
tem  ?  Simply  this  —  that  from  individual  marriage 
and  separate  children,  not  only  many  feuds  arise: 
between  man  and  man,  family  and  family  ;  a  private 
interest  is  established  as  against  other  private  inter- 
ests ;  but  also  a  private  parental  interest  is  established 
in  another  sense,  namely,  against  the  public ;  a  paren- 
tal or  family  interest,  differing  from  the  public  statq 
interest,  and  often  enough  in  mortal  hostility  to  that 
interest.  1 
Be  it  so  :  a  danger,  a  pressure,  is  exposed  by  Plata 
in  one  direction  —  confronted  by  what  we  Chris  danfl 


PLATO  S  KEPUBLIC. 


473 


-should  think  a  far  heavier  in  another ;  or^  to  express  it 
more  strictly,  a  gain  is  sought  in  one  direction  — 
which  gain  seems  to  us  fatally  compensated  by  loss  in 
another.  But  that  is  part  of  Plato's  theory  —  that  he 
confronts  with  his  eyes  open  —  and  we  are  not  to  op- 
pose them  in  mere  logic,  because  it  is  one  of  the  pos- 
tulates in  .  effect  on  which  his  system  rests.  But  we 
have  a  right  to  demand  consistency  :  and,  when  Plate 
brings  the  wives  and  children  on  the  field  of  battle  in 
order  to  sustain  the  general  sentiment  of  patriotism,  he 
is  virtually  depending  upon  that  power  which  he  had 
previously  renounced  ;  he  is  throwing  the  weight  of  his 
reliance  upon  a  providential  arrangement  which  he  had 
tossed  aside  not  as  useless  merely,  but  as  vicious  ;  he 
is  clinging  in  his  distress  to  those  sanctities,  conjugal 
and  parental,  of  which  he  had  said  in  his  self-confi- 
dence —  '  Behold !  I  will  give  you  something  better/ 
And  tolerably  sure  we  are,  that,  had  Plato  prosecuted 
the  details  of  his  theory  into  more  of  their  circumstan- 
tialities,  or  had  he  been  placed  under  the  torture  of  a 
close  polemic  review,  he  would  have  been  found  reviv- 
ing for  its  uses,  and  for  its  solution  of  many  perplexi- 
ties in  practice,  that  very  basis  of  female  honor  and 
modesty,  which  by  his  practice  and  by  his  professions 
he  has  so  labored  earnestly  to  destroy. 

The  reader  will  arrive  probably  at  a  pretty  fixed 
opinion  as  to  the  service  for  state  purposes  likely  to 
arise  from  this  exhibition  of  a  clamorous  nursery,  chil- 
dren and  nurses,  upon  the  field  of  battle.  As  a  fiag, 
banner,  or  ensign,  if  Plato  could  in  any  way  contrive 
that  the  army  should  regard  the  nursery  militant  as  the 
sacred  depository  of  their  martial  honor,  then  it  is 
probable  that  men  would  fight  desperately  for  thai 


474 


Plato's  bepublic. 


considered  as  a  trophy,  which  they  regarded  but  lightly 
as  a  household  memorial.  But  this  would  be  unattain- 
able. Even  with  us,  and  our  profounder  Christian 
feelings,  the  women  attendant  upon  an  army  (who,  in 
the  Thirty  Years'  War,  on  the  Catholic  side  often 
amounted  to  another  army)  have  never  been  elevated 
into  a  '  pignus  sanctum  militise.'  The  privates  and 
subaltern  officers  might  readily  have  come  into  such  a 
view  ;  but  the  commander-in-chief  with  his  staff  would 
have  set  their  faces  against  so  dangerojis  a  principle  — 
it  would  have  fettered  the  movements  of  an  army  too 
much ;  and  in  most  cases  would  defeat  any  sudden 
manoeuvres  in  the  presence  of  an  enemy.  Mere  jus- 
tice to  human  powers  demands  that  the  point  of  honor 
for  armies,  or  for  sections  of  armies,  (such  as  regi- 
ments, &c.)  should  be  placed  in  that  which  can  move 
concurrently  with  the  main  body,  no  matter  for  roads, 
weather,  want  of  provisions,  or  any  other  circum- 
stances. Even  artillery,  therefore,  though  a  subject  of 
martial  jealousy,  is  not  made  absolutely  coincident  with 
the  point  of  martial  honor.  And  another  consideration 
is  this — that  not  only  no  object  ever  can  be  raised 
into  that  mode  of  dignity  when  all  members  of  the 
army  are  not  parties  to  the  consecration,  but  even  the 
enemy  must  be  a  party  to  this  act.  Accordingly,  the 
sanctity  of  the  flag,  as  the  national  honor  in  a  sym- 
bolic form  confided  to  a  particular  regiment,  is  an 
inheritance  transmitted  downwards  through  many 
generations  of  every  nation  in  Christendom.  Now, 
if  Plato's  republic  were  even  able  to  translate  the  point 
Df  honor  (which  for  the  Greeks  consisted  in  a  ritual 
celebration  of  the  battle  by  sacrifices,  together  with  a 
choral  chant,  and  also  in  the  right  to  erect  a  frail  me- 


Plato's  republic. 


475 


morial  of  the  victory-^')  to  the  capture  or  preservation 
of  the  women  and  children,  —  still  this  change  could 
not  be  accomplished  ;  for  the  neighboring  states  would 
not  be  persuaded  to  terms  of  '  reciprocity,'  as  the 
modern  economists  phrase  it.  What !  not  if  they  also 
were  Platonic  states  ?  Ay,  but  that  is  impossible  ;  for 
Plato  himself  lays  the  foundation  of  hope,  and  the 
prospect  of  conquest,  for  his  own  state,  in  the  weak- 
ness (growing  out  of  luxury,  together  with  the  conju- 
gal and  parental  relations)  presumable  throughout  the 
neighboring  states. 

These  ambulatory  nurseries,  therefore,  never  could 
be  made  to  interest  the  honor  even  of  a  Platonic  army, 
since  no  man  would  consent  to  embark  his  own  honor 
upon  a  stake  to  which  the  enemy  afforded  no  corres- 
ponding stake :  always  to  expose  your  own  honor  to 
loss  with  no  reversionary  gain  under  any  contingency ; 
always  to  suffer  anxiety  in  your  own  person  with  no 
possibility  of  retaliating  this  anxiety  upon  the  enemy 
—  would  have  been  too  much  for  the  temper  of  Socra- 
tes ;  and  we  fear  that  he  would  have  left  even  Xan- 
tippe  herself,  with  all  her  utensils  of  every  kind,  as  a 
derelict  for  the  benefit  of  the  enemy  in  dry  weather, 
when  a  deluge  from  upper  windows  might  not  have 
been  unwelcome.    But  if  no  honor  were  pledged  upon 

*  *  Frail,'  not  from  any  indisposition  to  gasconade  ;  but  there 
was  a  dark  superstition  which  frightened  the  Greeks  from 
raising  any  durable  monuments  to  a  triumph  over  Greeks  : 
judicial  calamities  would  descend  upon  the  victors,  ^Yemesis 
would  be  upon  their  haunches,  if  they  exulted  too  loudly. 
Stone,  therefore,  marble,  and  brass,  were  forbidden  materials 
for  the  tropcBa  !  they  were  always  made  of  wood.  If  not,  look 
out  for  squalls  ahead  ! 


476 


Plato's  eepublic. 


the  nursery  in  the  rear,  the  next  step  would  certainly 
be,  that  under  difficult  circumstances,  stress  of  weather, 
short  provisions,  or  active  light  cavalry  in  the  rear,  the 
nursery  would  become  the  capital  nuisance  of  the 
army.  Ambulatory  hospitals,  though  so  evidently 
personal  interest  of  the  nearest  kind,  are  trying 
to  soldiers  when  overworked ;  but  ambulatory  nurse- 
ries, with  no  intelligible  motive  for  their  presence, 
continual  detachments  and  extra  guards  on  their 
account,  with  an  enemy  laughing  at  the  nursery  up- 
roars, would  cause  a  mutiny  if  Plato  were  there  in 
person.  Sentiment  but  ill  accords  with  the  gross  real- 
ities of  business,  as  Charles  Lamb  illustrated  (rather 
beyond  the  truth  in  that  case)  with  regard  to  Lord 
Camelford's  corpse,  when  clearing  the  custom-house 
for  interment  under  an  aged  tree  in  Switzerland  ;  and 
to  hawk  along  with  an  army  a  menagerie  of  spectators, 
against  a  day  of  battle,  would  be  an  arrangement  so 
little  applicable  to  any  but  select  expeditions,  that  the 
general  overturn  of  caravans  once  a  day,  and  the  con- 
tinual fracture  of  skulls,  would  be  the  least  tragical 
issue  within  reasonable  expectation.  Not  being 
'  sacred,'  as  the  depositaries  of  honor,  they  would  soon 
become  '  profane.'  Anvl  speaking  gravely,  when  we 
reflect  on  the  frequency,  even  in  Christian  lands,  with 
which,  under  the  trials  of  extreme  poverty,  the  parental 
tie  gives  way  —  what  other  result  than  open  insubordi- 
nation could  be  expected  from  a  plan  which  was 
adapted  to  a  mere  melodramatic  effect,  at  the  price  of 
universal  comfort  for  months  ?  Not  being  associated 
with  patriotic  honor,  as  we  have  endeavored  to  show, 
and  the  parental  tie  being  so  aerial  in  any  case  where 
either  mother  nor  child  belonged  to  the  individual, 


Plato's  hepublic. 


477 


but  also  so  exceedingly  questionable  in  the  case  of 
Plato's  artifices  for  concealment  having  succeeded  to 
the  lettei  —  what  visionary  statesmanship  would  it 
prove  to  build  for  so  much  as  a  day's  service,  or  for 
an  extra  effort,  upon  the  pretence  of  those  who  could 
have  little  other  value  in  the  soldier's  eye  than  that 
they  were  natives  of  the  same  city  with  himself ! 

^  Even  this,  however,  is  not  the  worst :  pursuing  to 
the  last  tha  regulations  of  Plato,  the  reader  is  more  and 
more  surprised  by  the  unconscious  inconsistency  which; 
emerges  :  for  whilst  recollecting  the  weight  of  service 
—  the  stress  w^hich  Plato  has  thrown  upon  the  parental 
affection  in  this  case  —  he  finds  still  farther  proof  of 
the  excessive  degradation  to  which  Plato  has  reduced 
the  rank  of  that  affection  as  a  moral  principle  :  in 
short,  he  finds  him  loading  it  with  responsibility  as  a 
duty,  whilst  he  is  destroying  it  as  an  honor,  and  pol- 
luting it  as  an  elevated  enjoyment.  Let  us  follow  the 
regulations  to  their  end  :  —  The  guardians  of  the  state, 
as  they  are  called  in  their  civil  relation,  the  soldiers, 
as  they  are  called  with  respect  to  foreign  states  and  to 
enemies  in  general,  have  been  originally  selected  for 
their  superior  qualities  of  body.  Thus  the  most  natural 
(because  the  most  obvious)  grounds  of  personal  vanity, 
are  here  at  once  concentrated  by  state  preference  and 
peculiar  rank.  In  civilized  states,  these  advantages 
being  met  and  thwarted  at  every  turning  by  so  many 
higher  modes  of  personal  distinction  —  knowledge, 
special  accomplishments  applicable  to  special  difficul- 
ties, intellect  generally,  experience  large  and  com- 
prehensive, or  local  and  peculiar  —  riches,  popular 
influence,  high  birth,  splendid  connections  ;  the  con- 

I  sequence  is,  that  mere  physical  advantages  rank  as  the 

i 


478 


Plato's  eepublic. 


lowest  class  of  pretensions,  and  practically  are  not  of 
much  avail,  except  as  regards  beauty  when  eminent 
in  women,  though  even  for  that  the  sphere  is  narrow  ; 
since  what  woman,  by  mere  beauty,  ever  drew  after 
her  such  a  train  of  admirers  as  a  few  of  our  modern 
female  writers  in  verse  ?  Consequently  the  arrogance 
in  these  soldiers  of  Plato,  finding  themselves  at  once 
acknowledged  as  the  best  models  of  physical  excel- 
lence in  the  state,  and  also,  in  the  second  place,  raised 
to  the  rank  of  an  aristocracy  on  account  of  this  excel- 
lence, would  be  unlimited.  It  would  be  crossed  by  no 
other  mode  of  excellence  —  since  no  other  would  be 
recognized  and  countenanced  by  the  rftate. 

With  this  view  of  their  own  vast  superiority,  natur- 
ally —  and  excusably  in  a  state  conformed  to  that 
mode  of  thinking  —  looking  upon  their  own  rank  as  a 
mere  concession  of  justice  to  their  claims  of  birth,  the 
soldiers  would  review  their  condition  in  other  res|)ects. 
They  would  then  find  that,  under  the  Platonic  laws, 
they  enjoyed  two  advantages  :  viz.  first,  a  harem  fur- 
nished  with  the  select  females  of  the  state,  having  pre- 
cisely the  sort  of  personal  pre-eminence  corresponding 
to  their  own ;  a  modern  Mahometan  polygamy,  in  fact, 
but  without  the  appropriation  which  constitutes  the 
luxury  of  Mahometan  principles ;  secondly,  a  general 
precedency.  On  the  other  hand,  to  balance  these  privi- 
leges, and  even  with  the  most  dissolute  men  greatly  to 
outweigh  them,  they  would  find  — 

1.  That  they  had,  and  could  have,  no  property  ;  no 
a  fragment  :  even  their  arms  would  be  the  property  of 
the  state ;  even  the  dress  of  mail,  in  which  the  oTrktrat 
or  men-at-arms,  (heavy-armed  cuirassiers,  or  cata 
phractoi,)  must   be  arrayed,  would   return   to  th 


Plato's  eepublic. 


479 


o.rjX(nh;yrj,  Qi*  avscnal,  in  time  of  peace  :  not  a  chattel, 
article  of  furniture,  or  personal  ornament,  but  would 
have  a  public  stamp  as  it  were,  upon  it,  making  it  fel- 
ony to  sell,  or  give,  or  exchange  it.  It  is  true  that,  to 
reconcile  the  honorable  men,  the  worshipful  paupers, 
to  this  austere  system,  Plato  tells  us  —  that  the  other 
orders  of  citizens  will  not  be  rich  :  nobody,  in  fact,  will 
be  allowed  to  possess  any  great  wealth.  But  there  is 
still  a  difference  between  something  and  nothing.  And 
then,  as  to  this  supposed  maximum  of  riches  which  is  to 
be  adopted,  no  specific  arrangements  are  shown,  by 
which,  in  consistency  with  any  freedom  of  action, 
further  accumulation  can  be  intercepted,  or  actual  pos- 
session ascertained. 

2.  '  But,'  says  Plato,  '  what  would  the  fellows  want 
with  property  ?  Food,  is  it  ?  Have  they  not  that  food 
at  the  public  cost ;  and  better  for  their  health  than  any 
which  they  would  choose  ?  Drink  —  is  there  not  the 
river  ?  And  if  by  ill  luck  it  should  happen  to  be  a 
\eLixdf)pov<s,  rather  dependent  upon  winter  floods  and 
upon  snows  melting  in  early  summer,  is  there  not  the 
rain  at  all  times  in  cisterns  and  tanks,  for  those  who 
prefer  it  ?  Shoemakers  and  weavers  —  (if  it  is  shoes 
and  tunics  they  want)  —  are  they  not  working  through- 
out the  year  for  their  benefit  ?  '  —  All  this  is  true  :  but 
still  they  are  aware  that  their  own  labors  and  hardships 
would  earn  food  and  clothes  upon  regular  wages  :  and 
that,  on  the  general  scale  of  remuneration  for  merce- 
nary soldiership  in  Greece,  adding  their  dangers  to 
heir  daily  work,  they  might  obtain  enough  to  purchase 
even  such  immoral  superfluities  as  wine. 

3.  At  present,  again,  this  honored  class  have  many 
wives ;  none  of  their  fellow-citizens  more  than  one. 


480 


PLATO  S  REPUBLIC. 


Bat  here,  again,  what  a  mockery  of  the  truth  !  that 
one  is  really  and  exclusively  the  wife  of  him  whom, 
she  has  married ;  dedicates  her  love  and  attentions  and 
her  confidential  secrecy  to  that  man  only  ;  knows  and 
retains  her  own  children  in  her  own  keeping  ;  and 
these  children  regard  their  own  parents  as  their  own 
sole  benefactors.  How  gladly  would  the  majority  of 
the  guardians,  after  two  years'  experience  of  the  disso- 
lute barrack,  accept  in  exchange  the  quiet  privacy  of 
the  artisan's  cottage  ! 

4.  The  soldiers  again,  it  is  urged,  enjoy  something 
of  that  which  sweetens  a  sailor's  life,  and  keeps  it 
from  homely  insipidity  —  viz.  the  prospect  of  adven- 
ture, and  of  foreign  excursions  :    even  danger  is  a 
mode  of  stimulation.    But  how  ?    Under  what  restric- 
tion do  they  enjoy  these  prospects  of  peril  and  adven- ^ 
ture  ?    Never  but  on  a  service  of  peculiar  hardship.  ^ 
For  it  is  a  badge  of  their  slavery  to  public  uses,  that  | 
for  them  only  there  exists  no  liberty  of  foreign  travel.' 
All  the  rest  throughout  the  city,  may  visit  foreign, 
lands;   the  honorable  class  only  is  confined  to  the^ 
heartless  tumult  of  its  dissolute  barracks. 

Plato  evidently  felt  these  bitter  limitations  of  free 
agency  to  be,  at  the  same  time,  oppressive  and  de- 
grading. Still  he  did  not  think  himself  at  liberty  to 
relax  them.  His  theory  he  conceived  to  be  a  sort  of 
watch- work,  which  would  keep  moving  if  all  the  parts 
were  kept  in  their  places,  but  would  stop  on  any  dis- 
turbance of  their  relations.  Not  being  able  to  give 
any  relief,  the  next  thing  was  —  to  find  compensation. 
And  accordingly,  in  addition  to  the  sensual  bait  of 
polygamy  already  introduced  as  the  basis  of  his  plan, 
he  now  prox^eeds  to  give  a  still  wider  license  to  appe- 
tite.   It  takes  the  shape  of  a  dispensation  in  practice, 


PLATO  S  REPUBLIC. 


481 


from  a  previous  special  restriction  in  one  particular 
direction  :  the  whole  body  of  guardians  and  their  fe- 
male associates,  or  '  wives,'  are  excluded  from  conju- 
gal intercourse  except  within  strict  limits  as  to  age  ; 
from  the  age  of  twenty  to  forty  for  the  women,  of 
thirty  to  fifty  for  the  men,  is  the  range  within  which 
they  are  supposed  to  be  capable  of  producing  a  healthy 
race  of  children.  Within  those  limits  they  are  li- 
censed :  not  further.  But,  by  way  of  compensation, 
unlimited  concubinage  is  tolerated  for  the  seniors ; 
with  this  one  dreadful  proviso  —  that  any  children  born 
from  such  connections,  as  presumably  not  possessing 
the  physical  stamina,  or  other  personal  advantages 
looked  for  from  more  carefully  selected  parents,  must 
be  exposed.  Born  of  fathers  who  possess  no  personal 
property,  these  children  could  have  no  patrimony  ;  nor 
succeed  to  any  place  as  a  tradesman,  artisan,  or  la- 
borer. Succeeding  to  a  state  father,  they  succeed  to 
nothing  ;  they  are  thrown  as  waifs  or  strays  on  the 
state  bounty  :  and  for  that  they  are  not  eligible,  as  not 
having  been  born  within  the  privilege  of  the  state  reg- 
ulations. No  party,  therefore,  known  to  the  state 
being  responsible  for  their  maintenance,  they  must  die. 
And  because  the  ancients  had  a  scruple,  (no  scruple  of 
mercy,  but  of  selfish  superstition,)  as  to  taking  the  life 
by  violence  from  any  creature  not  condemned  under 
some  law,  the  mode  of  death  must  be  by  exposure  on 
the  op3n  hills  ;  when  either  the  night  air,  or  the  fangs 
of  a  wolf,  oftentimes  of  the  great  dogs,  still  preserved 
in  many  parts  of  Greece,  usually  put  an  end  to  the 
unoffending  creature's  life. 

Now,  with  this  sensual  bounty  on  infanticide,  and 
this  regular  machinery  for  calling  into  existence  such 
31 


482 


PLATOS  K_PUBLIC. 


ill-fated  blossoms  on  the  tree  of  life,  and  for  immedi- 
ately strewing  them  on  the  ground  by  the  icy  wind  of 
death,  cutting  adrift  the  little  boat  to  go  down  the 
Niagara  of  violent  death,  in  the  very  next  night  after 
its  launching  on  its  unknown  river  of  life  —  could 
Plato  misconceive  the  result  ?  could  he  wish  to  mis- 
conceive it,  as  regarded  the  pieties  of  parental  love  ? 
To  make  human  life  cheaper  and  more  valueless  than 
that  of  the  brutes  —  is  that  the  way  to  cherish  the  sanc- 
tity of  parental  affection  ;  upon  which  affection,  how- 
ever, elsewhere,  Plato  throws  so  heavy  a  burden  of 
duty  ?  ^ 
Plato  would  have  been  surprised,  had  he  anticipated  ^ 
the  discoveries  of  modern  experience  as  to  the  effect 
of  mairiages  so  assorted  in  point  of  age  as  he  has  sup- 
posed.   This  one  arrangement,  by  mere  disproportion 
of  the  sexes,  would  have  introduced  strange  disturb- 
ances into  his  system.    But  for  general  purpose,  it  is 
more  important  to  remark  —  that  the  very  indulgences  l 
of  Plato  are  sensual :  from  a  system  in  itself  sensual 
in  the  most  cruel  degree,  Plato  grants  a  dispensation 
only  to  effect  a  Otaheitian  carnival  of  licentious  appe- 
tite, connected  with  a  contempt  of  human  life,  which 
Is  excessive  even  for  paganism  ;  since  in  that  the  ex- 
j>osure  of  children  is  allowed  as  a  relief  from  supposed 
evils  of  nature  ;  or  (as  we  now  ^  see  in  Oude,  and  here-j 
tofore  in  Cutch)  was  practised  by  way  of  relief  fronJ 
what  were  regarded  as  social  evils,  viz.,  the  necessity!, 
in  the  absence  of  infanticide,  which  arose  for  giving! 
daughters  in  marriage  to  men  that  were  their  inferiors! 
in  birth ;  whereas  here,  under  the  system  of  Plato,  tlie 
the  evil  is  self-created  by  the  cruel  and  merciless  phil- 
osopher with  the  view  of  meeting  and  counteracting 
^uinous  results  which  nobody  had  caused  but  himself. 


*  [Written  during  the  Indian  revolt.] 


DINNER,  REAL,  AND  REPUTED. 


Great  misconceptions  have  always  prevailed  about 
the  Roman  dinner.  Dinner  [_c(Bna]  was  the  only  meal 
which  the  Romans  as  a  nation  took.  It  was  no  acci- 
dent, but  arose  out  of  their  whole  social  economy. 
This  I  shall  endeavor  to  show,  by  running  through  the 
history  of  a  Roman  day.  Ridentem  dicere  verum  quid 
vetat  ?  And  the  course  of  this  review  will  expose  one 
or  two  important  truths  in  ancient  political  economy, 
which  have  been  too  much  overlooked. 

With  the  lark  it  was  that  the  Roman  rose.  Not 
that  the  earliest  lark  rises  so  early  in  Latium  as  the 
earliest  lark  in  England  ;  that,  is,  during  summer :  but 
then,  on  the  other  hand,  neither  does  it  ever  rise  so 
late.  The  Roman  citizen  was  stirring  with  the  dawn 
—  which,  allowing  for  the  shorter  longest- day  and 
longer  shortest-day  of  Rome,  you  may  call  about  four 
in  summer  —  about  seven  in  winter.  Why  did  he  do 
this  ?  Because  he  went  to  bed  at  a  very  early  hour. 
But  why  did  he  do  that?  By  backing  in  this  way, 
we  shall  surely  back  into  ,  the  very  well  of  truth  :  al- 
ways, where  it  is  possible,  let  us  have  the  pourquoi  of 
the  pourquoi.  The  Roman  went  to  bed  early  for  two 
remarkable  reasons.  1st,  Be.cause  in  Rome,  built  for 
%  martial  destiny,  every  habit  of  life  had  reference  to 


484  DINNER,  REAL,  AND  REPUTED. 


the  usages  of  war.  Every  citizen,  if  he  were  not  a 
mere  proletarian  animal  kept  at  the  public  cost,  with  a 
view  to  his  proles  or  offspring,  held  himself  a  soldier- 
elect  :  the  more  noble  he  was,  the  more  was  his  lia- 
bility to  military  service  ;  in  short,  all  Rome,  and  at 
all  times,  was  consciously  '  in  procinct.'^^  Now  it  was 
a  principle  of  ancient  warfare,  that  every  hour  of  day- 
light had  a  triple  worth,  as  valued  against  hours  oi 
darkness.  That  was  one  reason  —  a  reason  suggested 
by  the  understanding.  But  there  was  a  second  reason, 
far  more  remarkable  ;  and  this  was  a  reason  suggested 
by  a  blind  necessity.  It  is  an  important  fact,  that  this 
planet  on  which  we  live,  this  little  industrious  earth  of 
ours,  has  developed  her  wealth  by  slow  stages  of  in- 
crease. She  was  far  from  being  the  rich  little  globe  in 
Caesar's  days  that  she  is  at  present.  The  earth  in  our 
days  is  incalculably  richer,  as  a  whole,  than  in  the 
time  of  Charlemagne  ;  and  at  that  time  she  was  richer, 
by  many  a  million  of  acres,  than  in  the  era  of  Augus- 
tus. In  that  Augustan  era  we  descry  a  clear  belt  of 
cultivation,  averaging  perhaps  six  hundred  miles  in 
depth,  running  in  a  ring-fence  about  the  Mediterra- 
nean. This  belt,  and  no  more^  was  in  decent  cultiva- 
tion. Beyond  that  belt,  there  was  only  a  wdld  Indian 
cultivation  ;  generally  not  so  much.  At  present,  what 
a  difference  !  We  have  that  very  belt,  but  much  rich- 
er, all  things  considered,  cequatis  cequandis,  than  in  the 
Roman  era  and  much  beside.  The  reader  must  not 
look  to  single  cases,  as  that  of  Egypt  or  other  parts  of 
A-frica,  but  take  the  whole  collectively.  On  tha 
scheme  of  valuation,  we  have  the  old  Roman  belt,  th 
circum  Mediterranean  girdle  not  much  tarnished,  an 
we  have  all  the  rest  of  Europe  to  boot.    Such  bein 


DINNER,  REAL,  AND  REPUTED.  485 

the  case,  the  earth,  being  (as  a  whole)  in  that  Pagan 
era  so  incomparably  poorer,  could  not  in  the  Pagan 
era  support  the  expense  of  maintaining  great  empires 
in  cold  latitudes.  Her  purse  would  not  reach  that 
cost.  Wherever  she  undertook  in  those  early  ages  to 
rear  man  in  great  abundance,  it  must  be  where  nature 
would  consent  to  work  in  partnership  with  herself; 
where  warmth  was  to  be  had  for  nothing ;  where 
clothes  were  not  so  entirely  indispensable,  but  that  a 
ragged  fellow  might  still  keep  himself  warm ;  where 
slight  shelter  might  serve ;  and  where  the  soil^  if  not 
absolutely  richer  in  reversionary  wealth,  was  more 
easily  cultured.  Nature,  in  those  days  of  infancy, 
must  come  forward  liberally,  and  take  a  number  of 
shares  in  every  new  joint-stock  concern  before  it  could 
move.  Man,  therefore,  went  to  bed  early  in  those 
ages,  simply  because  his  worthy  mother  earth  could  not 
afford  him  candles.  She,  good  old  lady  (or  good 
young  lady,  for  geologists  know  not^^  whether  she  is 
in  that  stage  of  her  progress  which  corresponds  to 
gray  hairs,  or  to  infancy,  or  to  'a  certain  age  ')  —  she, 
good  lady,  would  certainly  have  shuddered  to  hear  any 
of  her  nations  asking  for  candles.  '  Candles,  indeed  ! ' 
she  would  have  said,  '  who  ever  heard  of  such  a  thing  ? 
and  with  so  much  excellent  daylight  running  to  waste,, 
as  I  have  provided  gratis  !  What  will  the  wretches 
want  next  ?  ' 

The  daylight,  furnished  gratis^  was  certainly  *  unde- 
niable '  in  its  quality,  and  quite  sufficient  for  all  pur- 
poses that  were  honest.  Seneca,  even  in  his  own 
luxurious  period,  called  those  men  '  lucifugcE^^  and  by 
other  ugly  names,  who  lived  chiefly  by  candle-light. 
None  but  rich  and  luxurious  men,  nay,  even  amongst 


486  DIN-NER,  HEAL,  AND  HEPUTED. 

fchese,  none  but  idlers,  did  live  or  could  live  by  candle- 
light. An  immense  majority  of  men  in  Rome  nevef 
lighted  a  candle,  unless  sometimes  in  the  early  dawn. 
And  this  custom  of  Rome  was  the  custom  also  of  all 
nations  that  lived  round  the  great  lake  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean. In  Athens,  Egypt,  Palestine,  Asia  Minor 
everywhere,  the  ancients  went  to  bed,  like  good  boys, 
from  seven  to  nine  o'clock.^^  The  Turks  and  other 
people,  who  have  succeeded  to  the  stations  and  the 
habits  of  the  ancients,  do  so  at  this  day. 

The  Roman,  therefore,  who  saw  no  joke  in  sitting 
round  a  table  in  the  dark,  went  off  to  bed  as  the  dark- 
ness began.  Everybody  did  so.  Old  Numa  Pom- 
pilius  himself  was  obliged  to  trundle  off  in  the  dusk. 
Tarquinius  might  be  a  very  superb  fellow ;  but  I  doubt 
whether  he  ever  saw  a  farthing  rushlight.  And, 
though  it  may  be  thought  that  plots  and  conspiracies 
would  flourish  in  such  a  city  of  darkness,  it  is  to  be 
considered,  that  the  conspirators  themselves  had  no  more 
candles  than  honest  men  :  both  parties  were  in  the  dark. 

Being  up,  then,  and  stirring  not  long  after  the  lark, 
what  mischief  did  the  Roman  go  about  first  ?  Now-a- 
days,  he  would  have  taken  a  pipe  or  a  cigar.  But, 
alas  for  the  ignorance  of  the  poor  heathen  creatures  ! 
they  had  neither  the  one  nor  the  other.  In  this  point, 
I  must  tax  our  mother  earth  with  being  really  too 
stingy.  In  the  case  of  the  candles,  I  approve  of  her 
parsimony.  Much  mischief  is  brewed  by  candle- 
light. But  it  was  coming  it  too  strong  to  allow  no 
tobacco.  Many  a  wild  fellow  in  Rome,  your  Gracchi, 
Syllas,  Catilines,  would  not  have  played  '  h —  and 
Tommy'  in  the  way  they  did,  if  they  could  have 
Boothed  their  angry  stomachs  with  a  cigar  ;  a  pipe 


DINNER,  REAL,  AND  REPUTED.  487 


Las  intercepted  many  an  evil  scheme.  But  tlie  thing 
is  past  helping  now.  At  Rome,  you  must  do  as  '  they 
does'  at  Rome.  So,  after  shaving  (supposing  the  age 
of  the  Barhati  to  he  past),  what  is  the  first  business 
that  our  Roman  will  undertake  ?  Forty  to  one  he  is  a 
poor  man,  born  to  look  upwards  to  his  fellow-men  — 
and  not  to  look  down  upon  anybody  but  slaves.  He 
goes,  therefore,  to  the  palace  of  some  grandee,  some 
top-sawyer  of  the  senatorian  order.  This  great  man,  for 
all  his  greatness,  has  turned  out  even  sooner  than  him- 
self. For  he  also  has  had  no  candles  and  no  cigars  ;  and 
he  well  knows,  that  before  the  sun  looks  into  his  portals, 
all  his  halls  will  be  overflowing  and  buzzing  with  the 
matin  susurrus  of  courtiers  —  the  'mane  salutantes.'^^ 
It  is  as  much  as  his  popularity  is  worth  to  absent  himself, 
or  to  keep  people  waiting.  But  surely,  the  reader  may 
think,  this  poor  man  he  might  keep  waiting.  No,  he 
might  not ;  for,  though  poor,  being  a  citizen,  the  man 
is  a  gentleman.  That  was  the  consequence  of  keeping 
slaves.  Wherever  there  is  a  class  of  slaves,  he  that 
enjoys  ih.e  jus  siiffragii  (no  matter  how  poor)  is  a  gen- 
tleman. The  true  Latin  word  for  a  gentleman  is  iw- 
genuus  —  a  freeman  and  the  son  of  a  freeman. 

Yet  even  here  there  were  distinctions.  Under  the 
emperors,  the  courtiers  were  divided  into  two  classes  : 
with  respect  to  the  superior  class,  it  was  said  of  the 
sovereign — that  he  saw  them  videhat ')  ;  with  re- 
bpect  to  the  other — that  he  was  seen  {'  videhatur 
Even  Plutarch  mentions  it  as  a  common  boast  in  his 
times,  rjiJia^  elSev  6  /Sao-iXevq  —  Ccesar  is  in  the  habit  of 
seeing  me  ;  or,  as  a  common  plea  for  evading  a  suit, 
crepoi;?  opa  \l6XKov  —  /  am  sorry  to  say  he  is  more  in- 
dined  to  look  upon  others.  And  this  usage  derived  itself 


488 


BINNEK,  HEAL,  AND  REPUTED. 


(mark  that  viell !)  from  the  republican  era.  The  aulic 
spirit  was  propagated  by  the  empire,  but  from  a  repub- 
lican root. 

Having  paid  his  court,  you  will  suppose  that  our 
friend  comes  home  to  breakfast.  Not  at  all  :  no  such 
discovery  as  '  breakfast '  had  then  been  made  :  breakfast 
was  not  invented  for  many  centuries  after  that.  I  have 
always  admired,  and  always  shall  admire,  as  the  very 
best  of  all  human  stories,  Charles  Lamb's  account  of 
roast-pork,  and  its  traditional  origin  in  China.  Ching 
Ping,  it  seems,  had  suffered  his  father's  house  to  be 
burned  down:  the  outhouses  were  burned  along  with 
the  house  :  and  in  one  of  these  the  pigs,  by  accident, 
were  roasted  to  a  turn.  Memorable  were  the  results 
for  all  future  China  and  future  civilization.  Ping,  who 
(like  all  China  beside)  had  hitherto  eaten  his  pig  raw, 
now  for  the  first  time  tasted  it  in  a  state  of  torrefac- 
tion.  Of  course  he  made  his  peace  with  his  father  by 
a  part  (tradition  says  a  leg)  of  the  new  dish.  The 
father  was  so  astounded  with  the  discovery,  that  he 
burned  his  house  down  once  a-year  for  the  sake  of 
coming  at  an  annual  banquet  of  a  roast  pig.  A  curi- 
ous prying  sort  of  a  fellow,  one  Chang  Pang,  got  to 
know  of  this.  He  also  burned  down  a  house  with  a 
pig  in  it,  and  had  his  eyes  opened.  The  secret  was 
ill  kept  —  the  discovery  spread  —  many  great  conver- 
sions were  made  —  houses  were  blazing  in  every  part 
of  the  Celestial  Empire.  The  insurance  offices  took 
the  matter  up.  One  Chong  Pong,  detected  in  the  very 
act  of  shutting  up  a  pig  in  his  drawing-room,  and  then 
firing  a  train,  was  indicted  on  a  charge  of  arson.. 
The  chief  justice  of  Pekin,  on  that  occasion,  re- 
;iuested  an  officer  of  the  court  to  hand  him  up  a  piece 


DINNER,  REAL,  AND  REPUTED.  489 

of  the  roast  pig,  the  corpus  delicti :  pure  curiosity  it 
was,  liberal  curiosity,  that  led  him  to  taste  ;  but  within 
two  days  after,  it  was  observed,  says  Lamb,  that  his 
lordship's  town-house  was  on  fire.  In  short,  all  China 
apostatized  to  the  new  faith  ;  and  it  was  not  until 
some  centuries  had  passed,  that  a  man  of  prodigious 
genius  arose,  viz.,  Chung  Pung,  who,  established  the 
second  era  in  the  history  of  roast  pig  by  showing  that 
it  could  be  had  without  burning  down  a  house. 

No  such  genius  had  yet  arisen  in  Rome.  Breakfast 
was  not  suspected.  No  prophecy,  no  type  of  break- 
fast, had  been  published.  In  fact,  it  took  as  much 
time  and  research  to  arrive  at  that  great  discovery  as 
at  the  Copernican  system.  True  it  is,  reader,  that 
you  have  heard  of  such  a  word  as  jentaculum  ;  and 
your  dictionary  translates  that  old  heathen  word  by 
the  Christian  word  breakfast.  But  dictionaries  are 
dull  deceivers.  Between  jentaculum  and  breakfast  the 
differences  are  as  wide  as  between  a  horse-chestnut 
and  a  chestnut  horse  ;  differences  in  the  time  when,  in 
the  place  where,  in  the  manner  how,  but  pre-eminently 
in  the  thing  which, 

Galen  is  a  good  authority  upon  such  a  subject,  since, 
if  (like  other  Pagans)  he  ate  no  breakfast  himself,  in 
«ome  sense  he  may  be  called  the  cause  of  breakfast  to 
other  men,  by  treating  of  those  things  which  could 
safely  be  taken  upon  an  empty  stomach.  As  to  the 
time,  he  (like  many  other  authors)  says,  rrepl  TpLrrjv,  rj 
(to  fxaKporepov)  irepl  TerdpTrjv,  about  the  third,  or  at  far- 
thest about  the  fourth  hour  :  and  so  exact  is  he,  that 
ne  assumes  the  day  to  lie  exactly  between  six  and  six 
o'clock,  and  to  be  divided  into  thirteen  equal  portions. 
Bo  the  time  will  be  a  few  minutes  before  nine,  or  8 


490 


DINNER,   REAL,  AND  REPUTED. 


few  minutes  before  ten,  in  the  forenoon.  That  seems 
fair  enough.  But  it  is  not  time  in  respect  to  its  location 
that  we  are  concerned  with,  so  much  as  time  in  respect 
to  its  duration.  Now,  heaps  of  authorities  take  it 
for  granted,  that  you  are  not  to  sit  down  —  you  are  to 
stand ;  and,  as  to  the  place,  that  any  place  will  do  «— 
'  any  corner  of  the  forum,'  says  Galen,  '  any  corner 
that  you  fancy  :  '  which  is  like  referring  a  man  for  his 
salle  d  manger  to  Westminster  Hall  or  Fleet  Street. 
Augustus,  in  a  letter  still  surviving,  tells  us  that  he 
jentabat,  or  took  his  jentaculum,  in  his  carriage ;  some- 
times in  a  wheel  carriage  (in  essedo)^  sometimes  in  a 
litter  or  palanquin  {in  lecticd).  This  careless  and  dis- 
orderly way  as  to  time  and  place,  and  other  circum- 
stances of  haste,  sufficiently  indicate  the  quality  of  the 
meal  you  are  to  expect.  Already  you  are  '  sagacious 
of  your  quarry  from  so  far.'  Not  that  we  would  pre- 
sume, excellent  reader,  to  liken  you  to  Death,  or  to 
insinuate  that  you  are  a  '  grim  feature  '  But  would 
it  not  make  a  saint  '  grim  *  to  hear  of  such  prepara- 
tions for  the  morning  meal  ?  And  then  to  hear  of 
such  consummations  as  panis  siccus,  dry  bread ;  or  (if 
the  learned  reader  thinks  it  will  taste  better  in  Greek), 
ai}rog  hiQog !  And  what  may  this  word  dry  happen 
to  mean?  'Does  it  mean  stale!'  says  Salmasius. 
'  Shall  we  suppose,'  says  he,  in  querulous  words, 
'  molU  el  recenti  opponi,'  that  it  is  placed  in  antithesis 
to  soft  and  new  bread,  what  English  sailors  call  'soft 
tommy  ?  '  and  from  that  antithesis  conclude  it  to  be, 
*  durum  et  non  recens  coctum,  eoque  sicciorem  ?  '  Hard 
ind  stale,  and  in  that  proportion  more  arid?  Not 
^^uite  so  bad  as  that,  we  hope.  Or  again  —  '  sic  cum - 
fyro  hiscocto,  ut  hodie  vocamus,  sumemus  ?  '^^'^   By  hodi^ 


DINNEK,  REAL,  AND  REPUTED,  4[*1 

Salmasius  means,  amongst  his  countrymen  of  France, 
where  biscoctus  is  verbatim  reproduced  in  the  word  bis 
(twice),  ciiit  (baked)  ;  whence  our  own  biscuit.  Bis- 
cuit might  do  verj'-  well,  could  we  be  sure  that  it  was 
cabin  biscuit ;  but  Salmasius  argues  that  — in  this  case 
he  takes  it  to  mean  '  huccellatmn,  qui  est  panis  nauti" 
cus ;  '  that  is,  the  ship  company's  biscuit,  broken  with 
a  sledge-hammer.  In  Greek,  for  the  benefit  again  of 
the  learned  reader,  it  is  termed  dinvoog,  indicating  that 
it  has  passed  twice  under  the  action  of  fire. 

'  Well,'  you  say,  '  no  matter  if  it  had  passed 
through  the  fires  of  Moloch;  only  let  us  have  this 
biscuit,  such  as  it  is.'  In  good  faith,  then,  fasting 
reader,  you  are  not  likely  to  see  much  more  than  you 
have  seen.  It  is  a  very  Barmecide  feast,  we  do  assure 
you  —  this  same  '  jentaculum  ;  '  at  which  abstinence 
and  patience  are  much  more  exercised  than  the  teeth : 
faith  and  hope  are  the  chief  graces  cultivated,  together 
with  that  species  of  the  magnificum  which  is  founded 
on  the  ignotum.  Even  this  biscuit  was  allowed  in  the 
most  limited  quantities  ;  for  which  reason  it  is  that 
the  Greeks  called  this  apology  for  a  meal  by  the  name 
i^^^^ov^xlauogy  a  word  formed  (as  many  words  were  in 
the  Post- Augustan  ages)  from  a  Latin  word  —  viz., 
buccea,  a  mouthful ;  not  literally  such,  but  so  much  as 
a  polished  man  could  allow  himself  to  put  iutc  his 
mouth  at  once.  '  We  took  a  mouthful,'  says  Sir 
William  Waller,  the  parliamentary  general  —  '  took 
a  mouthful ;  paid  our  reckoning  ;  mounted  ;  and  were 
off.'  But  there  Sir  William  means,  by  his  plausible 
mouthful,'  something  very  much  beyond  either  nine 
%r  nineteen  ordinary  quantities  of  that  denomination, 
whereas  the  Boman  'jentaculum'  was  literally  such ; 


492  DINNER,  REAIi,  AND  KEPUTEP. 

and,  accordingly,  one  of  the  varieties  under  which  the 
ancient  vocabularies  express  this  model  of  evanescent 
quantities  is  gustatio,  a  mere  tasting ;  and  again,  it 
Ls  called  by  another  variety  gustus,  a  mere  taste 
[whence  comes  the  old  French  word  gouster  for  a 
refection  or  luncheon,  and  then  (by  the  usual  suppres- 
sion of  the  s)  gouter'].  Speaking  of  his  uncle,  Pliny 
the  Younger  says  :  '  Post  solem  plerumque  lavabatur  : 
deinde  gustabat  ;  dormiebat  minimum ;  mox,  quasi 
alio  die,  studebat  in  ccenae  tempus/  '  After  taking 
the  air,  generally  speaking,  he  bathed ;  after  that  he 
broke  his  fast  on  a  morsel  of  biscuit,  and  took  a  very 
slight  siesta  :  which  done,  as  if  awaking  to  a  new  day, 
he  set  in  regularly  to  his  studies,  and  pursued  them  to 
dinner-time.'  Gustabat  here  meant  that  nondescript 
meal  which  arose  at  liome  when  jentaculum  and  pran- 
dium  were  fused  into  one,  and  that  only  a  taste  or 
mouthful  of  biscuit,  as  we  shall  show  farther  on. 

Possibly,  however,  most  excellent  reader,  like  some 
epicurean  traveller,  who,  in  crossing  the  Alps,  finds 
himself  weather-bound  at  St.  Bernard's  on  Ash- Wed- 
nesday, you  surmise  a  remedy :  you  descry  some  open- 
ing from  '  the  loopholes  of  retreat,'  through  which  a 
few  delicacies  might  be  insinuated  to  spread  verdure 
on  this  arid  wilderness  of  biscuit.  Casuistry  can  do 
much.  A  dead  hand  at  casuistry  has  often  proved 
more  than  a  match  for  Lent  with  all  his  quarantines. 
But  sorry  I  am  to  say  that,  in  this  case,  no  relief  is 
hinted  at  in  any  ancient  author.  A  grape  or  two  (not 
a  bunch  of  grapes),  a  raisin  or  two,  a  date,  an  olive  — 
these  are  the  whole  amount  of  relief which  the 
chancery  of  the  Roman  kitchen  granted  in  such  cases. 
/^U  things  here  hang  together,  and  prove  each  other 


DINNER,   REAL,  AND  REPUTED.  493 

—  the  time,  the  place,  the  mode,  the  thing.  Well 
might  man  eat  standing,  or  eat  in  public,  such  a  trifle 
as  this.  Go  home,  indeed,  to  such  a  breakfast  ?  You 
would  as  soon  think  of  ordering  a  cloth  to  be  laid  in 
order  to  eat  a  peach,  or  of  asking  a  friend  to  join  you 
in  an  orange.  No  man  in  his  senses  makes  '  two  bites 
of  a  cherry.'  So  let  us  pass  on  to  the  other  stages  of 
the  day.  Only,  in  taking  leave  of  this  morning's 
stage,  throw  your  eyes  back  with  me.  Christian  reader, 
upon  this  truly  heathen  meal,  fit  for  idolatrous  dogs 
like  your  Greeks  and  your  Romans  ;  survey,  through 
the  vista  of  ages,  that  thrice-accursed  biscuit,  with 
half  a  fig,  perhaps,  by  way  of  garnish,  and  a  huge 
hammer  by  its  side,  to  secure  the  certainty  of  mastica- 
tion, by  previous  comminution.  Then  turn  your  eyes 
to  a  Christian  breakfast  —  hot  rolls,  eggs,  coffee,  beef; 
but  down,  down,  rebellious  visions;  we  need  say  no 
more  !  You,  reader,  like  myself,  will  breathe  a  male- 
diction on  the  Classical  era,  and  thank  your  stars  for 
making  you  a  Romanticist.  Every  morning  I  thank 
mine  for  keeping  me  back  from  the  Augustan  age,  and 
reserving  me  to  a  period  in  which  breakfast  had  been 
already  invented.    In  the  words  of  Ovid,  I  say :  — 

*  Prisca  javent  alios  :  ego  me  nunc  denique  natum 
Gratulor.    Haec  aetas  moribus  apta  meis.' 

Our  friend,  the  Roman  cit,  has  therefore  thus  far,  in 
hi,  progress  through  life,  obtained  no  breakfast,  if  he 

1  ever  contemplated  an  idea  so  frantic.  But  it  occurs  to 
you,  my  faithful  reader,  that  perhaps  he  will  not 

!  always  be  thus  unhappy.  I  could  bring  w^agon-loads 
of  sentiments,  Greek  as  well  as  Roman,  which  prove, 
more  clearly  than  the  most  eminent  pikestaff,  that,  as 


494 


DINNER,   REAL,  AND  REPUTED. 


fche  wheel  of  fortune  revolves,  simply  out  of  the  fact 
that  it  has  carried  a  man  downwards,  it  must  subse- 
quently carry  him  upwards,  no  matter  what  dislike 
that  wheel,  or  any  of  its  spokes,  may  bear  to  that 
man  :  '  non  si  male  nunc  sit,  et  olim  sic  erit :  '  and 
that  if  a  man,  through  the  madness  of  his  nation, 
misses  coffee  and  hot  rolls  at  nine,  he  may  easily  run 
into  a  leg  of  mutton  at  twelve.  True  it  is  he  may  do 
so  :  truth  is  commendable  ;  and  I  will  not  deny  that  a 
man  may  sometimes,  by  losing  a  breakfast,  gain  a 
dinner.  Such  things  have  been  in  various  ages,  and 
will  be  again,  but  not  at  Rome.  There  were  reasons 
against  it.  We  have  heard  of  men  who  consider  life 
under  the  idea  of  a  wilderness  —  dry  as  a  '  remainder 
biscuit  after  a  voyage  : '  and  who  consider  a  day  under 
the  idea  of  a  little  life.  Life  is  the  macrocosm,  or 
world  at  large  ;  day  is  the  microcosm,  or  world  in  min- 
iature. Consequently,  if  life  is  a  wilderness,  then  day, 
as  a  little  life,  is  a  little  wilderness.  And  this  wilder- 
ness can  be  safely  traversed  only  by  having  relays  of 
fountains,  or  stages  for  refreshment.  Such  stages, 
they  conceive,  are  found  in  the  several  meals  which 
Providence  has  stationed  at  due  intervals  through  the 
day,  whenever  the  perverseness  of  man  does  not  break 
the  chain,  or  derange  the  order  of  succession. 

These  are  the  anchors  by  which  man  rides  in  that 
billowy  ocean  between  morning  and  night.  The  first 
anchor,  viz.,  breakfast,  having  given  way  in  Rome,  the 
more  need  there  is  that  he  should  pull  up  by  the 
second  ;  and  that  is  often  reputed  to  be  dinner.  And 
as  your  dictionary,  good  reader,  translated  breakfast  bj? 
that  vain  word  jeiitaculum^  so  doubtless  it  will  translate 
dinner  by  that  still  vainer  word  prandium.  Sincerely 


DINNER,  KEAL,  AND  REPUTED.  495 

I  hope  that  your  own  dinner  on  this  day,  and  through 
all  time  coming,  may  have  a  better  root  in  fact  and 
substance  than  this  most  visionary  of  all  baseless. things 
—  the  Roman  prandium,  of  which  I  shall  presently 
show  you  that  the  most  approved  translation  is  moon' 
shine, 

Reader,  I  am  anything  but  jesting  here.  In  the 
very  spirit  of  serious  truth,  I  assure  you  that  the  delu- 
sion about  '  jentaculum  '  is  even  exceeded  by  this  other 
delusion  about  '  prandium.'  Salmasius  himself,  for 
whom  a  natural  prejudice  of  place  and  time  partially 
obscured  the  truth,  admits,  however,  that  prandium 
was  a  meal  which  the  ancients  rarely  took  ;  his  very 
words  are  — '  raro  prandehant  veteres.'  Now,  judge 
for  yourself  of  the  good  sense  which  is  shown  in  trans- 
lating by  the-  word  dinner,  which  must  of  necessity 
mean  the  chief  meal,  a  Roman  word  which  represents 
a  fancy  meal,  a  meal  of  caprice,  a  meal  which  few  peo- 
ple took.  At  this  moment,  what  is  the  single  point  of 
agreement  between  the  noon  meal  of  the  English  la- 
borer and  the  evening  meal  of  the  English  gentleman  ? 
What  is  the  single  circumstance  common  to  both, 
which  causes  us  to  denominate  them  by  the  common 
name  of  dinner  ?  It  is,  that  in  both  we  recognize  the 
principal  meal  of  the  day,  the  meal  upon  which  is 
thrown  the  onus  of  the  day's  support.  In  everything 
else  they  are  as  wide  asunder  as  the  poles  ;  bat  they 
agree  in  this  one  point  of  their  function.  Is  it  credible 
now,  that,  to  represent  such  a  meal  amongst  ourselves, 
we  select  a  Roman  word  so  notoriously  expressing  a 
mere  shadow,  a  pure  apology,  that  very  few  people  ever 
tasted  it  —  nobody  sat  down  to  it  —  not  many  washed 
,heir  hands  after  it,  and  gradually  the  very  name  of  it 


4:96  DINNER,   REAL,  AND  REPUTED. 

became  interchangeable  with  another  name,  implying 
Jie  slightest  possible  act  of  tentative  tasting  or  sip- 
ping ?  '  Post  lavationem  sine  mensd  prandiu?n,'  says 
Seneca,  '  post  quod  non  sunt  lavandce  manus ;  '  that  is, 
'  after  bathing,  I  take  a  prandium  without  sitting  down 
to  table,  and  such  a  prandium  as  brings  after  itself  no 
need  of  washing  the  hands.'  No  ;  moonshine  as  little 
soils  the  hands  as  it  oppresses  the  stomach. 

Reader  !  I,  as  well  as  Pliny,  had  an  uncle,  an  East 
Indian  uncle  ;  doubtless  you  have  such  an  uncle ; 
everybody  has  an  Indian  uncle.  Generally  such  a 
person  is  '  rather  yellow,  rather  yellow '  (to  quote 
Canning  versus  Lord  Durham),  that  is  the  chief  fault 
with  his  physics  ;  but,  as  to  his  morals,  he  is  univer- 
sally a  man  of  princely  aspirations  and  habits.  He  is 
not  always  so  orientally  rich  as  he  is  reputed  ;  but  he 
is  always  orientally  munificent.  Call  upon  him  at  any 
hour  from  two  to  five,  he  insists  on  your  taking  tiffin : 
and  such  a  tifiin  !  The  English  corresponding  term  is 
luncheon  ;  but  how  meagre  a  shadow  is  the  European 
meal  to  its  glowing  Asiatic  cousin !  Still,  gloriously  as 
tifiin  shines,  does  anybody  imagine  that  it  is  a  vicarious 
dinner,  or  ever  meant  to  be  the  substitute  and  locum 
tenens  of  dinner?  Wait  till  eight,  and  you  will  have 
your  eyes  opened  on  that  subject.  So  of  the  Roman 
prandium  :  had  it  been  as  luxurious  as  it  was  simple, 
still  it  was  always  viewed  as  something  meant  only  to 
stay  the  stomach,  as  a  prologue  to  something  beyond. 
The  prandium  was  far  enough  from  giving  the  feeblest 
idea  even  of  the  English  luncheon  ;  yet  it  stood  in  the 
«;ame  relation  to  the  Roman  day.  Now  to  English^ 
men  that  meal  scarcely  exists  ;  and  were  it  not  for 
women,  whose  delicacy  of  organization  does  not  allow 


DINNER,  HEAL,  AND  REPUTED.  497 


them  to  fast  so  long  as  men,  would  probably  be  abol- 
ished. It  is  singular  in  this,  as  in  other  points,  how 
nearly  England  and  ancient  Rome  approximate.  We 
all  know  how  hard  it  is  to  tempt  a  man  generally  into 
spoiling  his  appetite,  by  eating  before  dinner.  The 
same  dislike  of  violating  what  they  called  the  integrity 
of  the  appetite  {integram  famem),  existed  at  Rome. 
hiteger  means  what  is  intact,  unviolated  by  touch. 
Cicero,  when  protesting  against  spoiling  his  appetite 
for  dinner,  by  tasting  anything  beforehand,  says,  inte' 
gram  famem  ad  ccenam  afferam ;  I  intend  bringing  to 
dinner  an  appetite  untampered  with.  Nay,  so  much 
stress  did  the  Romans  lay  on  maintaining  this  primi- 
tive state  of  the  appetite  undisturbed,  that  any  prelu- 
sions  with  either  jenfaculum  or  prandium  were  said, 
by  a  very  strong  phrase  indeed,  poUuere  famem,  to 
pollute  the  sanctity  of  the  appetite.  The  appetite  was 
regarded  as  a  holy  vestal  flame,  soaring  upwards  to- 
wards dinner  throughout  the  day  :  if  undebauched,  it 
tended  to  its  natural  consummation  in  ccena  :  expiring 
like  a  phoenix,  to  rise  again  out  of  its  own  ashes.  On 
this  theory,  to  which  language  had  accommodated 
itself,  the  two  prelusive  meals  of  nine  or  ten  o'clock 
A.  M.,  and  of  one  p.  m.,  so  far  from  being  ratified  by 
the  public  sense,  and  adopted  into  the  economy  of  the 
day,  were  regarded  gloomily  as  gross  irregularities, 
enormities,  debauchers  of  the  natural  instinct ;  and,  in 
so  far  as  they  thwarted  that  instinct,  lessened  it,  oi 
depraved  it,  were  almost  uniformly  held  to  be  full  of 
pollution  ;  and,  finally,  to  profane  a  sacred  motion  of 
nature.    Such  was  the  language. 

But  we  guesa  what  is  passing  in  the  reader's  mind. 
He  thinks  that  all  this  proves  the  prandium  to  have 

32 


108  DINNER,  KEAL,  AND  REPUTED. 

been  a  meal  of  little  account  ;  and  in  very  many  .^ases 
absolutely  unknown.  But  still  he  thinks  all  this 
might  happen  to  the  English  dinner  —  that  also  might 
be  neglected  ;  supper  might  be  generally  preferred ; 
and,  nevertheless,  dinner  would  be  as  truly  entitled  to 
the  name  of  dinner  as  before.  Many  a  student 
neglects  his  dinner  ;  enthusiasm  in  any  pursuit  must 
often  have  extinguished  appetite  for  all  of  us.  Many 
a  time  and  eft  did  this  happen  to  Sir  Isaac  Newton. 
Evidence  is  on  record,  that  such  a  deponent  at  eight 
o'clock  A.  M.  found  Sir  Isaac  with  one  stocking  on,  one 
off ;  at  two,  said  deponent  called  him  to  dinner. 
Being  interrogated  whether  Sir  Isaac  had  pulled  on 
the  minus  stocking,  or  gartered  the  plus  stocking,  wit- 
ness replied  that  he  had  not.  Being  asked  if  Sir 
Isaac  came  to  dinner,  replied  that  he  did  not.  Being 
again  asked,  '  At  sunset,  did  you  look  in  on  Sir 
Isaac?'  witness  replied,  'I  did.'  'And  now,  upon 
your  conscience,  sir,  by  the  virtue  of  your  oath,  in  what 
state  were  the  stockings  ? '  Ans.  — '  In  statu  quo  ante 
helium,'  It  seems  Sir  Isaac  had  fought  through  that 
whole  battle  of  a  long  day,  so  trying  a  campaign  to 
many  people  —  he  had  traversed  that  whole  sandy 
Zaarah,  without  calling,  or  needing  to  call,  at  one  of 
those  fountains,  stages,  or  mansiones^^'^  by  which  (ac- 
cording to  our  former  explanation)  Providence  has  re- 
lieved the  continuity  of  arid  soil,  which  else  disfigures 
that  long  dreary  level.  This  happens  to  all ;  but  was 
dinner  not  dinner,  and  did  supper  become  dinner, 
because  Sir  Isaac  Newton  ate  nothing  at  the  first,  and 
lirew  the  whole  day's  support  upon  the  last  ?  No, 
you  w:ll  say,  a  rule  is  not  defeated  by  one  casual 
deviation,  nor  by  one  person's  constant  deviation- 


TINNER,  REAL,  AND  REPUTED. 


499 


Everybody  else  was  still  dining  at  two,  though  Sir 
Isaac  might  not ;  and  Sir  Isaac  himself  on  most  days 
no  more  deferred  his  dinner  beyond  two,  than  he  sat  in 
public  with  one  stocking  off.  But  what  if  everybody, 
Sir  Isaac  included,  had  deferred  his  substantial  meal 
until  night,  and  taken  a  slight  refection  only  at  two  ? 
The  question  put  does  really  represent  the  very  case 
which  has  happened  with  us  in  England.  In  1700,  a 
large  part  of  London  took  a  meal  at  two  p.  m.,  and 
another  at  seven  or  eight  p.  m.  At  present,  a  large 
part  of  London  is  still  doing  the  very  same  thing,  tak* 
ing  one  meal  at  two,  and  another  at  seven  or  eight. 
But  the  names  are  entirely  changed  :  the  two  o'clock 
meal  used  to  be  called  dinner,  whereas  at  present  it  is 
called  luncheon  ;  the  seven  o'clock  meal  used  to  be 
called  supper^  whereas  at  present  it  is  called  dinner ; 
and  in  both  cases  the  difference  is  anything  but 
verbal :  it  expresses  a  translation  of  that  main  meal, 
on  which  the  day's  support  rested,  from  mid- day  to 
evening. 

Upon  reviewing  the  idea  of  dinner,  we  soon  perceive 
that  time  has  little  or  no  connection  with  it :  since, 
both  in  England  and  France,  dinner  has  travelled,  like 
the  hand  of  a  clock,  through  every  hour  between  ten 
A.  M.  and  ten  p.  m.  We  have  a  list,  well  attested,  of 
every  successive  hour  between  these  limits  having 
been  the  known  established  hour  for  the  royal  dinner- 
table  within  the  last  three  hundred  and  fifty  years. 
I  Time,  therefore,  vanishes  from  the  problem ;  it  is  a 
quantity  regularly  exterminated.  The  true  elements 
■)£  the  idea  are  evidently  these  :  —  1 .  That  dinner  is 
vhat  meal,  no  matter  when  taken,  which  is  the  princi- 
pal meal ;  i,  e.,  the  meal  on  which  the  day's  support  is 


500 


DINNER,  REAL,  AND  REPUTEB. 


tllro^^n.  2,  That  it  is  therefore  the  meal  of  hospitality. 
3.  That  it  is  the  meal  (with  reference  to  both  Nos.  1 
and  2)  in  which  animal  food  predominate.  4.  That  it 
is  that  meal  which,  upon  a  necessity  arising  for  the 
abolition  of  all  hut  one,  would  naturally  offer  itself  as 
that  one.  Apply  these  four  tests  to  prandium :  — 
How  could  that  meal  prandium  answer  to  the  first 
test,  as  the  day's  support^  which  few  people  touched  ? 
How  could  that  meal  prandium  answer  to  the  second 
test,  as  the  meal  of  hospitality ^  at  which  nobody  sat 
down  ?  How  could  that  meal  prandium  answer  to  the 
third  test,  as  the  meal  of  animal  food,  which  consisted 
exclusively  and  notoriously  of  bread  ?  Or  answer  to 
the  fourth  test,  as  the  privileged  meal  entitled  to  sur- 
vive the  abolition  of  the  rest,  which  was  itself  abolished 
at  all  times  in  practice  ? 

Tried,  therefore,  by  every  test,  prandium  vanishes. 
But  I  have  something  further  to  communicate  about 
this  same  prandium. 

1.  It  came  to  pass,  by  a  very  natural  association  of 
feeling,  that  prandiuin  and  jentaculum,  in  the  latter 
centuries  of  Rome,  were  generally  confounded.  This 
result  was  inevitable.  Both  professed  the  same  basis. 
Both  came  in  the  morning.  Both  were  fictions.  Hence 
they  melted  and  collapsed  into  each  other. 

That  fact  speaks  for  itself  —  the  modern  breakfast 
and  luncheon  never  could  have  been  confounded ;  but 
who  would  be  at  the  pains  of  distinguishing  two 
shadows  ?  In  a  gambling-house  of  that  class,  where 
you  are  at  liberty  to  sit  down  to  a  splendid  banquet, 
anxiety  probably  prevents  your  sitting  down  at  all ; 
but,  if  you  do,  the  same  cause  prevents  you  noticing 
what  you  eat.    So  of  the  two  pseudo  meals  of  Rome, 


DIN  NEK,  KEAL,  AND  llEPUTED.  501 

they  came  in  the  very  midst  of  the  Roman  business  — 
viz.,  from  nine  A.  M.  to  two  P.  m.  Nobody  could  give 
his  mind  to  them,  had  they  been  of  better  quality. 
There  lay  one  cause  of  their  vagueness  —  viz.,  in  their 
position.  Another  cause  was,  the  common  basis  of 
both.  Bread  was  so  notoriously  the  predominating 
'  feature '  in  each  of  these  prelusive  banquets,  that  all 
foreigners  at  Rome,  who  communicated  with  Ilonians 
through  the  Greek  language,  knew  both  the  one  and 
the  other  by  the  name  of  uoroairog,  or  the  bread  repast. 
Originally,  this  name  had  been  restricted  to  the  earlier 
meal.  But  a  distinction  without  a  difference  could  not 
sustain  itself;  and  both  alike  disguised  their  emptiness 
under  this  pompous  quadrisyllable.  All  words  are 
suspicious,  there  is  an  odor  of  fraud  about  them,  which 
—  being  concerned  with  common  things  —  are  so  base 
as  to  stretch  out  to  four  syllables.  What  does  an  honest 
word  want  with  more  than  two  ?  In  the  identity  of 
substance,  therefore,  lay  a  second  ground  of  confusion 
And  then,  thirdly,  even  as  to  the  time,  which  had  evei 
been  the  sole  real  distinction,  there  arose  from  accident 
a  tendency  to  converge.  For  it  happened  that,  while 
some  had  jentaculum  but  no  prandium,  others  had 
prandiim  but  no  jentaculum ;  a  third  party  had  both  ; 
a  fourth  party,  by  much  the  largest,  had  neither.  Out 
of  which  four  varieties  (who  would  think  that  a  non- 
entity could  cut  up  into  so  many  somethings  ?)  arose  a 
fifth  party  of  compromisers,  who,  because  they  could 
iiot  afford  a  regular  coena,  and  yet  were  hospitably  dis- 
posed, fused  the  two  ideas  into  one ;  and  so,  beceaise 
the  usual  time  for  the  idea  of  a  breakfast  was  nine  to 
ten,  and  for  the  idea  of  a  luncheon  twelve  to  one,  com- 
promised the  rival  pretensions  by  what  diplomatists 


502 


DINNER,   REAL,  AND  REPUTED. 


call  a  mezzo  termine ;  bisecting  the  time  at  eleven,  and 
melting  the  two  ideas  into  one.  But,  by  thus  merg- 
ing the  separate  times  of  each,  they  abolished  the  sole 
real  difference  that  had  ever  divided  them.  Losing 
that,  they  lost  all. 

Perhaps,  as  two  negatives  make  one  affirmative,  it 
may  be  thought  that  two  layers  of  moonshine  might 
coalesce  into  one  pancake  ;  and  two  Barmecide  ban- 
quets might  be  the  square  root  of  one  poached  egg. 
Of  that  the  company  were  the  best  judges.  But, 
probably,  as  a  rump  and  dozen,  in  our  land  of  wagers, 
is  construed  with  a  very  liberal  latitude  as  to  the 
materials,  so  Martial's  invitation,  '  to  take  bread*  with 
him  at  eleven,'  might  be  understood  by  the  awsTof  (the 
knowing  ones)  as  significant  of  something  better  than 
og.  Otherwise,  in  good  truth,  '  moonshine  and 
turn-out  '  at  eleven  a.  m.  would  be  even  worse  than 
'  tea  and  turn-out '  at  eight  p.  m.,  which  the  '  fervida 
juventus  '  of  Young  England  so  loudly  deprecates. 
But,  however  that  might  be,  in  this  convergement  of 
the  several  frontiers,  and  the  confusion  that  ensued, 
one  cannot  wonder  that,  whilst  the  two  bladders  col- 
lapsed into  one  idea,  they  actually  expanded  into  four 
names — two  Latin  and  two  Greek,  gustus  and  gus- 
tatio^  yivaig  and  ysva/na  —  which  all  alike  express  the 
merely  tentative  or  exploratory  act  of  a  prcRgustator 
or  professional  '  taster  '  in  a  king's  household :  what, 
if  applied  to  a  fluid,  we  should  denominate  sipping. 

At  last,  by  so  many  steps  all  in  one  direction,  things 
had  come  to  such  a  pass  —  the  two  prelusive  meals  of  | 
Jie  Roman  morning,  each  for  itself  separately  vagud 
from  the  beginning,  had  so  communicated  and  inter-j 
fused  their  several  and  joint  vaguenesses,  that  at  lastj 


DINNER,   REAL,  AND  REPUTED.  503 

ao  man  knew  or  cared  to  know  what  any  other  man 
inchided  in  his  idea  of  either  ;  how  much  or  how  little. 
And  you  might  as  well  have  hunted  in  the  woods  of 
Ethiopia  for  Prester  John,  or  fixed  the  parish  of  the 
Everlasting  Jew,^^^  as  have  attempted  to  say  what  'jen- 
taculum '  certainly  was^  or  what  '  prandium '  certainly 
was  not.  Only  one  thing  was  clear,  that  neither  was 
anything  that  people  cared  for.  They  were  hoth 
empty  shadows  ;  but  shadows  as  they  were,  we  find 
from  Cicero  that  they  had  a  power  of  polluting  and 
profaning  better  things  than  themselves. 

We  presume  that  no  rational  man  will  heceforth 
look  for  '  dinner  '  —  that  great  idea  according  to  Dr. 
Johnson  —  that  sacred  idea  according  to  Cicero  —  in 
a  bag  of  moonshine  on  one  side,  or  a  bag  of  pollution 
on  the  other.  Prandium.,  so  far  from  being  what  our 
foolish  dictionaries  pretend  —  dinner  itself  —  never  in 
its  palmiest  days  was  more  or  other  than  a  miser- 
able attempt  at  being  luncheon.  It  was  a  conatus, 
what  physiologists  call  a  nisus,  a  struggle  in  a  very 
ambitious  spark,  or  scintilla,  to  kindle  into  a  fire. 
This  nisus  went  on  for  some  centuries  ;  but  finally 
!vaporated  in  smoke.  If  prandium  had  worked  out 
.ts  ambition,  had  '  the  great  stream  of  tendency '  ac- 
complished all  its  purposes,  prandium  never  could 
have  been  more  than  a  very  indifferent  luncheon.  But 
now, 

2.  I  have  to  ofier  another  fact,  ruinous  to  our  dic- 
tionaries on  another  ground.  Various  circumstances 
have  disguised  the  truth,  but  a  truth  it  is,  that  '  pran- 
dium,' in  its  very  origin  and  incunahula,  never  was  a 
meal  known  to  the  Homan  culina.  In  that  court  it 
was  never  recognized  except  as  an  alieu.    It  had  no 


504 


DINNER,   REAL,  AND  REPUTED. 


original  domicile  in  tlie  city  of  Rome.  It  was  a  vox 
castrensis,  a  word  and  an  idea  purely  martial,  and 
pointing  to  martial  necessities.  Amongst  the  new 
ideas  proclaimed  to  the  recruit,  this  was  one  —  '  Look 
for  no  "  ccB/ia,"  no  regular  dinner,  with  us.  Resign 
these  unwarlike  notions.  It  is  true  that  even  war  has 
its  respites  ;  in  these  it  would  be  possible  to  have  our 
Roman  cmna  \vith  all  its  equipage  of  ministrations. 
But  luxury  untunes  the  mind  for  doing  and  suffering. 
Let  us  voluntarily  renounce  it  ;  that,  when  a  necessity 
of  renouncing  it  arrives,  we  may  not  feel  it- among  the 
hardships  of  war.  From  the  day  when  you  enter  the 
gates  of  the  camp,  reconcile  yourself,  tiro,  to  a  new 
fashion  of  meal,  to  what  in  camp  dialect  we  call  praii- 
dium.''  This  prandium,  this  essentially  military  meal, 
was  taken  standing,  by  way  of  symbolizing  the  ne- 
cessity of  being  always  ready  for  the  enemy.  Hence 
the  posture  in  which  it  was  taken  at  Rome,  the  very 
counter-pole  to  the  luxurious  posture  of  dinner.  A 
writer  of  the  third  century,  a  period  from  which  the 
Romans  naturally  looked  back  upon  everything  con- 
nected with  their  own  early  habits,  with  much  the 
same  kind  of  interest  as  we  extend  to  our  Alfred  (sep- 
arated from  us,  as  Romulus  from  them,  by  just  a  thou- 
sand years),  in  speaking  of  prandium,  says,  '  Quod 
dictum  est  parandium,  ab  eo  quod  milites  ad  bellum 
paret.'  Isidorus  again  says,  '  Proprie  apud  veteres 
prandium  vocatum  fuisse  omnem  militum  cibum  ante 
pugnam  :  '  i.  6.,  '  that,  properly  speaking,  amongst  our 
ancestors  every  military  meal  taken  before  battle  was 
termed  prandium,'  According  to  Isidore,  the  propo- 
sition is  reciprocating  ;  viz.,  that,  as  every  prandium 
ivas  a  jxiilitary  meal,  so  every  military  meal  was  called 


DINNER,   REAL,  AND  REPUTED.  505 


prandlum.  But,  in  fact,  tlie  reason  of  that  is  apparent. 
Whether  in  the  camp  or  the  city,  the  early  Romans 
had  probably  but  one  meal  in  a  day.  That  is  true  of 
many  a  man  amongst  ourselves  by  choice  ;  it  is  true 
also,  to  our  kno\^'ledge,  of  some  horse  regiments  in  our 
service,  and  may  be  of  all.  This  meal  was  called  ccsna, 
or  dinner  in  the  city — prandium  in  csimi^s.  In  the 
city,  it  would  always  be  tending  to  one  fixed  hour. 
In  the  camp,  innumerable  accidents  of  war  would 
make  it  very  uncertain.  On  this  account  it  would  be 
an  established  rule  to  celebrate  the  daily  meal  at  noon, 
if  nothing  hindered ;  not  that  a  later  hour  would  not 
have  been  preferred,  had  the  choice  been  free  ;  but  it 
was  better  to  have  a  certainty  at  a  bad  hour,  than  by 
waiting  for  a  better  hour  to  make  it  an  uncertainty. 
For  it  was  a  camp  proverb  —  Pransus,  paratus  ;  armed 
with  his  daily  meal,  the  soldier  is  ready  for  service. 
It  was  not,  however,  that  all  meals,  as  Isidore  imagined, 
were  indiscriminately  called  prandium ;  but  that  the 
one  sole  meal  of  the  day,  by  accidents  of  war,  might, 
and  did,  revolve  through  all  hpurs  of  the  day. 

The  first  introduction  of  this  military  meal  into 
Rome  itself  would  be  through  the  honorable  pedantry 
of  old  centurions,  &c.,  delighting  (like  the  Commodore 
Trunnions  of  our  navy)  to  keep  up  in  peaceful  life 
some  image  or  memorial  of  their  past  experience,  so 
wild,  so  full  of  peril,  excitement,  and  romance,  as 
Roman  warfare  piust  have  been  in  those  ages.  Many 
non-military  people  for  health's  sake,  many  as  an 
excuse  for  eating  early,  many  by  way  of  interposing 
some  refreshment  between  the  stages  of  forensic  busi- 
ness, would  adopt  this  hurried  and  informal  meal. 
I  Many  would  wish  to  see  theiv  sons  adopting  such  a 

i 


506  DINNER,   HEAL,  AND  REPUTED. 


meal,  as  a  training  for  foreign  service  in  particular,  and 
for  temperance  in  general.  It  would  also  be  main- 
tained by  a  solemn  and  very  interesting  commemora- 
tion of  this  camp  repast  in  Rome. 

This  commemoration,  because  it  has  been  grossly 
misunderstood  by  Salmasius  (whose  error  arose  from 
not  marking  the  true  point  of  a  particular  antithesis), 
and  still  more,  because  it  is  a  distinct  confirmation  of 
all  I  have  said  as  to  the  military  nature  of  praiidium^ 
I  shall  detach  from  the  series  of  my  illustrations,  by 
placing  it  in  a  separate  paragraph. 

On  a  set  day  the  officers  of  the  army  were  invited 
by  Caesar  to  a  banquet ;  it  was  a  circumstance  ex- 
pressly noticed  in  the  invitation,  that  the  banquet  was 
not  a  'coena,'  but  a  'prandium.'  What  did  that  imply? 
Why,  that  all  the  guests  must  present  themselves 
in  full  military  accoutrement ;  whereas,  observes  the 
historian,  had  it  been  a  cceiia,  the  officers  would  have 
unbelted  their  swords ;  for  he  adds,  even  in  Caesar's 
presence  the  officers  are  allowed  to  lay  aside  their 
swords.  The  word  prqndium,  in  short,  converted  the 
palace  into  the  imperial  tent ;  and  Csesar  was  no 
longer  a  civil  emperor  and  princeps  sendtus,  but 
became  a  commander-in-chief  amongst  a  council  of 
nis  staff,  all  belted  and  plumed,  and  in  full  military  fig. 

On  this  principle  we  come  to  understand  why  it  is, 
that,  whenever  the  Latin  poets  speak  of  an  army  as 
taking  food,  the  word  used  is  always  pranderib  and 
tyransus  ;  and  when  the  word  used  is  prandens,  then 
always  it  is  an  army  that  is  concerned.  Thus  Juvenal 
in  a  well-known  passage  :  — 

*  Credimus  altos 
Desiccasse  amnes,  epotaque  flumina,  Me^o 
Prandente  '  — 


DINNER,  REAL,  AND  REPUTED. 


507 


that  rivers  were  drunk  up,  wlien  the  Mede  [z.  e.,  tlie 
Median  army  under  Xerxes]  took  his  daily  meal: 
vrandente,  observe,  not  ccenante :  you  might  as  well 
talk  of  an  army  taking  tea  and  buttered  toast,  as  taking 
coena.  Nor  is  that  word  ever  applied  to  armies.  It  is 
true  that  the  converse  is  not  so  rigorously  observed; 
nor  ought  it,  from  the  explanations  already  given. 
Though  no  soldier  dined  [coenahat)^  yet  the  citizen 
sometimes  adopted  the  camp  usage,  and  took  a  pran- 
dium.  But  generally  the  poets  use  the  word  merely 
to  mark  the  time  of  day.  In  that  most  humorous  ap- 
peal of  Perseus  —  '  Cur  quis  non  prandeat,  hoc  est  ? '  — 
is  this  a  sufficient  reason  for  losing  one's  prandium  7 
—  he  was  obliged  to  say  prandium,  because  no  exhibi- 
tions ever  could  cause  a  man  to  lose  his  coena,  since 
none  were  displayed  at  a  time  of  day  when  nobody  in 
Rome  would  have  attended.  Just  as,  in  alluding  to  a 
parliamentary  speech  notoriously  delivered  at  midnight, 
an  English  satirist  might  have  said,  Is  this  a  speech  to 
furnish  an  argument  for  leaving  one's  bed  ?  —  not  as 
what  stood  foremost  in  his  regard,  but  as  the  only 
thing  that  could  be  lost  at  that  time  of  night. 

On  this  principle,  also  —  viz.  by  going  back  to  the 
military  origin  of  prandium  —  we  gain  the  interpreta- 
tion of  all  the  peculiarities  attached  to  it :  viz.  — 
1,  its  early  hour  ;  2,  its  being  taken  in  a  standing 
posture ;  3,  in  the  open  air  ;  4,  the  humble  quality  of 
its  materials  —  bread  and  biscuit  (the  main  articles  of 
military  fare).  In  all  these  circumstances  of  the  meal, 
we  read  most  legibly  written,  the  exotic  (or  non-civic) 
'*.haracter  of  the  meal,  and  its  martial  character. 

Thus  I  have  brought  down  our  Roman  friend  to 
ooouday,  or  even  one  hour  later  than  noon,  and  to 


508 


DINNER,   REAL,  AND  REPUTED. 


this  moment  the  poor  man  has  had  nothing  to  eat. 
For  supposing  him  to  be  not  impransus,  and  supposing 
him  jentdsse  beside  ;  yet  it  is  evident  (I  hope)  that 
neither  one  nor  the  other  means  more  than  what  it  was 
often  called  —  viz.,  §8y.y.ia^iog^  or,  in  plain  English,  a 
mouthful.  How  long  do  we  intend  to  keep  him  wait- 
ing ?  Reader,  he  will  dine  at  three,  or  (supposing 
dinner  put  off  to  the  latest)  at  four.  Dinner  was 
never  known  to  be  later  than  the  tenth  hour  at  Rome,, 
which  in  summer  would  be  past  five  ;  but  for  a  far 
greater  proportion  of  days  would  be  near  four  in  Rome. 
And  so  entirely  was  a  Roman  the  creature  of  ceremo- 
nial usage,  that  a  national  mourning  would  probably 
have  been  celebrated,  and  the  '  sad  augurs '  would 
have  been  called  in  to  expiate  the  prodigy,  had  the 
general  dinner  lingered  beyond  four. 

But,  meantime,  what  has  our  friend  been  about  since 
perhaps  six  or  seven  in  the  morning  ?  After  paying 
his  little  homage  to  his  patronus,  in  what  way  has  he 
fought  with  the  great  enemy  Time  since  then  ?  Why, 
reader,  this  illustrates  one  of  the  most  interesting 
features  in  the  Roman  character.  The  Roman  was  the 
idlest  of  men.  '  Man  and  boy,'  he  was  '  an  idler  in 
the  land.'  He  called  himself  and  his  pals,  '  rerum 
dominos,  gentemque  togatam'  — '  the  gentry  that  wore 
the  toga.''  Yes,  a  pretty  set  of  gentry  they  were,  and 
a  pretty  affair  that  '  toga '  was.  Just  figure  to  your- 
self, reader,  the  picture  of  a  hard-working  man,  with 
horny  hands,  like  our  hedgers,  ditchers,  porters,  &€., 
setting  to  work  on  the  high  road  in  that  vast  sweeping 
toga,  filling  with  a  strong  gale  like  the  mainsail  of  a 
frigate.  Conceive  the  roars  ^^ith  which  this  magnifi- 
cent figure  would  be  received  into  the  bosom  of  a  i 


DINNER,   HEAL,  AND  REPUTED. 


509 


modern  poor-house  detaclimeiit  sent  out  to  attack  the 
stones  on  some  line  of  road,  or  a  fatigue  party  of  dust- 
men sent  upon  secret  service.  Had  there  been  nothing 
left  as  a  memorial  of  the  Romans  but  that  one  relic  — 
their  immeasurable  toga^^^— I  should  have  known  that 
they  were  born  and  bred  to  idleness.  In  fact,  except 
in  war,  the  Roman  never  did  anything  at  all  but  sun 
himself.  Uti  se  apricaret  was  the  final  cause  of  peace 
in  his  opinion  ;  in  literal  truth,  that  he  might  make  an 
apricot  of  himself.  The  public  rations  at  all  times 
supported  the  poorest  inhabitant  of  Rome  if  he  were  a 
citizen.  Hence  it  \vas  that  Hadrian  was  so  astonished 
with  the  spectacle  of  Alexandria,  '  civitas  opulenta, 
fcecunda,  in  qua  nemo  vivat  otiosus.^  Here  first  he 
saw  the  spectacle  of  a  vast  city,  second  only  to  Rome, 
where  every  man  had  something  to  do ;  podagrosi 
quod  agant  liabent ;  hahent  cceci  quodfaciant;  ne  chi^ 
ragrici '  (those  with  gout  in  the  fingers)  '  apud  eos 
otiosi  vivuntJ  No  poor  rates  levied  upon  the  rest  of 
the  world  for  the  benefit  of  their  own  paupers  were 
there  distributed  gratis.  The  prodigious  spectacle 
(such  it  seemed  to  Hadrian)  was  exhibited  in  Alexan- 
dria, of  all  men  earning  their  bread  in  the  sweat  of 
their  brow.  In  Rome  only  (and  at  one  time  in  som<^ 
of  the  Grecian  states),  it  was  the  very  meaning  of  citi  - 
zen that  he  should  vote  and  be  idle.  Precisely  those 
were  the  two  things  which  the  Roman,  t\iQf(Bx  RomuU 
had  to  do — viz.,  sometimes  to  vote,  and  always  to 
idle 

In  these  circumstances,  where  the  whole  sum  of 
life's  duties  amounted  to  voting,  all  the  business  9 
man  could  have  was  to  attend  the  public  assemblies, 
electioneering  or  factious.    These,  and  any  judicia) 


510  DINNER,   REAL,   AND  REPUTED. 

trial  (public  or  private)  that  might  happen  to  interest 
him  for  the  persons  concerned,  or  for  the  questions  at 
stake,  amused  him  through  the  morning  ;  that  is,  from 
eight  till  one.  He  might  also  extract  some  diversion 
from  the  columnce,  or  pillars  of  certain  porticoes  to 
which  they  pasted  advertisements.  These  affiches  must 
have  been  numerous;  for  all  the  girls 'in  Rome  who 
lost  a  trinket,  or  a  pet  bird,  or  a  lap-dog,  took  this 
mode  of  angling  in  the  great  ocean  of  the  public  for 
the  missing  articles. 

But  all  this  time  I  take  for  granted  that  there  were 
no  shows  in  a  course  of  exhibition,-  either  the  dreadful 
ones  of  the  amphitheatre,  or  the  bloodless  ones  of  the 
circus.  If  there  were,  then  that  became  the  business 
of  all  Romans  ;  and  it  was  a  business  which  would 
have  occupied  him  from  daylight  until  the  light  began 
to  fail.  Here  we  see  another  effect  from  the  scarcity 
of  artificial  light  amongst  the  ancients.  These  magni- 
ficent shows  went  on  by  daylight.  But  how  incom- 
parably more  gorgeous  would  have  been  the  splendor 
by  lamp-light !  What  a  gigantic  conception !  Two 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  human  faces  all  revealed 
under  one  blaze  of  lamp-light !  Lord  Bacon  saw  the 
mighty  advantage  of  candle-light  for  the  pomps  and 
glories  of  this  world.  But  the  poverty  of  the  earth 
was  the  original  cause  that  the  Pagan  shows  proceeded 
by  day.  Not  that  the  masters  of  the  world,  who 
rained  Arabian  odors  and  perfumed  waters  of  the 
most  costly  description  from  a  thousand  fountains, 
i^imply  to  cool  the  summer  heats,  would,  in  the  latter 
centuries  of  Roman  civilization,  have  regarded  the  ex- 
pense of  light ;  cedar  and  other  odorous  woods  burning 
upon  vast  altars,  together  with  every  variety  of  fragrant 


DINNER,   HEAL,  AND  EEPTJTED.  511 

torch,  would  have  created  light  enough  to  shed  a  new 
day  stretching  over  to  the  distant  Adriatic.  But  pre- 
cedents derived  from  early  ages  of  poverty,  ancient 
traditions,  overruled  the  practical  usage. 

However,  as  there  may  happen  to  be  no  public  spec- 
tacles, and  the  courts  of  political  meetings  (if  not 
closed  altogether  by  superstition)  would  at  any  rate  be 
closed  in  the  ordinary  course  by  twelve  or  one  o'clock, 
nothing  remains  for  him  to  do,  before  returning  home, 
except  perhaps  to  attend  the  palcEstra,  or  some  public 
recitation  of  a  poem  written  by  a  friend,  but  in  any 
case  to  attend  the  public  baths.  For  these  the  time 
varied ;  and  many  people  have  thought  it  tyrannical  in 
some  of  the  Caesars  that  they  imposed  restraints  on 
the  time  open  for  the  baths  ;  some,  for  instance,  would 
not  suffer  them  to  open  at  all  before  two  ;  and  in  any 
case,  if  you  were  later  than  four  or  five  in  summer, 
you  would  have  to  pay  a  fine,  which  most  effectually 
cleaned  out  the  baths  of  all  raff,  since  it  was  a  sum 
that  John  Quires  could  not  have  produced  to  save  his 
life.  But  it  should  be  considered  that  the  emperoi 
was  the  steward  of  the  public  resources  for  maintain- 
ing the  baths  in  fuel,  oil,  attendance,  repairs.  And 
certain  it  is,  that  during  the  long  peace  of  the  first 
Caesars,  and  after  the  annonaria  provisio  (that  great 
pledge  of  popularity  to  a  Roman  prince)  had  been  in* 
3reased  by  the  corn  tribute  from  the  Nile,  the  Roman 
population  took  a  vast  expansion  ahead.  The  subse- 
quent increase  of  baths,  whilst  no  old  ones  were 
neglected,  proves  that  decisively.  And  as  citizenship 
expanded  by  means  of  the  easy  terms  on  which  it 
*ould  be  had,  so  did  the  bathers  multiply.  The  popu- 
iation  of  Rome  in  the  century  after  Augustus,  was  far 

I 


512  DINNER,   REAL,  AND  REPUTED. 

greater  than  during  that  era ;  and  this,  still  acting  ae 
a  vortex  to  the  rest  of  the  world,  may  have  been  one 
great  motive  with  Constantino  for  translating  the  capi- 
tal eastwards ;  in  reality,  for  breaking  up  one  monster 
capital  into  two  of  more  manageable  dimensions.  Two 
o'clock  was  sometimes  the  earliest  hour  at  which  the 
public  baths  were  opened.  But  :n  Martial's  time  a 
man  could  go  without  blushing  {salvd  fronte)  at  eleven ; 
though  even  then  two  o'clock  was  the  meridian  hour 
for  the  great  uproar  of  splashing,  and  swimming,  and 
*  larking '  in  the  endless  baths  of  endless  Rome. 

And  now,  at  last,  bathing  finished,  and  the  exercises 
of  the  palcestra,  at  half-past  two,  or  three,  our  friend 
finds  his  way  home  —  not  again  to  leave  it  for  that 
day.  He  is  now  a  new  man ;  refreshed,  oiled  with 
perfumes,  his  dust  washed  ofi*  by  hot  water,  and  ready 
for  enjoyment.  These  were  the  things  that  deter- 
mined the  time  for  dinner.  Had  there  been  no  other 
proof  that  ccena  was  the  Roman  dinner,  this  is  an  am- 
ple one.  Now  first  the  Roman  was  fit  for  dinner,  in  a 
condition  of  luxurious  ease  ;  business  over  —  that  day's 
load  of  anxiety  laid  aside  —  his  cuticle,  as  he  delighted 
to  talk,  cleansed  and  polished  —  nothing  more  to  do 
or  to  think  of  until  the  next  morning :  he  might  now 
go  and  dine,  and  get  drunk  with  a  safe  conscience. 
Besides,  if  he  does  not  get  dinner  now,  when  will  he 
get  it  ?  For  most  demonstrably  he  has  taken  nothing 
yet  which  comes  near  in  value  to  that  basin  of  soup 
which  many  of  ourselves  take  at  the  Roman  hour  of 
bathing.  No ;  we  have  kept  our  man  fasting  as  yet. 
It  is  to  be  hoped,  that  something  is  coming  at  last. 

Yes,  something  is  coming;  dinner  is  coming,  the 
great  meal  of  '  ccena ; '  the  meal  sacred  to  hospitality 


DINNER,   REAL,   AND  REPUTED.  j  l3 

Mid  genial  pleasure  comes  now  to  fill  up  the  rest  of 
the  clay,  until  light  fails  altogether. 

Many  people  are  of  opinion  that  the  Romans  only 
understood  what  the  capabilities  of  dinner  were.  It  is 
certain  that  they  \vere  the  first  great  people  that  dis- 
covered the  true  secret  and  meaning  of  dinner,  the 
great  office  which  it  fulfils,  and  which  we  in  England 
are  now  so  generally  acting  on.  Barbarous  nations  — 
and  none  were,  in  that  respect,  more  barbarous  than 
our  own  ancestors  —  made  this  capital  blunder :  the 
brutes,  if  you  asked  them  what  was  the  use  of  dinner, 
what  it  was  nieant  for,  stared  at  you,  and  replied  —  as 
a  horse  would  reply,  if  you  put  the  same  question 
about  his  provender  —  that  it  was  to  give  him  strength 
for  finishing  his  work !  Therefore,  if  you  point  your 
telescope  back  to  antiquity  about  twelve  or  one  o'clock 
in  the  daytime,  you  will  descry  our  most  worthy  an- 
cestors all  eating  for  their  very  lives,  eating  as  dogs 
eat  —  viz.,  in  bodily  fear  that  some  other  dog  will 
come  and  take  their  dinner  away.  What  swelling  of 
the  veins  in  the  temples  (see  Boswell's  natural  history 
of  Dr.  Johnson  at  dinner)  !  what  intense  and  rapid 
deglutition  !  what  odious  clatter  of  knives  and  plates  ! 
what  silence  of  the  human  voice  !  what  gravity  !  what 
fury  in  the  libidinous  eyes  with  which  they  contem- 
plate the  dishes  !  Positively  it  was  an  indecent  spec- 
tacle to  see  Dr.  Johnson  at  dinner.  But,  above  all, 
what  maniacal  haste  and  hurry,  as  if  the  fiend  were 
(  waiting  with  red-hot  pincers  to  lay  hold  of  the  hind- 
er most  1 

Oh,  reader,  do  you  recognize  in  this  abominable 
picture  your  respected  ancestors  arid  ours  ?  Excuse 
me  for  saying,  '  What  monsters  !  '    T  have  a  right  to 

33 


514  DINNER,  HEAL,  AND  REPUTED. 

call  my  own  ancestors  monsters  ;  and,  if  so,  I  must 
have  the  same  right  over  yours.  For  Southey  has  shown 
plainly  in  the  '  Doctor,'  that  every  man  having  four 
grandparents  in  the  second  stage  of  ascent,  conse- 
quently (since  each  of  those  four  will  have  had  four 
grandparents)  sixteen  in  the  third  stage,  consequently 
sixty-four  in  the  fourth,  consequently  two  hundred 
and  fifty-six  in  the  fifth,  and  so  on,  it  follows  that, 
long  before  you  get  to  the  Conquest,  every  man  and 
woman  then  living  in  England  will  be  wanted  to  make 
up  the  sum  of  my  separate  ancestors  ;  consequently 
you  must  take  your  ancestors  out  of  the  very  same 
fund,  or  (if  you  are  too  proud  for  that)  you  must  go 
without  ancestors.  So  that,  your  ancestors  being 
clearly  mine,  I  have  a  right  in  law  to  call  the  whole 
'  kit '  of  them  monsters.  Quod  erat  demonstrandum. 
Really  and  upon  my  honor,  it  makes  one,  for  the  mo- 
ment, ashamed  of  one's  descent ;  one  would  wish  to 
disinherit  one's-self  backwards,  and  (as  Sheridan  says 
in  the  '  Rivals  ')  to  '  cut  the  connection.'  Wordsworth^ 
has  an  admirable  picture  in  '  Peter  Bell '  of  'a  snug 
party  in  a  parlor  '  removed  into  limhus  patrum  for  their 
offences  in  the  flesh  :  — 

*  Cramming  as  they  on  earth  were  cramm'd  ; 
All  sipping  wine,  all  sipping  tea  ; 
But,  as  you  by  their  faces  see, 
All  silent ,  and  all  d  d.' 

How  well  does  that  one  word  silent  describe  those 
venerable  ancestral  dinners  —  '  All  silent  ! '  Contrast 
this  infernal  silence  of  voice,  and  fury  of  eye,  with  the 
'  risus  amhilis,'  the  festivity,  the  social  kindness,  the 
music,  the  wine,  the  '  dulcis  insania,^  of  a  Roman 
cmna.^  I  mentioned  four  tests  for  determining  what 
*  \By  a,  wicked  slip  for  Shelley.] 


DINNER,  REAL,  AND  REPUTED.  515 

meal  is,  and  what  is  not,  dinner  :  we  may  now  add  a 
fifth  —  viz.,  the  spirit  of  festal  joy  and  elegant  enjoy- 
ment, of  anxiety  laid  aside,  and  of  honorable  social 
pleasure  put  on  like  a  marriage  garment. 

And  what  caused  the  difference  between  our  ances- 
tors and  the  Romans  ?  Simply  this  —  the  error  of  in- 
terposing dinner  in  the  middle  of  business,  thus  court- 
ing aJl  the  breezes  of  angry  feeling  that  may  happen  to 
blow  from  the  business  yet  to  come,  instead  of  finish- 
ing, absolutely  closing,  the  account  with  this  world's 
troubles  before  you  sit  down.  That  unhappy  in- 
terpolation ruined  all.  Dinner  was  an  ugly  little 
parenthesis  between  two  still  uglier  clauses  of  a  tee- 
totally  ugly  sentence.  Whereas,  with  us,  their  enlight- 
ened posterity,  to  whom  they  have  the  honor  to  be 
ancestors,  dinner  is  a  great  re-action.  There  lies  my 
conception  of  the  matter.  It  grew  out  of  the  very  ex* 
cess  of  the  evil.  When  business  was  moderate,  dinner 
was  allowed  to  divide  and  bisect  it.  When  it  swelled 
into  that  vast  strife  and  agony,  as  one  iT»ay  call  it,  that 
boils  along  the  tortured  streets  of  modern  London  or 
other  capitals,  men  begin  to  see  the  necessity  of  an 
adequate  counter-force  to  push  against  this  overwhelm- 
ing torrent,  and  thus  maintain  the  equilibrium.  Were 
it  not  for  the  soft  relief  of  a  six  o'clock  dinner,  the 
gentle  demeanor  succeeding  to  the  boisterous  hubbub 
of  the  day,  the  soft  glowing  lights,  the  wine,  the  intel- 
lectual conversation,  life  in  London  is  now  come  to 
such  a  pass,  that  in  two  years  all  nerves  would  sink 
I  before  it.  But  for  this  periodic  re-action,  the  m(  dern 
I  business  which  draws  so  cruelly  on  the  brain,  and  so 
little  on  the  hands,  would  overthrow  that  organ  in  all 
but  those  of  coarse  organization.     Dinner  it  is 


516  DINNER,   REAL,  AND  REPUTED. 


meaning  by  dinner  the  whole  complexity  of  attendant 
circumstances  —  which  saves  the  modern  brain-work- 
ing man  from  going  mad. 

This  revolution  as  to  dinner  was  the  greatest  in 
virtue  and  value  ever  accomplished.  In  fact,  those 
are  always  the  most  operative  revolutions  which  are 
brought  about  through  social  or  domestic  changes.  A 
nation  must  be  barbarous,  neither  could  it  have  much 
intellectual  business,  which  dined  in  the  morning. 
They  could  not  be  at  ease  in  the  morning.  So  much 
7nust  be  granted  :  every  day  has  its  separate  quantum, 
its  dose  of  anxiety,  that  could  not  be  digested  as  soon 
noon.  No  man  will  say  it.  He,  therefore,  who  dined 
at  noon,  showed  himself  willing  to  sit  down  squalid 
as  he  was,  with  his  dress  unchanged,  his  cares  not 
washed  off.  And  what  follows  from  that?  Why,  that 
to  him,  to  such  a  canine  or  cynical  specimen  of  the 
genus  liomo^  dinner  existed  only  as  a  physical  event,  a 
mere  animal  relief,  a  purely  carnal  enjoyment.  For  in 
what,  I  demand,  did  this  fleshly  creature  differ  from 
the  carrion  crow,  or  the  kite,  or  the  vulture,  or  the 
cormorant  ?  A  French  judge,  in  an  action  upon  a  wa- 
ger, laid  it  down  as  law,  that  man  only  had  a  houche, 
all  other  animals  a  gueule  :  only-  with  regard  to  the 
horse,  in  consideration  of  his  beauty,  nobility,  use, 
and  in  honor  of  the  respect  with  which  man  regarded 
him,  by  the  courtesy  of  Christendom,  he  might  be 
allowed  to  have  a  louche,  and  h*s  reproach  of  brutality, 
if  not  taken  away,  might  thus  be  hidden.  But  surely, 
of  the  rabid  animal  who  is  caught  dining  at  noonday, 
the  homo  ferus,  who  affronts  the  meridian  sun  like 
Thyestes  and  Atreus,  by  his  inhuman  meals,  wc  are 
by  parity  of  reason,  entitled  to  say,  that  he  has  a  '  maw  ' 


DINNER,  REAL,  AND  REPUTED. 


517 


(so  has  Milton's  Death),  but  nothing  resemhling  a 
stomach.  And  to  this  vile  man  a  philosopher  would 
Bay  — '  Go  away,  sir,  and  come  back  to  me  two  or 
three  centuries  hence,  when  you  have  learned  to  be  a 
reasonable  creature,  and  to  make  that  physico-intellec- 
tual  thing  out  of  dinner  which  it  was  meant  to  be,  and 
is  capable  of  becoming.'  In  Henry  VII. 's  time  the 
court  dined  at  eleven  in  the  forenoon.  But  even  that 
hour  was  considered  so  shockingly  late  in  the  French 
court,  that  Louis  XII.  actually  had  his  gray  hairs 
brought  down  with  sorrow  to  the  grave,  by  changing 
his  regular  hour  of  half-past  nine  for  eleven,  in  gallan- 
try to  his  young  English  bride. He  fell  a  victim  to 
late  hours  in  the  forenoon.  In  Cromwell's  time  they 
dined  at  one  p.  m.  One  century  and  a  half  had  car- 
ried them  on  by  two  hours.  Doubtless,  old  cooks  and 
scullions  wondered  what  the  world  would  come  to 
next.  Our  French  neighbors  were  in  the  same  pre- 
dicament. But  they  far  surpassed  us  in  veneration 
for  the  meal.  They  actually  dated  from  it.  Dinner 
constituted  the  great  era  of  the  day.  L'apres  diner  is 
almost  the  sole  date  which  you  find  in  Cardinal  De 
Retz's  memoirs  of  the  Fronde,  Dinner  was  their  He- 
gira  —  dinner  was  their  line  in  traversing  the  ocean  of 
day  :  they  crossed  the  equator  when  they  dined.  Our 
English  Revolution  came  next ;  it  made  some  little 
difference,  I  have  heard  people  say,  in  church  and 
state  ;  I  dare-say  it  did,  like  enough,  but  its  great 
effects  were  perceived  in  dinner.  People  now  dine  at 
two.  So  dined  Addison  for  his  last  thirty  years  ;  so, 
through  his  entire  life,  dined  Pope,  whose  birth  was 
Boeval  with  the  Revolution.  Precisely  as  the  Rebel- 
don  of  1745  arose,  did  people  (but  observe,  very  great 


518 


DINNER,  KEAL,  AND  REPUTED. 


people)  advance  to  four  p.  m.  Philosopliers,  who  watch 
the  '  semina  rerum,'  and  the  first  symptoms  of  change, 
had  perceived  this  alteration  singing  in  the  upper  air 
like  a  coming  storm  some  little  time  before.  About 
the  year  1740,  Pope  complains  of  Lady  Suffolk's 
dining  so  late  as  four.  Young  people  may  bear  those 
things,  he  observed ;  but  as  to  himself,  now  turned  of 
fifty,  if  such  things  went  on,  if  Lady  Sufiblk  would 
adopt  such  strange  hours,  he  must  really  absent  him- 
self from  Marble  Hill.  Lady  Sufi'olk  had  a  right  to 
please  herself;  he  himself  loved  her.  But,  if  she 
would  persist,  all  which  remained  for  a  decayed  poet 
was  respectfully  to  cut  his  stick,  and  retire.  Whether 
Pope  ever  put  up  with  four  o'clock  dinners  again,  I 
have  vainly  sought  to  fathom.  Some  things  advance 
continuously,  like  a  flood  or  a  fire,  which  always  make 
an  end  of  A,  eat  and  digest  it,  before  they  go  on  to 
B.  Other  things  advance  "per  saltum  —  they  do  not 
silently  cancer  their  way  onwards,  but  lie  as  still  as  a 
snake  after  they  have  made  some  notable  conquest, 
then,  when  unobserved,  they  make  themselves  up  '  for 
mischief,'  and  take  a  flying  bound  onwards.  Thus 
advanced  Dinner,  and  by  these  fits  got  into  the  terri- 
tory of  evening.  And  ever  as  it  made  a  motion  on- 
wards, it  found  the  nation  more  civilized  (else  the 
change  could  not  have  been  eflected),  and  co-operated 
in  raising  them  to  a  still  higher  civilization.  The  next 
relay  on  that  line  of  road,  the  next  repeating  frigate, 
is  Cowper  in  his  poem  on  '  Conversation.'  He  speaks 
of  four  o'clock  as  still  the  elegant  hour  for  dinner  — 
the  hour  for  the  lautiores  and  the  lepidi  homines. 
Now  this  might  be  written  about  1780,  or  a  little 
earlier ;  perhaps,  therefore,  just  one  generation  aftei 


DINNER,   KEAL,  AND  REPUTED. 


519 


Pope's  Lady  Suffolk.  But  then  Cowper  was  living 
amongst  the  rural  gentry,  not  in  high  life ;  yet,  again, 
Cowper  was  nearly  connected  by  blood  with  the  emi- 
nent Whig  house  of  Cowper,  and  acknowledged  as  a 
kinsman.  About  twenty-five  years  after  this,  we  may 
take  Oxford  as  a  good  exponent  of  the  national  ad- 
vance. As  a  magnificent  body  of  '  foundations,'  en- 
dowed by  kings,  nursed  by  queens,  and  resorted  to  by 
the  fiower  of  the  national  youth,  Oxford  ought  to  be 
elegant  and  even  splendid  in  her  habits.  Yet,  on  the 
other  hand,  as  a  grave  seat  of  learning,  and  feeling  the 
weight  of  her  position  in  the  commonwealth,  she  is 
slow  to  move  ;  she  is  inert  as  she  should  be,  having 
the  functions  of  resistance  assigned  to  her  against  the 
popular  instinct  (surely  active  enough)  of  movement. 
Now,  in  Oxford,  about  1804-5,  there  was  a  general 
move  in  the  dinner  hour.  Those  colleges  who  dined 
at  three,  of  which  there  were  still  several,  now  began  to 
dine  at  four :  those  who  had  dined  at  four,  now  trans- 
lated their  hour  to  five.  These  continued  good  general 
hours  till  about  Waterloo.  After  chat  era,  six,  which 
had  been  somewhat  of  a  gala  hour,  was  promoted  to  the 
fixed  station  of  dinner-time  in  ordinary ;  and  there 
perhaps  it  will  rest  through  centuries.  For  a  more 
festal  dinner,  seven,  eight,  nine,  ten,  have  all  been  in 
requisition  since  then ;  but  I  am  not  aware  of  any 
man's  habitually  dining  later  than  ten  p.  m.,  except 
In  that  classical  case  recorded  by  Mr.  Joseph  Miller, 
of  an  Irishman  who  must  have  dined  much  later  than 
ten,  because  his  servant  protested,  when  others  were 
enforcing  the  dignity  of  their  masters  by  the  lateness 
vf  their  dinner  hours,  that  Ms  master  invariably  dined 
'  to-morrow.' 


520  DINNEE,,   REAL,  AND  REPUTED. 


Were  the  Romans  not  as  barbarous  as  our  own.  an* 
cestors  at  one  time  ?  Most  certainly  tliey  were^;  in 
their  primitive  ages  they  took  their  c(2na  at  noon,^^^ 
tliat  was  before  they  had  laid  aside  their  barbarism ; 
before  they  shaved ;  it  was  during  their  barbarism, 
and  in  consequence  of  their  barbarism,  that  they  timed 
their  coena  thus  unseasonably.  And  this  is  made  evi- 
dent by  the  fact,  that,  so  long  as  they  erred  in  the 
hour,  they  erred  in  the  attending  circumstances.  At 
this  period  they  had  no  music  at  dinner,  no  festal 
graces,  and  no  reposing  on  sofas.  They  sat  bolt  up- 
right in  chairs,  and  were  as  grave  as  our  ancestors,  as 
rabid,  as  libidinous  in  ogling  the  dishes,  and  doubtless 
as  furiously  in  haste. 

With  us  the  revolution  has  been  equally  complex. 
We  do  not,  indeed,  adopt  the  luxurious  attitude  of 
semi-recumbency ;  our  climate  makes  that  less  requi- 
site ;  and,  moreover,  the  Romans  had  no  knives  and 
forks,  which  could  scarcely  be  used  in  that  recumbent 
posture  ;  they  ate  with  their  fingers  from  dishes  already 
cut  up  —  whence  the  peculiar  force  of  Seneca's  '  post 
quod  non  sunt  lavandge  manus.'  But,  exactly  in  propor- 
tion as  our  dinner  has  advanced  towards  evening,  have 
we  and  has  that  advanced  in  circumstances  of  elegance, 
of  taste,  of  intellectual  value.  This  by  itself  would  be 
much.  Infinite  would  be  the  gain  for  any  people,  that 
it  had  ceased  to  be  brutal,  animal,  fleshly ;  ceased  to 
regard  the  chief  meal  of  the  day  as  a  ministration  only 
o  an  animal  necessity  ;  that  they  had  raised  it  to 
higher  office ;  associated  it  with  social  and  humanizing 
feelings,  with  manners,  with  graces  moral  and  intel 
lectual :  moral  in  the  self-restraint ;  intellectual  in  th 
fact,  notorious  to  all  men,  that  the  chief  arenas  for  the 


DINNER,   REAL,  AND  REPUTED.  521 

casi^  display  of  intellectual  power  are  at  our  dinner  ta- 
bles. But  dinner  has  now  even  a  greater  function  than 
this ;  as  the  fervor  of  our  day's  business  increases, 
dinner  is  continually  more  needed  in  its  office  of  a 
great  re-action,  I  repeat  that,  at  this  moment,  but  for 
the  daily  relief  of  dinner,  the  brain  of  all  men  who 
mix  in  the  strife  of  capitals  would  be  unhinged  and 
thrown  off  its  centre. 

If  we  should  suppose  the  case  of  a  nation  taking 
three  equidistant  meals,  all  of  the  same  material  and 
the  same  quantity  —  all  milk,  for  instance,  all  bread, 
or  all  rice  —  it  would  be  impossible  for  Thomas 
Aquinas  himself  to  say  which  was  or  was  not  dinner. 
The  case  would  be  that  of  the  Roman  ancile  which 
dropped  from  the  skies ;  to  prevent  its  ever  being 
stolen,  the  priests  made  eleven  facsimiles  of  it,  in 
order  that  a  thief,  seeing  the  hopelessness  of  distin- 
guishing the  true  one,  might  let  all  alone.  And  the 
result  was,  that,  in  the  next  generation,  nobody  could 
point  to  the  true  one.  But  our  dinner,  the  Roman 
CGRna,  is  distinguished  from  the  rest  by  far  more  than 
the  hour  ;  it  is  distinguished  by  great  functions,  and 
by  still  greater  capacities.  It  is  already  most  benefi- 
cial ;  if  it  saves  (as  I  say  it  does)  the  nation  from 
madness,  it  may  become  more  so. 

In  saying  this,  I  point  to  the  lighter  graces  of  music, 
and  conversation  more  varied,  by  which  the  Roman 
coBna  was  chiefly  distinguished  from  our  dinner.  I  am 
far  from  agreeing  with  Mr.  Croly,  that  the  Roman 
meal  was  more  '  intellectual '  than  ours.  On  the  con- 
trary, ours  is  the  more  intellectual  by  much  ;  we  have 
far  greater  knowledge,  far  greater  means  for  making  it 
such.    In  fact,  the  fault  of  our  meal  is  —  that  it  is  too 


522  DINNER,  REAL,  AND  REPUTED. 


intellectual  ;  of  too  severe  a  character  ;  too  political ; 
too  much  tending,  in  many  hands,  to  disquisition. 
Reciprocation  of  question  and  answer,  variety  of  topics, 
shifting  of  topics,  are  points  not  sufficiently  cultivated. 
In  all  else  I  assent  to  the  following  passage  from  Mr. 
Croly'g  eloquent  '  Salathiel :  '  — 

'  If  an  ancient  Roman  could  start  from  his  slumbei 
into  the  midst  of  European  life,  he  must  look  with 
scorn  on  its  absence  of  grace,  elegance,  and  fancy. 
But  it  is  in  its  festivity,  and  most  of  all  in  its  banquets, 
that  he  would  feel  the  incurable  barbg^rism  of  the 
Gothic  blood.  Contrasted  with  the  fine  displays  that 
made  the  table  of  the  Roman  noble  a  picture,  and 
threw  over  the  indulgence  of  appetite  the  colors  of  the 
imagination,  with  what  eyes  must  he  contemplate  the 
tasteless  and  commonplace  dress,  the  coarse  attendants, 
the  meagre  ornament,  the  want  of  mirth,  music,  and 
intellectual  interest  —  the  whole  heavy  machinery  that 
converts  the  feast  into  the  mere  drudgery  of  devour- 
ing! ' 

Thus  far  the  reader  knows  already  that  I  dissent 
violently  ;  and  by  looking  back  he  will  see  a  picture 
of  our  ancestors  at  dinner,  in  which  they  rehearse  the 
very  part  in  relation  to  ourselves,  that  Mr.  Croly  sup- 
poses all  moderns  to  rehearse  in  relation  to  the  Ro- 
mans ;  but  in  the  rest  of  the  beautiful  description,  the 
positive,  though  not  the  comparative  part,  we  must  all 
concur : — 

'  The  guests  before  me  were  fifty  or  sixty  splendidly 
dressed  men'  (they  were  in  fact  Titus  and  his  staff, 
then  occupied  with  the  siege  of  Jerusalem),  'attended 
by  a  crowd  of  domestics,  attired  with  scarcely  less 
splendor ;  for  no  man  thought  of  coming  to  the  ban-. 


DINJJ^EB,  REAL,  AND  EEPUTED.  523 

qnet  in  the  robes  of  ordinary  life.  The  embroidered 
couches,  themselves  striking  objects,  allowed  the  ease 
of  position  at  once  delightful  in  the  relaxing  climates 
of  the  south,  and  capable  of  combining  with  every 
grace  of  the  human  figure.  At  a  slight  distance,  the 
table  loaded  with  plate  glittering  under  a  profusion  of 
lamps,  and  surrounded  by  couches  thus  covered  by 
rich  draperies,  was  like  a  central  source  of  light  radiat- 
ing in  broad  shafts  of  every  brilliant  hue.  The  wealth 
of  the  patricians,  and  their  intercourse  with  the  Greeks, 
made  them  masters  of  the  first  performances  of  the 
arts.  Copies  of  the  most  famous  statues,  and  groups 
of  sculpture  in  the  precious  metals  ;  trophies  of  victo- 
ries ;  models  of  temples,  were  mingled  with  vases  of 
flowers  and  lighted  perfumes.  Finally,  covering  and 
closing  all,  was  a  vast  scarlet  canopy,  which  combined 
the  groups  beneath  to  the  eye,  and  threw  the  whole 
into  the  form  that  a  painter  would  love.' 

Mr.  Croly  then  goes  on  to  insist  on  the  intellectual 
embellishments  of  the  Roman  dinner  ;  their  variety, 
their  grace,  their  adaptation  to  a  festive  purpose.  The 
truth  is,  our  English  imagination,  more  profound  than 
the  Roman,  is  also  more  gloomy,  less  gay,  less  riante. 
That  accounts  for  our  want  of  the  gorgeous  triclinium^ 
with  its  scarlet  draperies,  and  for  many  other  differ- 
ences both  to  the  eye  and  to  the  understanding.  But 
both  we  and  the  Romans  agree  in  the  main  point  : 
we  both  discovered  the  true  purpose  which  dinner 
might  serve — 1,  to  throw  the  grace  of  intellectual 
enjoyment  over  an  animal  necessity  ;  2,  to  relieve  and 
to  meet  by  a  benign  antagonism  the  toil  of  brain  inci- 
dent to  high  forms  of  social  life. 

My  object  has  been  to  point  the  eye  to  this  fact ;  tc 


524  JDINNER,  REAL,  AND  REFUTED. 


show  uses  imperfectly  suspected  in  a  recurring  accident 
of  life ;  to  show  a  steady  tendency  to  that  consumma- 
tion, by  holding  up,  as  in  a  mirror,  a  series  of  changes, 
corresponding  to  our  own  series  with  regard  to  the 
same  chief  meal,  silently  going  on  in  a  great  people  of 
antiquity 


/ 


TOILETTE  OF  THE  HEBREW  LADY. 

EXHIBITED  IN  SIX  SCENES. 


To  the  Editor  of  a  great  Literary  Journal. 

Sir,  —  Some  years  ago  you  published  a  translation 
of  Bottiger's  Sahina,  a  learned  account  of  the  Roman 
toilette.  I  here  send  you  a  companion  to  that  work, 
—  not  a  direct  translation,  but  a  very  minute  abstract 
[weeded  of  that  wordiness  which  has  made  the  original 
unreadable,  and  therefore  unread]  from  a  similar  dis- 
sertation by  Hartmann  on  the  toilette  and  the  ward- 
robe of  the  ladies  of  ancient  Palestine.  Hartmann 
was  a  respectable  Oriental  scholar,  and  he  published 
his  researches,  which  occupy  three  thick  octavos,  mak- 
ing in  all  one  thousand  four  hundred  and  eighty-eight 
pages,  under  the  title  of  Die  Hebrderin  am  Putztische 
und  ah  Braut^  Amsterdam,  1809  {The  Hehrew  Woman 
at  her  Toilette^  and  in  her  Bridal  Character),  I 
understand  that  the  poor  man  is  now  gone  to  Hades, 
where,  let  us  hope,  that  it  is  considered  by  Minos  or 
Rhadamanthus  no  crime  in  a  learned  man  to  be  CKceed- 
ingly  tedious,  and  to  repeat  the  same  thing  ten  times 
over,  or  even,  upon  occasion,  fifteen  times,  provided 
that  his  own  upright  heart  should  incline  him  to  think 
that  course  the  most  advisable.  Certainly  Mr.  Hart- 
mann has  the  most  excellent  gifts  at  verbal  expansion, 
and  talents  the  most  splendid  for  tautology,  that  ever 


526  TOILETTE   OF   THE  HEBREW  LADY. 

came  within  my  knowledge  ;  and  I  have  found  no 
particular  difficulty  in  compressing  every  tittle  of  what 
relates  to  his  subject  into  a  compass  which,  I  imagine, 
will  fill  about  one-twenty-eighth  part  at  the  utmost 
of  the  original  work. 

It  was  not  to  be  expected,  with  the  scanty  materials 
before  him,  that  an  illustrator  of  the  Hebrew  costume 
should  be  as  full  and  explicit  as  Bottiger,  with  the 
advantage  of  writing  upon  a  theme  more  familiar  to 
us  Europeans  of  this  day  than  any  parallel  theme  even 
in  our  own  national  archaeologies  of  two  centuries 
back.  United,  however,  with  his  great  reading,  this 
barrenness  of  the  subject  is  so  far  an  advantage  for 
Hartmann,  as  it  yields  a  strong  presumption  that  he 
has  exhausted  it.  The  male  costume  of  ancient  Pal- 
estine is  yet  to  be  illustrated  ;  but  for  the  female,  it  is 
probable  that  little  could  be  added  to  what  Hartmann 
has  collected ;  and  that  any  clever  dress-maker 
would,  with  the  indications  here  given,  enable  any 
lady  at  the  next  great  masquerade  in  London  to  sup- 

*  It  is  one  great  advantage  to  the  illustrator  of  ancient  cos- 
tume, that  when  almost  everything  in  this  sort  of  usages  was 
fixed  and  determined  either  by  religion  and  state  policy  (as  with 
the  Jews),  or  by  state  policy  alone  (as  with  the  Romans),  or  by 
superstition  and  by  settled  climate  (as  with  both) ;  and  when 
there  was  no  stimulation  to  vanity  in  the  love  of  change  from 
an  inventive  condition  of  art  and  manufacturing  skill,  and 
where  the  system  and  interests  of  the  government  relied  for  no 
part  of  its  power  on  such  a  condition,  dress  was  stationary  for 
«i,ges,  both  as  to  materials  and  fashion;  Rebecca,  the  Bedouin, 
was  dressed  pretty  nearly  as  Mariamne,  the  wife  of  Herod,  in  the 
age  of  the  Caasars.  And  thus  the  labors  of  a  learned  investi- 
gator for  one  age  are  valid  for  many  which  follow  and  precede 


TOILETTE   OF  THE  HEBREW  LADY.  527 


port  the  part  of  one  of  the  ancient  daughters  of  Pales- 
tine, and  to  call  back,  after  eighteen  centuries  of  sleep, 
the  buried  pomps  of  Jerusalem.  As  to  the  talking, 
there  would  be  no  difficulty  at  all  in  that  point ; 
bishops  and  other  "  sacred  "  people,  if  they  ever  go 
a-masquing,  for  their  own  sakes  will  not  be  likely  to 
betray  themselves  by  putting  impertinent  questions  in 
Hebrew  ;  and  for  "  profane  "  people  like  myself,  who 
might  like  the  impertinence,  they  would  very  much 
dislike  the  Hebrew  ;  indeed,  of  uncircumcised  He- 
brews, barring  always  the  clergy,  it  is  not  thought  that 
any  are  extant.  In  other  respects,  and  as  a  spectacle, 
the  Hebrew  masque  would  infallibly  eclipse  every 
other  in  the  room.  The  upper  and  under  chemise,  if 
managed  properly  (and  either  you  or  I,  Mr.  Editor, 
will  be  most  proud  to  communicate  our  private  advice 
on  that  subject  without  fee  or  pot-de-vin,  as  the  French 
style  a  bribe),  would  transcend,  in  gorgeous  display, 
the  coronation  robes  of  queens  ;  nose-pendants  would 
cause  the  masque  to  be  immediately  and  unerringly 
recognized  ;  or  if  those  were  not  thought  advisable, 
the  silver  ankle-bells,  with  their  melodious  chimes  — 
the  sandals  with  their  jewelled  network — and  the 
golden  diadem,  binding  the  forehead,  and  dropping 
from  each  extremity  of  the  polished  temples  a  rouleau 
of  pearls,  which,  after  traversing  the  cheeks,  unite 
below  the  chin,  —  are  all  so  unique  and  exclusively 
Hebraic,  that  each  and  all  would  have  the  same  ad- 
vantageous effect ;  proclaiming  and  notifying  the  char- 
icter,  without  putting  the  fair  supporter  to  any  dis- 
agreeable expense  of  Hebrew  or  Chaldee.  The  silver 
bells  alone  would  "  bear  the  bell  "  from  every  compete 


528  TOILETTE   OF   THE  HEBREW  LADY. 

itor  in  the  room ;  and  she  might,  besides,  carry  a 
cymbal,  a  dulcimer,  or  a  timbrel  in  her  hands. 

In  conclusion,  my  dear  sir,  let  me  congratulate  you 
that  Mr.  Hartmann  is  now  in  Hades  (as  I  said  before) 

rather  than  in  ;  for,  had  he  been  in  this  latter 

place,  he  would  have  been  the  ruin  of  you.  It  was 
his  intention,  as  I  am  well  assured,  just  about  the  time 
that  he  took  his  flight  for  Elysium,  to  have  commenced 
regular  contributor  to  your  journal  ;  so  great  was  his 
admiration  of  you,  and  also  of  the  terms  which  you 
offer  to  the  literary  w^orld.  As  a  learned  Orientalist, 
you  could  not  decorously  have  rejected  him  ;  and  yet, 
once  admitted,  he  would  have  beggared  you  before  any 
means  could  have  been  discovered  by  the  learned  for 
putting  a  stop  to  him.  ^Art^Qavzokoyia^  or  what  may  be 
translated  literally  world-wit liout-ending-nesSy  was  his 
forte  ;  upon  this  he  piqued  himself,  and  most  justly, 
-since  for  covering  the  ground  rapidly,  and  yet  not  ad- 
vancing an  inch,  those  who  knew  and  valued  him  as 
he  deserved  would  have  backed  him  against  the  whole 
field  of  the  gens  de  plume  now  in  Europe.  Had  he 
lived,  and  fortunately  for  himself  communicated  his 
Hebrew  Toilette  to  the  world  through  you,  instead  of 
foundering  (as  he  did)  at  Amsterdam,  he  would  have 
flourished  upon  your  exchequer  ;  and  you  would  not 
have  heard  the  last  of  him  or  his  Toilette  for  the  next 
twenty  years.  He  dates,  you  see,  from  Amsterdam  ; 
and,  had  you  been  weak  enough  to  take  him  on  board, 
he  would  have  proved  that  "  Flying  Dutchman"  that 
would  infallibly  have  sunk  your  vessel. 

The  more  is  your  obligation  to  me,  I  think,  for 
sweating  him  down  to  such  slender  dimensions.  And; 


(  TOILETTE   OF   THE  HEBKEW  LADY.  529 

speaking  seriously,  both  of  us  perhaps  will  rejoice  that, 
even  with  Ms  talents  for  telling  everything,  he  was 
obliged  on  this  subject  to  leave  many  things  untold. 
For,  though  it  might  be  gratifying  to  a  mere  interest 
of  curiosity,  yet  I  believe  that  we  should  both  be 
grieved  if  anything  were  to  unsettle  in  our  feelings  the 
mysterious  sanctities  of  Jerusalem,  or  to  disturb  that 
awful  twilight  which  will  forever  Brood  over  Judea  — 
by  letting  in  upon  it  the  "  common  light  of  day ;  "  and 
this  effect  would  infallibly  take  place,  if  any  one  de- 
partment of  daily  life,  as  it  existed  in  Judea,  were 
brought,  with  all  the  degrading  minutiae  of  its  details, 
within  the  petty  finishing  of  a  domestic  portrait. 

Farewell,  my  dear  Sir,  and  believe  me  always  youi 
devoted  servant  and  admirer, 

SCENE  THE  FIRST. 

1.  That  simple  body-cloth,  framed  of  leaves,  skins, 
flax,  wool,  &c.,  which  modesty  had  first  introduced, 
for  many  centuries  perhaps  sufficed  as  the  common  at- 
tire of  both  sexes  amongst  the  Hebrew  Bedouins.  It 
.extended  downwards  to  the  knees,  and  upwards  to  the 
hips,  about  which  it  was  fastened.  Such  a  dress  is 
seen  upon  many  of  the  figures  in  the  sculptures  of 
Persepolis  ;  even  in  modern  times,  Niebuhr  found  it 
the  ordinary  costume  of  the  lower  Arabians  in  Hedsjas ; 
and  Shaw  assures  us,  that,  from  its  commodious  shape, 
it  is  still  a  favorite  dishabille  of  the  Arabian  women 
when  they  are  behind  the  curtains  of  the  tent. 

From  this  early  rudiment  was  derived,  by  gradual 
elongation,  that  well-known  under  habiliment,  which 
34 


530  TOILETTE  OF  THE  HEBREW  LADY. 


in  Hebrew  is  called  CKtonet,  and  in  Greek  and  Latin 
by  words  of  similar  sounds*  In  this  stage  of  its  pro- 
gress, when  extended  to  the  neck  and  the  shoulders,  it 
represents  pretty  accurately  the  modern  shirt,  camisa, 
pr  chemise  —  except  that  the  sleeves  are  wanting  ;  and 
during  the  first  period  of  Jewish  history  it  was  proba- 
bly worn  as  the  sole  under-garment  by  women  of  all 
ranks,  both  amongst  the  Bedouin-Hebrews  and  those 
who  lived  in  cities.  A  very  little  further  extension  to 
the  elbows  and  the  calves  of  the  legs,  and  it  takes  a 
shape  which  survives  even  to  this  day  in  Asia.  Now, 
as  then,  the  female  habiliment  was  distinguished  from 
the  corresponding  male  one  by  its  greater  length ;  and 
through  all  antiquity  we  find  long  clothes  a  subject 
of  reproach  to  men,  as  an  argument  of  effeminacy. 

According  to  the  rank  or  vanity  of  the  wearer,  this 
tunic  was  made  of  more  or  less  costly  materials  ;  for 
wool  and  flax  was  often  substituted  the  finest  byssus, 
or  other  silky  substance  ;  and  perhaps,  in  the  latter 
periods,  amongst  families  of  distinction  in  Jerusalem, 
even  silk  itself.  Splendor  of  coloring  was  not  neg- 
lected;  and  the  opening  at  the  throat  was  eagerly 
turned  to  account  as  an  occasion  for  displaying  fringe 
or  rich  embroidery. 

Bo t tiger  remarks  that,  even  in  the  age  of  Augustus, 
the  morning  dress  of  Roman  ladies  when  at  home  was 
nothing  more  than  this  very  tunic,  which,  if  it  sate 

*  Chiton  {XiTvn),  in  Greek,  and,  by  inversion  of  the  syllor- 
bles,  Tunica  in  Latin;  that  is  (1.)  Chi-ton;  then  (2.)  Ton-chi, 
But,  if  so,  (3.) Why  not  Ton-cha  ;  and  (4.)  Why  not  Tnn-cha; 
as  also  (5.)  Why  not  Tun-i-ca.  —  Q.  E.  D.  Such  I  believe,  is 
the  received  derivation 


TOILEITE   OF  THE   HEBHEW  LADY.  531 

close,  did  not  even  require  a  girdle.  The  same  remark 
applies  to  the  Hebrew  women,  who,  during  the  nomadic 
period  of  their  history,  had  been  accustomed  to  wear 
no  night  chemises  at  all,  but  slept  quite  naked,"^'  or, 
at  the  utmost,  with  a  cestus  or  zone  ;  by  way  of  bed- 
clothes, however,  it  must  be  observed  that  they  swathed 
their  person  in  the  folds  of  a  robe  or  shawl.  Up  to 
the  time  of  Solomon  this  practice  obtained  through  all 
ranks,  and  so  long  the  universal  household  dress  of  a 
Hebrew  lady  in  her  harem  was  the  tunic  as  here  de- 
scribed ;  and  in  this  she  dressed  herself  the  very  mo- 
ment that  she  rose  from  bed.  Indeed,  so  long  as  the 
Hebrew  women  were  content  with  a  single  tunic,  it 
flowed  loose  in  liberal  folds  about  the  body,  and  was 
fastened  by  a  belt  or  a  clasp,  just  as  we  find  it  at  this 
day  amongst  all  Asiatic  nations.  But  when  a  second 
under  garment  was  introduced,  the  inner  one  fitted 
close  to  the  shape,  whilst  the  outer  one  remained  full 
and  free  as  before. 

II.  No  fashion  of  the  female  toilette  is  of  higher 
antiquity  than  that  of  dyeing  the  margin  of  the  eye- 
lids and  the  eyebrows  with  a  black  pigment.  It  is 
mentioned  or  alluded  to,  2  Kings  ix.  30,  Jeremiah  iv. 
^0,  Ezekiel  xxiii.  40  ;  to  which  may  be  added,  Isaiah 
iii.  16.  The  practice  had  its  origin  in  a  discovery  made 
accidentally  in  Egypt.    For  it  happens  that  the  sub- 

*  When  the  little  Scottish  king,  about  1566,  was  taken  ill  in 
ihe  night  at  Holyrood,  Pinkerton  mentions  that  all  his  attend- 
ants, male  and  female,  rushed  out  into  the  adjacent  gallery, 
naked  as  they  were  born,  and  thence  comes  the  phrase  so  often 
used  in  the  contemporary  ballads  —  Even  as  I  left  my  naked 
bed." 


532  TOILETTE   OF  THE   HEBREW  LADY. 

stance  used  for  this  purpose  in  ancient  times  is  a 
powerful  remedy  in  cases  of  ophthalmia  and  inflamma- 
tion of  the  eyes,  complaints  to  which  Egypt  is,  from 
local  causes,  peculiarly  exposed.  This  endemic  in- 
firmity, in  connection  with  the  medical  science  for 
which  Egypt  was  so  distinguished,  easily  accounts  for 
their  discovering  the  uses  of  antimony,  which  is  the 
principal  ingredient  in  the  pigments  of  this  class. 
Egypt  was  famous  for  the  fashion  of  painting  the  face 
from  an  early  period ;  and  in  some  remarkable  curiosi- 
ties illustrating  the  Egyptian  toilette,  which  were  dis- 
covered in  the  catacombs  of  Sahara  in  Middle  Egypt, 
there  was  a  single  joint  of  a  common  reed  containing 
an  ounce  or  more  of  the  coloring  powder,  and  one  of 
the  needles  for  applying  it.  The  entire  process  was  as 
follows  :  —  The  mineral  powder,  finely  prepared,  was 
mixed  up  with  a  preparation  of  vinegar  and  gall- apples 
—  sometimes  with  oil  of  almonds  or  other  oils  — 
sometimes,  by  very  luxurious  women,  with  costly  gums 
and  balsams. And  perhaps,  as  Sonnini  describes  the 
practice  among  the  Mussulman  women  at  present,  the 
whole  mass  thus  compounded  was  dried  and  again  re- 
duced to  an  impalpable  powder,  and  consistency  then 
given  to  it  by  the  vapors  of  some  odorous  and  unctuous 

*  Cheaper  materials  were  used  by  the  poorer  Hebrews,  es- 
Decially  of  the  Bedouin  tribes  —  burnt  almonds,  lamp-black, 
soot,  the  ashes  of  particular  woods,  the  gall-apple  boiled  and 
pulverized,  or  any  dark  powder  made  into  an  unguent  by  suit- 
able liquors.  The  modern  Grecian  women,  in  some  districts,  as 
Sonnini  tells  us,  use  the  spine  of  the  sea-polypus,  calcined  and 
finely  pulverized  for  this  purpose.  Boxes  of  horn  were  used 
/or  keeping  the  pigment  by  the  poorer  Hebrews  —  of  onyx  or 
ttlabaster  by  the  richer. 


lOILETTE   OF   THE   HEBREW  LADY. 


533 


giibstance.  Thus  prepared,  the  pigment  was  applied 
to  the  tip  or  pointed  ferule  of  a  little  metallic  pencil, 
called  in  Hebrew  Makachol,  and  made  of  silver,  gold, 
or  ivory  ;  the  eyelids  were  then  closed,  and  the  little 
pencil  or  probe,  held  horizontally,  was  inserted  between 
them,  a  process  which  is  briefly  and  picturesquely  de- 
scribed in  the  Bible.  The  effect  of  the  black  rim 
which  the  pigment  traced  about  the  eyelid,  was  to 
throw  a  dark  and  majestic  shadow  over  the  eye  ;  to 
give  it  a  languishing  and  yet  a  lustrous  expression  ; 
to  increase  its  apparent  size,  and"  to  apply  the  force  of 
contrast  to  the  white  of  the  eye.  Together  with  the 
eyelids,  the  Hebrew  women  colored  the  eyebrows, 
the  point  aimed  at  being  twofold  —  to  curve  them 
into  a  beautiful  arch  of  brilliant  ebony,  and,  at  the 
same  time,  to  make  the  inner  ends  meet  or  flow  into 
each  other. 

in.  Ear-rings  of  gold,  silver,  inferior  metals,  or 
even  horn,  were  worn  by  the  Hebrew  women  in  all 
ages  ;  and  in  the  flourishing  period  of  the  J ewish  king- 
dom, probably  by  men  ;  and  so  essential  an  ornament 
were  they  deemed,  that  in  the  idolatrous  times  even 
the  images  of  their  false  gods  were  not  considered  be- 
comingly attired  without  them.  Their  ear-rings  were 
larger,  according  to  the  Asiatic  taste,  but  whether  quite 
large  enough  to  admit  the  hand  is  doubtful.  In  a  later 
ag-e,  as  we  collect  from  the  Thalmud,  Part  vi.  43,  the 
Jewish  ladies  wore  gold  or  silver  pendants,  of  which 
the  upper  part  was  shaped  like  a  lentil,  and  the  lower 
hollowed  like  a  little  cup  or  pipkin.  It  is  probable 
llso  that,  even  in  the  oldest  ages,  it  was  a  practice 
amongst  them  to  suspend  gold  and  silver  rings,  not 


534  TOILETTE   OF   THE   HEBREW  LADY. 


merely  from  the  lower  but  also  from  the  upper  end 
of  the  ear,  which  was  perforated  like  a  sieve.  The 
tinkling  sound  with  which,  upon  the  slightest  motion, 
two  or  three  tiers  of  rings  would  be  set  a-dancing 
about  the  cheeks,  was  very  agreeable  to  the  baby 
taste  of  the  Asiatics. 

From  a  very  early  age  the  ears  of  Hebrew  women 
were  prepared  for  this  load  of  trinketry  ;  for,  according 
to  the  Thalmud  (ii.  23),  they  kept  open  the  little  holes 
after  they  were  pierced  by  threads  or  slips  of  wood,  a 
fact  which  may  show  the  importance  they  attached  to 
this  ornament. 

IV.  NosE-RiNGS  at  an  early  period  became  a  uni- 
versal ornament  in  Palestine.  We  learn,  from  Biblical 
and  from  Arabic  authority,  that  it  was  a  practice  of 
Patriarchal  descent  amongst  both  the  African  and 
Asiatic  Bedouins,  to  suspend  rings  of  iron,  wood,  or 
braided  hair,  from  the  nostrils  of  camels,  oxen,  &c.  — 
the  rope  by  which  the  animal  was  guided  being  at- 
tached to  these  rings.  It  is  probable,  therefore,  that 
the  early  Hebrews  who  dwelt  in  tents,  and  who  in  the 
barrenness  of  desert  scenery  drew  most  of  their  hints 
for  improving  their  personal  embellishment  from  the 
objects  immediately  about  them,  were  indebted  for 
their  nose-rings  to  this  precedent  of  their  camels. 
Sometimes  a  ring  depended  from  both  nostrils  ;  and 
the  size  of  it  was  equal  to  that  of  the  ear-ring  ;  so 
that,  at  times,  its  compass  included  both  upper  and 
under  lip,  as  in  the  frame  of  a  picture ;  and,  in  the 
age  succeeding  to  Solomon's  reign,  we  hear  of  rings 
which  were  not  less  than  three  inches  in  diameter. 
Hebrew  ladies  of  distinction  had  sometimes  a  clustej 


TOILETTE   OF   THE   HEBREW   LADY.  535 

of  nose-rings,  as  well  for  the  tinkling  sound  which 
they  were  contrived  to  emit,  as  for  the  shining  light 
which  they  threw  off  upon  the  face. 

That  the  nose-ring  possessed  no  unimportant  place 
in  the  Jewish  toilette,  is  evident,  from  its  being  ranked, 
during  the  nomadic  state  of  the  Israelites,  as  one  of  the 
most  valuable  presents  that  a  young  Hebrew  woman 
could  receive  from  her  lover.  Amongst  the  Midianites, 
who  were  enriched  by  the  caravan  commerce,  even 
men  adopted  this  ornament :  and  this  appears  to  have 
been  the  case  in  the  family  to  which  Job  belonged 
[chap.  xli.  2],  Under  these  circumstances,  we  should 
naturally  presume  that  the  Jewish  courtezans,  in  the 
cities  of  Palestine,  would  not  omit  so  conspicuous  a 
trinket,  with  its  glancing  lights,  and  its  tinkling 
sound :  this  we  might  presume,  even  without  the 
authority  of  the  Bible ;  but,  in  fact,  both  Isaiah  and 
Ezekiel  expressly  mention  it  amongst  their  artifices  of 
attraction. 

Judith,  when  she  appeared  before  the  tent  of  Holo- 
fernes  in  the  whole  pomp  of  her  charms,  and  appar- 
elled with  the  most  elaborate  attention  to  splendor  of 
effect,  for  the  purpose  of  captivating  the  hostile  gen- 
eral, did  not  omit  its  ornament.  Even  the  Jewish 
Proverbs  show  how  highly  it  was  valued  ;  and  that  it 
continued  to  be  valued  in  latter  times,  appears  from 
the  ordinances  of  the  Thalmud  (ii.  21),  in  respect  to 
the  parts  of  the  female  wardrobe  which  were  allowed 
to  be  worn  on  the  Sabbath. 

V.  The  Hebrew  women  of  high  rank,  in  the  flour- 
ishing period  of  their  state,  wore  necklaces  composed 
of  multiple  rows  of  pearls.    The  thread  on  which  the 


536 


TOILETTE   OF   THE  HEBREW  LADY. 


pearls  were  strung  was  of  flax  or  woollen,  —  and  some- 
times colored,  as  we  learn  from  the  Thalmud  (vi.  43)  ; 
and  the  different  rows  were  not  exactly  concentric  ; 
but  whilst  some  invested  the  throat,  others  descended 
to  the  bosom  ;  and  in  many  cases,  even  to  the  zone. 
On  this  part  of  the  dress  was  lavished  the  greatest 
expense  ;  and  the  Roman  reproach  was  sometimes 
true  of  a  Hebrew  family,  that  its  whole  estate  was 
locked  up  in  a  necklace.  Tertullian  complains  heavily 
of  a  particular  pearl  necklace,  which  had  cost  about 
ten  thousand  pounds  of  English  money,  as  of  an 
enormity  of  extravagance.  But,  after  making  every 
allowance  for  greater  proximity  to  the  pearl  fisheries, 
and  for  other  advantages  enjoyed  by  the  people  of 
of  Palestine,  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  some  He- 
brew ladies  possessed  pearls  which  had  cost  at  least 
five  times  that  sum.'^'  So  much  may  be  af!irmed, 
without  meaning  to  compare  the  most  lavish  of  the 
ladies  of  Jerusalem  with  those  of  Rome,  where  it  is 
recorded  of  some  elegantes^  that  they  actually  slept 
with  little  bags  of  pearls  suspended  from  their  necks, 
that,  even  when  sleeping,  they  might  have  mementoes 
of  their  pomp. 

But  the  Hebrew  necklaces  were  not  always  com- 
posed of  pearls,  or  of  pearls  only  —  sometimes  it  was 
the  custom  to  interchange  the  pearls  with  little  golden 
bulbs  or  berries  :  sometimes  they  were  blended  with 

*  Cleopatra  had  a  couple  at  that  value;  and  Julius  Caesar 
\)iad  one,  which  he  gave  to  Servilia,  the  beautiful  mother  of 
Brutus,  valued  by  knaves  who  wished  to  buy  (empturiebant)  at 
forty-eight  thousand  pounds  English,  but  by  the  envious  female 
worl  I  of  ilome,  at  sixty- three  thousand. 


TOILETTE   OF   THE  HEBREW  LADY.  537 

the  precious  stones ;  and  at  other  times,  the  pearls 
were  strung  two  and  two,  and  their  beautiful  white- 
ness relieved  by  the  interposition  of  red  coral. 

VI.  Next  came  the  bracelets  of  gold  or  ivory, 
and  fitted  up  at  the  open  side  with  a  buckle  or  enam- 
elled clasp  of  elaborate  workmanship.  These  bracelets 
were  also  occasionally  composed  of  gold  or  silver 
thread :  and  it  was  not  unusual  for  a  series  of  them  to 
ascend  from  the  wrist  to  the  elbow.  From  the  clasp, 
or  other  fastening  of  the  bracelet,  depended  a  delicate 
chain  work  or  netting  of  gold  ;  and  in  some  instances, 
miniature  festoons  of  pearls.  Sometimes  the  gold 
chain- work  was  exchanged  for  little  silver  bells,  which 
could  be  used,  upon  occasion,  as  signals  of  warning  or 
invitation  to  a  lover. 

VII.  This  bijouterie  for  the  arms  naturally  re- 
minded the  Hebrew  lady  of  the  ankle  bells,  and 
other  similar  ornaments  for  the  feet  and  legs.  These 
ornaments  consisted  partly  in  golden  belts,  or  rings, 
which,  descending  from  above  the  ankle,  compressed 
the  foot  in  various  parts ;  and  partly  in  shells  and 
little  jingling  chains,  which  depended  so  as  to  strike 
against  clappers  fixed  into  the  metallic  belts.  The 
pleasant  tinkle  of  the  golden  belts  in  collision,  the 
chains  rattling,  and  the  melodious  chime  of  little  silver 
ankle-bells,  keeping  time  with  the  motions  of  the  foot, 
made  an  accompaniment  so  agreeable  to  female  vanity, 
that  the  stately  daughters  of  Jerusalem,  with  their 
sweeping  trains  flowing  after  them,  appear  to  have 
adopted  a  sort  of  measured  tread,  by  way  of  impress- 
ing a  regular  cadence  upon  the  music  of  their  feet. 
The  chains  of  gold  were  exchanged,  as  luxury  ad- 


538  TOILETTE   OF  THE   HEBREW  LADY. 

vanced,  for  strings  of  pearls  and  jewels,  which  swept 
in  snaky  folds  about  the  feet  and  ankles. 

This,  like  many  other  peculiarities  in  the  Hebrew 
dress,  had  its  origin  in  a  circumstance  of  their  early 
.nomadic  life.  It  is  usual  with  the  Bedouins  to  lead 
the  camel,  when  disposed  to  be  restive,  by  a  rope  or  a 
belt  fastened  to  one  of  the  fore-feet,  sometimes  to 
both  ;  and  it  is  also  a  familiar  practice  to  soothe  and 
to  cheer  the  long-suffering  animal  with  the  sound  of 
little  bells,  attached  either  to  the  neck  or  to  one  of 
the  fore  legs.  Girls  are  commonly  employed  to  lead 
the  camels  to  water  ;  and  it  naturally  happened,  that, 
with  their  lively  fancies,  some  Hebrew  or  Arabian 
girl  should  be  prompted  to  repeat,  on  her  own  person, 
what  had  so  often  been  connected  with  an  agreeable 
impression  in  her  mute  companions  to  the  well. 

It  is  probable,  however,  that  afterwards,  having 
once  been  introduced,  this  fashion  was  supported  and 
extended  by  Oriental  jealousy.  For  it  rendered  all 
clandestine  movements  very  difficult  in  women  ;  and 
by  giving  notice  of  their  approach,  it  had  the  effect  of 
preparing  men  for  their  presence,  and  keeping  the 
road  free  from  all  spectacles  that  could  be  offensive  to 
female  delicacy. 

Fromi  the  Hebrew  Bedouins,  this  custom  passed  to 
all  the  nations  of  Asia —  Modes,  Persians,  Lydians, 
Arabs,  &c. ;  and  is  dwelt  on  with  peculiar  delight  by 
the  elder  Arabic  poets.  That  it  had  spread  to  the 
westernmost  parts  of  Africa  early  in  the  Christian 
times,  we  learn  from  Tertullian,  who  [foolish  man] 
cannot  suppress  his  astonishment,  that  the  foolish 
women  of  his  time  should  bear  to  inflict  such  com- 


TOILETTE   OF  THE   IIEBKEW  LADY. 


539 


pression  upon  their  tender  fe^t.  Even  as  early  as  the 
times  of  Herodotus,  we  find  from  his  account  of  a 
Libyan  nation,  that  the  women  and  girls  universally 
wore  copper  rings  about  their  ankles.  And  at  an 
after  period,  these  ornaments  were  so  much  cherished 
by  the  Egyptian  ladies,  that,  sooner  than  appear  in 
public  without  their  tinkling  ankle-chimes,  they  pre- 
ferred to  bury  themselves  in  the  loneliest  apartments 
of  the  harem. 

Finally,  the  fashion  spread  partially  into  Europe  ;  to 
Greece  even,  and  to  polished  Rome,  in  so  far  as  re- 
garded the  ankle-belts,  and  the  other  ornamental  ap- 
pendages, with  the  single  exception  of  the  silver  bells; 
these  were  too  entirely  in  the  barbaresque  taste,  to 
support  themselves  under  the  frown  of  European  cul- 
ture. 

VIII.  The  first  rude  sketch  of  the  Hebrew^  saistdal 
may  be  traced  in  that  little  tablet  of  undrest  hide 
which  the  Arabs  are  in  the  habit  of  tying  beneath  the 
feet  of  their  camels.  This  primitive  form,  after  all 
the  modifications  and  improvements  it  has  received, 
still  betrays  itself  to  an  attentive  observer,  in  the 
very  latest  fashions  of  the  sandal  which  Palestine  has 
adopted. 

To  raw  hides  succeeded  tanned  leather,  made  of 
goat-skin,  deer-skin,  &c. ;  this,  after  being  accurately 
tut  out  to  the  shape  of  the  sole,  was  fastened  on  the 
bare  upper  surface  of  the  foot  by  two  thongs,  of 
which  one  was  usually  carried  within  the  great  toe, 
and  the  other  in  many  circumvolutions  round  about 
rhe  ankles,  so  that  both  finally  met  and  tied  just  above 
the  instep.  , 

!. 


540 


TOILETTE   OF  THE  HEBREW  LADY. 


The  laced  sole  or  sandal,  of  this  form,  continued  in 
Palestine  to  be  the  universal  out-of-doors  protection 
for  the  foot,  up  to  the  Christian  era  ;  and  it  served  for 
both  sexes  alike.  It  was  not,  however,  worn  within 
doors.  At  the  threshold  of  the  inner  apartments  the 
sandals  were  laid  aside  ;  and  visitors  from  a  distance 
were  presented  with  a  vessel  of  water  to  cleanse  the 
feet  from  the  soiling  of  dust  and  perspiration. 

With  this  extreme  simplicity  in  the  form  of  the 
foot-apparel,  there  was  no  great  field  for  improvement. 
The  article  contained  two  parts  —  the  sole  and  the 
fastening.  The  first,  as  a  subject  for  decoration,  was 
absolutely  desperate  ;  coarse  leather  being  exchanged 
for  fine,  all  was  done  that  could  be  done  ;  and  the  wit 
of  man  was  able  to  devise,  no  further  improvement. 
Hence  it  happened  that  the  whole  power  of  the  inven- 
tive faculty  was  accumulated  upon  the  fastenings,  as 
the  only  subject  that  remained.  These  were  infinitely 
varied.  Belts  of  bright  yellow,  of  purple,  and  of 
crimson,  were  adopted  by  ladies  of  distinction  — 
especially  those  of  Palestine,  and  it  was  a  trial  of  art 
to  throw  these  into  the  greatest  possible  varieties  of 
convolution,  and  to  carry  them  on  to  a  nexus  of  the 
happiest  form,  by  which  means  a  reticulation,  or  trellis- 
work,  was  accomplished,  of  the  most  brilliant  coloring, 
which  brought  into  powerful  relief  the  dazzling  color 
of  the  skin. 

*  Washing  the  feet  was  a  ceremony  of  ancient  times,  adopted 
not  merely  with  a  view,  1st,  to  personal  comfort,  in  hotter  cli- 
mates; or,  2d,  to  decorum  of  appearance  where  people  walked 
about  barefooted;  but  also,  3^,  to  the  reclining  posture  in  use  at 
meals,  which  necessarily  brought  the  feet  into  immediate  contact 
with  the  snowy  swan-down  cushions,  squabs,  &c.  of  couches. 


TOILETTE  OF  THE  HEBREW  LADY.  541 

It  is  possible  that,  in  the  general  rage  for  ornaments 
of  gold  which  possessed  the  people  of  Palestine, 
during  the  ages  of  excessive  luxury,  the  beauties  of 
Jerusalem  may  have  adopted  gilt  sandals  with  gilt 
fastenings,  as  the  ladies  of  Egypt  did.  It  is  possible 
also,  that  the  Hebrew  ladies  adopted  at  one  time,  in 
exchange  for  the  sandal,  slippers  that  covered  the  entire 
foot,  such  as  were  once  worn  at  Babylon,  and  are  still 
to  be  seen  on  many  of  the  principal  figures  on  the 
monuments  of  Persepolis ;  and,  if  this  were  really 
so,  ample  scope  would  in  that  case  have  been  obtained 
for  inventive  art :  variations  without  end  might  then 
have  been  devised  on  the  fashion  or  the  materials  of 
the  subject ;  and  by  means  of  color,  embroidery,  and 
infinite  combinations  of  jewellery  and  pearls,  an  un- 
ceasing stimulation  of  novelty  applied  to  the  taste 
of  the  gorgeous,  but  still  sensual  and  barbaresque 
Asiatic. 

IX.  The  YEIL  of  various  texture  —  coarse  or  fine  — 
according  to  circumstances,  was  thrown  over  the  head 
by  the  Hebrew  lady,  when  she  was  unexpectedly  sur- 
prised, or  when  a  sudden  noise  gave  reason  to  expect 
the  approach  of  a  stranger.  This  beautiful  piece  of 
drapery,  which  flowed  back  in  massy  folds  over  the 
shoulders,  is  particularly  noticed  by  Isaiah,  as  hold- 
ing an  indispensable  place  in  the  wardrobe  of  his 
haughty  countrywomen  ;  and  in  this  it  was  that  the 
enamored  Hebrew  woman  sought  the  beloved  of  her 
heart. 


542  TOILETTE  OF  THE  HEBREW  LADY. 


ADDENDA.  TO  SCENE  THE  FIRST. 

I.  Of  the  Hebrew  ornaments  for  the  throat,  some 
were  true  necklaces,  in  the  modern  sense,  of  several 
rows,  the  outermost  of  which  descended  to  the  breast, 
and  had  little  pendulous  cylinders  of  gold  (in  the 
poorer  classes,  of  copper),  so  contrived  as  to  make  a 
jingling  sound  on  the  least  motion  of  the  person; 
others  were  more  properly  golden  stocks,  or  throat- 
bands,  fitted  so  close  as  to  produce  in  the  spectator  an 
unpleasant  imagination,  and  in  the  wearer  as  wc  learn 
from  the  Thalmud  (vi.  43),  until  reconciled  by  use,  to 
produce  an  actual  feeling  of  constriction  approaching 
to  suffocation.  Necklaces  were,  from  the  earliest 
times,  a  favorite  ornament  of  the  male  sex  in  the 
East ;  and  expressed  the  dignity  of  the  wearer,  as  we 
see  in  the  instances  of  Joseph,  of  Daniel,  &c. ;  indeed 
the  gold  chain  of  office,  still  the  badge  of  civic  (and, 
until  lately,  of  military)  dignities,  is  no  more  than  the 
outermost  row  of  the  Oriental  necklace.  Philo  of 
Alexandria,  and  many  other  writers,  both  Persic  and 
Arabian,  give  us  some  idea  of  the  importance  attached 
by  the  women  of  Asia  to  this  beautiful  ornament,  and 
of  the  extraordinary  money  value  which  it  sometimes 
bore  :  and  from  the  case  of  the  necklace  of  gpld  and 
amber,  in  the  15th  Odyssey  (v.  458),  combined  with 
many  other  instances  of  the  same  kind,  there  can  be 
ao  doubt  that  it  was  the  neighboring  land  of  Phoenicia 
from  which  the  Hebrew  women  obtained  their  neck- 
laces, and  the  practice  of  wearing  them. 

II.  The  fashion,  however,  of  adorning  the  necklacej 
with  golden  Su7is  and  Moons,  so  agreeable  to  the  He-1 


TOILETTE  OF  THE  HEBREW  LADY.  543 

brew  ladies  of  Isaiah's  time  (chap.  iii.  18),  was  not 
derived  from  Phoenicia,  but  from  Arabia.  At  an  eailier 
period  (Judges  viii.  21),  the  camels  of  the  Midianites 
were  adorned  with  golden  moons,  which  also  decor£.ted 
the  necks  of  the  emirs  of  that  nomadic  tribe.  These 
appendages  were  not  used  merely  by  way  of  ornameat, 
but  originally  as  talismans,  or  amulets,  against  sickness, 
danger,  and  every  species  of  calamity  to  which  the 
desert  was  liable.  The  particular  form  of  the  amulet 
is  to  be  explained  out  of  the  primitive  religion,  which 
prevailed  in  Arabia  up  to  the  rise  of  Mohammedanism 
in  the  seventh  century  of  Christianity  —  viz.,  the 
lean  religion,  or  worship  of  the  heavenly  host  — sun, 
moon,  and  stars  —  the  most  natural  of  all  idolatries, 
and  especially  to  a  nomadic  people  in  flat  and  pathless 
deserts,  without  a  single  way-mark  or  guidance  for 
their  wanderings,  except  what  they  drew  from  the 
silent  heavens  above  them.  It  is  certain,  therefore, 
that  long  before  their  emigration  into  Palestine,  the 
Israelites  had  received  the  practice  of  wearing  suns 
and  moons  from  the  Midianites ;  even  after  their  set- 
tlement in  Palestine,  it  is  certain  that  the  worship  of 
the  starry  host  struck  root  pretty  deeply  at  difl*erent 
periods  ;  and  that,  to  the  sun  and  moon,  in  particular, 
were  offered  incense  and  libations. 

From  Arabia,  this  fashion  diffused  itself  over  many 
countries ;  *  and  it  was  not  without  great  displeasure 
that,  in  a  remote  age,  Jerome  and  Tertullian  discovered 

*  Chemistry  had  its  first  origin  in  Arabia:  and  it  is  not  impos- 
sible that  the  chemical  nomenclature  for  gold  and  silver,  viz., 
soZ  and  Zuna, 'were  derived  from  this  early  superstition  of  the 
Bedouin  dress. 


544  TOILETTE  OF  THE  HEBREW  LADY, 


this  idolatrous  ornament  upon  the  bosoms  of  their  coun« 
try- women. 

The  crescents,  or  half-moons  of  silver,  in  connection 
with  the  golden  suns,*  were  sometimes  set  in  a  brilliant 
frame  that  represented  a  halo,  and  still  keep  their 
ground  on  the  Persian  and  Turkish  toilette,  as  a  fa- 
vorite ornament. 

III.  The  GOLDEN  SNAKES,  wom  as  one  of  the  He- 
brew appendages  to  the  necklace,  had  the  same  idola- 
trous derivation,  and  originally  were  applied  to  the 
same  superstitious  use  —  as  an  amulet,  or  prophylactic 
ornament.  For  minds  predisposed  to  this  sort  of  su- 
perstition, the  serpent  had  a  special  attraction  under 
the  circumstances  of  the  Hebrews,  from  the  conspicuous 
part  which  this  reptile  sustains  in  the  mythologies  of 
the  East.  From  the  earliest  periods  to  which  tradition 
ascends,  serpents  of  various  species  were  consecrated 
to  the  religious  feelings  of  Egypt,  by  temples,  sacri- 
fices, and  formal  rites  of  worship.  This  mode  of 
idolatry  had  at  various  periods  infected  Palestine. 
According  to  2  Kings  xviii.  4,  at  the  accession  of  King 
Hezekiah,  the  Israelites  had  raised  peculiar  altars  to  a 
great  brazen  serpent,  and  burned  incense  upon  them. 
Even  at  this  day  the  Abyssinians  have  an  unlimited 
reverence  for  serpents ;  and  the  blacks  in  general  re- 
gard them  as  fit  subjects  for  divine  honors.  Sonnini 
(ii.  388)  tells  us,  that  a  serpent's  skin  is  still  looked 
upon  in  Egypt  as  a  prophylactic  against  complaints  ol 

*  Chemistry  had  its  first  origin  in  Arabia:  and  it  is  not  im- 
possible that  the  chemical  nomenclature  for  gold  and  silver,  viz., 
sol  and  luna,  were  derived  from  this  early  superstition  of  thf 
Uodouin  dress. 


TOILETTE   OF  THE  HEBREW  LADY. 


545 


the  head,  and  also  as  a  certain  cure  for  them.  And  of 
the  same  origin,  no  doubt,  was  the  general  belief  of 
antiquity  (according  to  Pliny,  30,  12),  that  the  ser- 
pent's skin  was  a  remedy  for  spasms.  That  the  golden 
serpent  kept  its  place  as  an  ornament  of  the  throat  and 
bosom  after  the  Christian  era,  we  learn  from  Clement 
of  Alexandria.  That  zealous  father,  so  intolerant  of 
superstitious  mummery  under  every  shape,  directs  his 
efforts  against  this  fashion  as  against  a  device  of  the 
devil. 

IV.  To  the  lowest  of  the  several  concentric  circles 
which  composed  the  necklace  was  attached  a  little  box, 
exquisitely  wrought  in  silver  or  gold,  sometimes  an 
onyx  phial  of  dazzling  whiteness,  depending  to  the 
bosom  or  even  to  the  cincture,  and  filled  with  the  rarest 
aromas  and  odorous  spices  of  the  East.  What  were 
the  favorite  essences  preserved  in  this  beautiful  append- 
age to  the  female  costume  of  Palestine  it  is  not  possi- 
ble at  this  distance  of  time  to  determine  with  certainty 
—  Isaiah  having  altogether  neglected  the  case,  and 
Hosea,  who  appears  to  allude  to  it  (ii.  14),  having  only 
once  distinctly  mentioned  it  (ii.  20).  However,  the 
Thalmud  particularizes  musk,  and  the  delightful  oil 
distilled  from  the  leaf  of  the  aromatic  malahathrum  of 
Hindostan.  To  these  we  may  venture  to  add  oil  of 
spikenard,  myrrh,  balsams,  attar  of  roses,  and  rose- 
water,  as  the  perfumes  usually  contained  in  the  He- 
brew scent-pendants. 

Rose-water,  which  I  am  the  first  to  mention  as  a 
Hebrew  perfume,  had,  as  I  presume,  a  foremost  place 
on  the  toilette  of  a  Hebrew  helle.  Express  Scriptural 
authority  for  it  undoubtedly  there  is  none ;  but  it  is 
35 


546  TOILETTE   OF  THE   HEBEEAV  LADY. 


notorious  that  Palestine  availed  itself  of  all  the  ad- 
vantages of  Egypt,  amongst  which  the  rose  in  every 
variety  was  one.  Fium,  sl  province  of  Central  Egypt, 
which  the  ancients  called  the  garden  of  Egypt,  was 
distinguished  for  innumerable  species  of  the  rose,  and 
especially  for  those  of  the  most  balsamic  order,  and  for 
the  most  costly  preparations  from  it.  The  Thalmud 
not  only  speaks  generally  of  the  mixtures  made  by 
tempering  it  with  oil  (i.  135),  but  expressly  cites 
(ii.  41)  a  peculiar  rose-water  a«3  so  costly  an  essence, 
that  from  its  high  price  alone  it  became  impossible  to 
introduce  the  use  of  it  into  the  ordinary  medical  prac- 
tice. Indeed,  this  last  consideration,  and  the  fact  that 
the  highly-prized  quintessence  cannot  be  obtained  ex- 
cept from  an  extraordinary  multitude  of  the  rarest 
roses,  forbid  us  to  suppose  that  even  women  of  the  first 
rank  in  J erusalem  could  have  made  a  very  liberal  use 
of  rose-water.  In  our  times,  Savary  found  a  single 
phial  of  it  in  the  place  of  its  manufacture,  valued  at 
four  francs.  As  to  the  oil  of  roses,  properly  so  called, 
which  floats  in  a  very  inconsiderable  quantity  upon  the 
surface  of  distilled  rose-water,  it  is  certain  that  the 
Hebrew  ladies  were  not  acquainted  with  it.  This  pre- 
paration can  be  obtained  only  from  the  balsamic  roses 
of  Fium,  of  Shiras,  of  Kerman,  and  of  Kashmire,  which 
surpass  all  the  roses  of  the  earth  in  power  and  delicacy 
of  odor ;  and  it  is  matter  of  absolute  certainty,  and 
incontrovertibly  established  by  the  celebrated  Langles, 
that  this  oil,  which  even  in  the  four  Asiatic  countries 
just  mentioned,  ranks  with  the  greatest  rarities,  and 
In  Shiras  itself  is  valued  at  its  weight  in  gold,  was  dis- 
covered by  mere  accident,  on  occasion  of  some  festival 
lolemnity  in  the  year  1612. 


TOILETTE  OF  THE  HEBREW  LADY.  547 


v.  To  wliat  I  said  in  the  first  scene  of  my  exhibition 
libout  the  Hebrew  ear-ornaments.  I  may  add, 

1.  That  sometimes,  as  Best  remarked  of  the  Hindoo 
dancing  girls,  their  ears  were  swollen  from  the  innu- 
merable perforations  drilled  into  them  to  support  their 
loads  of  trinketry. 

2.  That  in  the  large  pendants  of  coral  which  the 
Hebrew  ladies  were  accustomed  to  attach  to  their  ears, 
either  in  preference  to  jewels,  or  in  alternation  with 
jewels,  they  particularly  delighted  in  that  configuration 
which  imitated  a  cluster  of  grapes. 

3.  That  in  ear-rings  made  of  gold,  they  preferred  the 
form  of  drops,  or  of  globes  and  bulbs. 

4.  That  of  all  varieties,  however,  of  this  appendage, 
pearls  maintained  the  preference  amongst  the  ladies  of 
Palestine,  and  were  either  strung  upon  a  thread,  or 
attached  by  little  hooks  —  singly  or  in  groups,  accord- 
ing to  their  size.  This  taste  was  very  early  established 
amongst  the  Jews,  and  chiefly,  perhaps,  through  their 
intercourse  with  the  Midianites,  amongst  whom  we 
find  the  great  emirs  wearing  pearl  ornaments  of  this 
class. 

Mutatis  mutandis,  these  four  remarks  apply  also  and 
equally  to  the  case  of  the  nose  ornaments. 

SCENE  THE  SECOND. 

I.  The  Haik.  —  This  section  I  omit  altogether, 
though  with  more  room  at  my  disposal  it  would  be 
well  worth  translating  as  a  curiosity.  It  is  the  essay 
of  a  finished  and  perfect  knave,  who,  not  merely  being 
rather  bare  of  facts,  but  having  literally  not  one  solitary 
fact  of  any  kind  or  degree,  small  or  great,  sits  down  tc 


548  TOILETTE  OF  THE  HEBREW  L.VDY. 

write  a  treatise  on  the  mode  of  dressing  hair  amongvSl 
Hebrew  ladies.  Samson's  hair,  and  the  dressing  it  got 
from  the  Philistines,  is  the  nearest  approach  that  he 
ever  makes  to  his  subject;  and  being  conscious  that 
this  case  of  Samson  and  the  Philistines  is  the  one  sole 
allusion  to  the  subject  of  Hebrew  hair  that  he  is  pos- 
sessed of — for  he  altogether  overlooks  (which  surely 
in  him  is  criminal  and  indictable  inadvertence)  the  hair 
of  Absalom  —  he  brings  it  round  upon  the  reader  as 
often  perhaps  as  it  will  bear  — viz.,  not  oftener  than  once 
every  sixth  page.  The  rest  is  one  continued  shuffle 
to  avoid  coming  upon  the  ground ;  and  upon  the 
whole,  though  too  barefaced,  yet  really  not  without 
ingenuity.  Take,  by  way  of  specimen,  his  very  satis- 
factory dissertation  on  the  particular  sort  of  combs 
which  the  Hebrew  ladies  were  pleased  to  patronize  :  — 
"  Combs.  —  Whether  the  ladies  of  Palestine  had 
upon  their  toilette  a  peculiar  comb  for  parting  the  hair, 
another  for  turning  it  up,  &c.  ;  as  likewise  whether 
these  combs  were,  as  in  ancient  Rome,  made  of  box- 
wood or  of  ivory,  or  other  costly  and  appropriate  ma- 
terial, all  these  are  questions  upon  which  I  am 

not  able,  upon  my  honor,  to  communicate  the  least  in- 
formation. But  from  the  general  silence  of  antiquity, 
prophets  and  all,-^'  upon  the  subject  of  Hebrew  combs, 

*  The  Thalnaud  is  the  only  Jewish  authority  which  mentions 
Buch  a  utensil  of  the  toilette  as  a  comb  (vi.  39),  but  without  any 
particular  description.  Hartmann  adds  two  remarks  worth 
quoting.  1.  That  the  Hebrew  style  of  the  coiffure  may  probably 
be  collected  from  the  Syrian  coins;  and  2.  That  black  hair  being 
admired  in  Palestine,  and  the  Jewish  hair  being  naturally  black, 
it  is  probable  that  the  Jewish  ladies  did  not  color  their  hair,  as 
the  Romans  did. 


TOILETTE   OF  THE  HEBREYi'    LADY,  549 

my  o^^n  private  opinion  is,  that  the  ladies  used  their 
fingers  for  this  purpose,  in  which  case  there  needs  no 
more  to  be  said  on  the  subject  of  Hebrew  combs.'' 
Certainly  not.  All  questions  are  translated  from  the 
visionary  combs  to  the  palpable  and  fleshly  fingers  ; 
but  the  combs  being  usually  of  ivory  in  the  Roman 
establishments,  were  costly,  and  might  breed  disputes  ; 
but  the  fingers  were  a  dowry  of  nature,  and  cost 
nothing. 

II.  Perfumes.  —  Before,  however,  the  hair  received 
its  final  arrangement  from  the  hands  of  the  waiting- 
maid,  it  was  held  open  and  dishevelled  to  receive  the 
fumes  of  frankincense,  aloeswood,  cassia,  costmary,  and 
other  odorous  woods,  gums,  balsams,  and  spices  of 
India,  Arabia,  or  Palestine  —  placed  upon  glowing, 
embers,  in  vessels  of  golden  fretwork.  It  is  probable 
also  that  the  Hebrew  ladies  used  amber,  bisam,  and 
the  musk  of  Thibet ;  and,  when  fully  arranged,  the 
hair  was  sprinkled  with  oil  of  nard,  myrrh,  oil  of  cin- 
namon, &;c.  The  importance  attached  to  this  part  of 
the  Hebrew  toilette  may  be  collected  indeed  from  an 
ordinance  of  the  Thalmud  (iii.  80),  which  directs  that 
the  bridegroom  shall  set  apart  one-tenth  of  the  income 
which  the  bride  brings  him,  for  the  purchase  of  per- 
umes,  essences,  precious  ointments,  &c.  All  these 
articles  were  preserved  either  in  golden  boxes  or  in 
little  oval  narrow-necked  phials  of  dazzling  white  ala- 
baster, which  bore  the  name  of  onyx,  from  its  resem- 
blance to  the  precious  stone  of  that  name,  but  was  in 
fact  a  very  costly  sort  of  marble,  obtained  in  the  quar- 
ries of  Upper  Egypt  or  those  of  the  Libanus  in  Syria. 
Indeed,  long  before  the  birth  of  Christ,  alabaster  was 


550  TOILETTE   OF  THE  HEBREW  LADT. 

in  such  general  use  for  purposes  of  this  kind  in  Pales- 
tine, that  it  became  the  generic  name  for  valuable 
boxes,  no  matter  of  what  material.  To  prevent  the 
evaporation  of  the  contents,  the  narrow  neck  of  the 
phial  was  re-sealed  every  time  it  was  opened.  It  is 
probable  also  that  the  myrrhine  cups,  about  which 
there  has  been  so  much  disputing,  were  no  strangers 
to  the  Jewish  toilette. 

III.  The  Mirror  was  not  made  of  glass  (for  glass 
mirrors  cannot  be  shown  to  have  existed  before  the 
thirteenth  century),  but  of  polished  metals  ;  and 
amongst  these  silver  was  in  the  greatest  esteem,  as 
being  capable  of  a  higher  burnish  than  other  metals, 
and  less  liable  to  tarnish.  Metallic  mirrors  are  alluded 
to  by  Job  (xxxvii.  18).  But  it  appears  from  the  Sec- 
ond Book  of  Moses  (xxxviii.  8),  that  in  that  age  cop- 
per must  have  been  the  metal  employed  throughout 
the  harems  of  Palestine.  For  a  general  contribution 
of  mirrors  being  made  upon  one  occasion  by  the  Israel- 
itish  women,  they  were  melted  down  and  recast  into 
washing  vessels  for  the  priestly  service.  Now  the 
sacred  utensils,  as  we  know  from  other  sources,  were 
undeniably  of  copper.  There  is  reason  to  think,  how- 
ever, that  the  copper  was  alloyed,  according  to  the 
prevailing  practice  in  that  age,  with  some  proportions 
of  lead  or  tin.  In  after  ages,  when  silver  was  chiefly 
employed,  it  gave  place  occasionally  to  gold.  Mines 
of  this  metal  were  well  known  in  Palestine  ;  but  there 
is  no  evidence  that  precious  stones,  which  were  used 
for  this  purpose  in  the  ages  of  European  luxury,  were 
ever  so  used  in  Palestine,  or  in  any  part  of  Asia. 

As  to  shape,  the  Hebrew  mirrors  were  always 


TOILETTE  OF  THE  HEBREW  LVDY.  551 

either  circular  or  oval,  and  cast  indifferently  fiat  or 
concave.  They  were  framed  in  superb  settings,  often 
of  pearls  and  jewels ;  and,  when  tarnished,  were 
cleaned  with  a  sponge  full  of  hyssop,  the  universal 
cleansing  material  in  Palestine. 

SCENE  THE  THIBD. 

Head-'Dr  esses. 

The  head-dresses  of  the  Hebrew  ladies  may  be 
brought  under  three  principal  classes  :  — 

The  first  was  a  network  cap,  made  of  fine  wool 
or  cotton,  and  worked  with  purple  or  crimson  flowers. 
Sometimes  the  meshes  of  the  net  were  of  gold  thread. 
The  rim  or  border  of  the  cap,  generally  of  variegated 
coloring,  was  often  studded  with  jewellery  or  pearls  ; 
and  at  the  back  was  ornamented  with  a  bow,  having  a 
few  ends  or  tassels  flying  loose. 

Secondly,  a  turban,  managed  in  the  following 
way :  — First  of  all,  one  or  more  caps  in  the  form  of 
a  half-oval,  such  as  are  still  to  be  seen  upon  the  monu- 
ments of  Egyptian  and  Persepolitan  art,  was  fastened 
round  the  head  by  a  ribbon  or  flllet  tied  behind.  This 
cap  was  of  linen,  sometimes  perhaps*  of  cotton,  and  in 
the  inferior  ranks  oftentimes  of  leather,  or,  according  to 
the  prevailing  fashion,  of  some  kind  of  metal ;  and,  in 
any  case,  it  had  ornaments  worked  into  its  substance. 
Round  this  white  or  glittering  ground  were  carried,  in 
snaky  windings,  ribbons  of  the  finest  tiffany,  or  of 
.awn  resembling  our  cambric ;  and  to  conceal  the 
ioinings,  a  silky  substance  was  carried  in  folds,  which 
pursued  the  opposite  direction,  and  crossed  the  tiffany 


552  TOILETTE  OF  THE  HEBREW  LADY. 

at  right  angles.  For  tlie  purpose  of  calling  out  and 
relieving  the  dazzling  whiteness  of  the  ground,  colors 
of  the  most  brilliant  class  were  chosen  for  the  ribbons  ; 
and  these  ribbons  were  either  embroidered  with  flowers 
in  gold  thread,  or  had  ornaments  of  that  description 
interwoven  with  their  texture. 

Thirdly,  the  helmet,  adorned  pretty  nearly  as  the 
turban  ;  and,  in  imitation  of  the  helmets  worn  by  the 
Chaldean  generals,  having  long  tails  or  tassels  depend- 
ing from  the  hinder  part,  and  flowing  loosely  between 
the  shoulders.  According  to  the  Oriental  taste  for 
perfumes,  all  the  ribbons  or  fillets  used  in  these  hel- 
mets and  turbans  were  previously  steeped  in  perfumes. 

Finally,  in  connection  with  the  turban,  and  often 
with  the  veil,  was  a  beautiful  ornament  for  the  fore- 
head and  the  face,  which  the  ladies  of  this  day  would 
do  well  to  recall.  Round  the  brow  ran  a  bandeau  or 
tiara  of  gold  or  silver,  three  fingers'-breadth,  and 
usually  set  with  jewels  or  pearls:  from  this,  at  each 
of  the  temples,  depended  a  chain  of  pearls  or  of  coral, 
which,  following  the  margin  of  the  cheeks,  either  hung 
loose  or  united  below  the  chin. 

SCENE  THE  FOURTH. 

I.  The  reader  has  been  already  made  acquainted 
with  the  chemise^  or  innermost  under-dress.  The 
Hebrew  ladies,  however,  usually  wore  two  under- 
dresses,  the  upper  of  which  it  now  remains  to  describe. 
In  substance  it  was  generally  of  a  fine  transparent 
texture,  like  the  muslins  (if  we  may  so  call  them)  of 
Cos  ;  in  the  later  ages  it  was  no  doubt  of  silk. 

The  chemise  sate  close  up  to  the  throat ;  and  we 


TOILETTE  OF  THE  HEBREW  LADY.  553 

have  already  mentioned  the  elaborate  work  which 
adorned  it  about  the  opening.  But  the  opening  of 
the  robe  which  we  are  now  describing  was  of  much 
larger  compass,  being  cut  down  to  the  bosom ;  and 
the  embroidery,  &c.,  which  enriched  it  was  still  more 
magnificent.  The  chemise  reached  down  only  to  the 
calf  of  the  leg,  and  the  sleeve  of  it  to  the  elbow  :  but 
the  upper  chemise  or  tunic,  if  we  may  so  call  it,  de- 
scended in  ample  draperies  to  the  feet,  scarcely  allow- 
ing the  point  of  the  foot  to  discover  itself;  and  the 
sleeves  enveloped  the  hands  to  their  middle.  Great 
pomp  was  lavished  on  the  folds  of  the  sleeves  ;  but 
still  greater  on  the  hem  of  the  robe  and  the  fringe  at- 
tached to  it.  The  hem  was  formed  by  a  broad  border 
of  purple,  shaded  and  relieved  according  to  patterns  ; 
and  sometimes  embroidered  in  gold  thread  with  the 
most  elegant  objects  from  the  animal  or  vegetable 
kingdoms.  To  that  part  which  fell  immediately  be- 
hind the  heels,  there  were  attached  thin  plates  of 
gold  ;  or,  by  way  of  variety,  it  was  studded  with 
golden  stars  and  filigree-w^ork,  sometimes  with  jewels 
and  pearls  interchangeably. 

II.  On  this  upper  tunic,  to  confine  the  exorbitance 
of  its  draperies,  and  to  prevent  their  interfering  with 
the  free  motions  of  the  limbs,  a  superb  gikdle  was 
bound  about  the  hips.  Here,  if  anywhere,  the  Hebrew 
ladies  endeavored  to  pour  out  the  whole  pomp  of 
their  splendor,  both  as  to  materials  and  workmanship. 
Belts  from  three  to  four  inches  broad,  of  the  most 
delicate  cottony  substance,  were  chosen  as  the  ground 
of  this  important  part  of  female  attire.  The  finest 
flowers  of  Palestine  were  here  exhibited  in  rich  relief, 


554  TOILETTE   OF   THE   HEBREW  LADY. 

jind  in  their  native  colors,  either  woven  in  the  loom, 
or  by  the  needle  of  the  embroiderer.  The  belts  being 
thirty  or  forty  feet  long,  and  carried  round  and  round 
the  person,  it  was  in  the  power  of  the  wearer  to  exhibit 
an  infinite  variety  of  forms,  by  allowing  any  fold  or 
number  of  folds  at  pleasure  to  rise  up  more  or  less  to 
view,  just  as  fans  or  the  colored  edges  of  books  with 
us  are  made  to  exhibit  landscapes,  &c.,  capable  of 
great  varieties  of  expansion  as  they  are  more  or  less 
unfolded.  The  fastening  was  by  a  knot  below  the 
bosom,  and  the  two  ends  descended  below  the  fringe  ; 
which,  if  not  the  only  fashion  in  use,  was,  however, 
the  prevailing  one,  as  we  learn  both  from  the  sculp- 
tures at  Persepolis,  and  from  the  costume  of  the  high 
priest. 

Great  as  the  cost  was  of  these  girdles,  it  would 
have  been  far  greater  had  the  knot  been  exchanged 
for  a  clasp  ;  and  in  fact  at  a  later  period,  when  this 
fashion  did  really  take  place,  there  was  no  limit  to  the 
profusion  with  which  pearls  of  the  largest  size  and  jew- 
ellery were  accumulated  upon  this  conspicuous  centre 
of  the  dress.  Latterly  the  girdles  were  fitted  up  with 
beautiful  chains,  by  means  of  which  they  could  be 
contracted  or  enlarged,  and  with  gold  buckles,  and 
large  bosses  and  clasp?;,  that  gradually  became  the 
basis  for  a  ruinous  display  of  expenditure. 

In  conclusion,  I  must  remark,  that  in  Palestine,  as 
elsewhere,  the  girdle  was  sometimes  used  as  a  purse  ; 
whether  it  were  that  the  girdle  itself  was  made  hollow 
(as  is  expressly  affirmed  of  the  high  priest's  girdle), 
or  that,  without  being  hollow,  its  numerous  foldings 
afforded  a  secure  depository  for  articles  of  small  size. 


TOILETTE  OP  THE  HEBREW  LADY.  555 


Even  in  our  days,  it  is  the  custom  to  conceal  the 
dagger,  the  handkerchief  for  wiping  the  face,  and  other 
bagatelles  of  personal  convenience,  in  the  folds  of  the 
girdle.  However,  the  richer  and  more  distinguished 
classes  in  Palestine  appear  to  have  had  a  peculiar  and 
separate  article  of  that  kind.    And  this  was  — 

III.  A  PURSE  made  either  of  metal  (usually  gold 
or  silver),  or  of  the  softest  leather,  &c.,  which  was  at- 
tached by  a  lace  to  the  girdle,  or  kept  amongst  its 
folds,  and  which,  even  in  the  eyes  of  Isaiah,  was  im- 
portant enough  to  merit  a  distinct  mention.  It  was 
of  a  conical  shape  ;  and  at  the  broader  end  was  usually 
enriched*  with  ornaments  of  the  most  elaborate  and 
exquisite  workmanship.  No  long  time  after  the  Chris- 
tian era,  the  cost  of  these  purses  had  risen  to  such  a 
height,  that  TertuUian  complains,  with  great  dis- 
pleasure, of  the  ladies  of  his  time,  that  in  the  mere 
purse,  apart  from  its  contents,  they  carried  about  with 
them  the  price  of  a  considerable  estate. 

The  girdle,  however,  still  continued  to  be  the  ap- 
propriate depository  for  the  napkin  (to  use  the  old 
English  word)  or  sudatory  —  i.  e.,  handkerchief  for 
clearing  the  forehead  of  perspiration.  As  to  pocket- 
handkerchiefs,  in  our  northern  use  of  them,  it  has 
been  satisfactorily  shown  by  Bottiger,  in  a  German 
Journal,  that  the  Greek  and  Roman  ladies  knew  noth- 
ing of  that  modern  appendage  to  the  pocket,*  how- 

*  Or  rather  it  was  required  only  in  a  catarrh,  or  other  case  of 
checked  perspiration,  which  in  those  climates  was  a  case  of  very 
rare  occurrence.  It  has  often  struck  me  —  that  without  needing 
the  elaborate  aid  of  Bottiger's  researches,  simply  from  one  clause 
m  Juvenars  picture  of  old  age  and  its  infirmities  we  might  de* 


556  TOILETTE  OF  THE   HEEREW  LADV". 


ever  indispensable  it  may  appear  to  us  ;  and  the  same 
arguments  apply  with  equal  foice  to  the'  climate  of 
Palestine. 

IV.  The  glittering  rings,  with  which  (according  to 
Isaiah  iii.  21)  the  Hebrew  ladies  adorned  their  hands, 
seem  to  me  originally  to  have  been  derived  from  the 
seal-rings,  which,  whether  suspended  from  the  neck, 
or  worn  upon  the  finger,  have  in  all  ages  been  the 
most  favorite  ornament  of  Asiatics.  These  splendid 
baubles  were  naturally  in  the  highest  degree  attractive 
to  women,  both  from  the  beauty  of  the  stones  which 
were  usually  selected  for  this  purpose,  and  from  the 
richness  of  the  setting  —  to  say  nothing  of*  the  ex- 
quisite art  which  the  ancient  lapidaries  displayed  in 
cutting  them.  The  stones  chiefly  valued  by  the  ladies 
of  Palestine  were  rubies,  emeralds,  and  chrysolites  ; 
and  these,  set  in  gold,  sparkled  on  the  middle  or 
little  finger  of  the  right  hand  ;  and  in  luxurious  times 
upon  all  the  fingers,  even  the  thumb ;  nay,  in  some 
ijases,  upon  the  great  toe. 

SCENE    THE  FIETH, 

Upper  Garment, 

The  upper  or  outer  garments,  which,  for  both  sexes, 
under  all  varieties  and  modifications,  the  Hebrews  ex- 
pressed by  the  comprehensive  denomination  of  simlah, 

duce  the  Roman  habit  of  dispensing  with  a  pocket-handkerchief. 
Amongst  these  infirmities  he  notices  the  madidi  infantia  nasi  — 
the  second  childhood  of  a  nose  that  needs  wiping.  But,  if  thia 
kind  of  defluxion  was  peculiar  to  infancy  and  extreme  old  age ,  it 
jVas  obviously  no  affection  of  middle  age. 


TOILETTE   OF   THE   HEBREW  LADY.  557 


aare  in  every  age^  and  through  all  parts  of  the  hot 
climates,  in  Asia  and  Africa  alike,  been  of  such  volu- 
minous compass  as  not  only  to  envelope  the  v^hole  per- 
son, but  to  be  fitted  for  a  wide  range  of  miscellaneous 
purposes.  Sometimes  (as  in  the  triumphal  entry  of 
Christ  into  Jerusalem)  they  were  used  as  carpets ; 
sometimes  as  coverings  for  the  backs  of  camels,  horses, 
or  asses,  to  render  the  rider's  seat  less  incommodious  ; 
sometimes  as  a  bed  coverlid  or  counterpane  ;  at  other 
times  as  sacks  for  carrying  articles  of  value  ;  or  finally, 
as  curtains,  hangings  of  parlors,  occasional  tapestry,  or 
even  as  sails  for  boats. 

From  these  illustrations  of  the  uses  to  which  it  was 
applicable,  we  may  collect  the  form  of  this  robe  ;  that 
it  was  nothing  more  than  a  shawl  of  large  dimen- 
sions, or  long  square  of  cloth,  just  as  it  came  from  the 
v^eaver's  loom,  which  was  immediately  thrown  round 
the  person,  without  receiving  any  artificial  adjustment 
to  the  human  shape. 

So  much  for  the  form :  with  regard  to  the  material^ 
there  was  less  uniformity  ;  originally  it  was  of  goats' 
or  camels'  hair  ;  but  as  civilization  and  the  luxury  of 
cities  increased,  these  coarse  substances  were  rejected 
for  the  finest  wool  and  Indian  cotton.  Indeed,  through 
all  antiquity,  we  find  that  pure  unsullied  white  was  the 
festal  color,  and  more  especially  in  Palestine,  where  the 
indigenous  soaps,  and  other  cleaning  materials,  gave 
them  peculiar  advantages  for  adopting  a  dress  of  that 
delicate  and  perishable  lustre. 

With  the  advance  of  luxury,  however,  came  a  love 
of  variety ;  and  this,  added  to  the  desire  for  more 
stimulating  impressions  than  could  be  derived  from 

1 


558  TOILETTE  OF   THE   HEBKEW  LADY. 

blank  unadorned  white,  gradually  introduced  all  sorts 
of  innovations  both  in  form  and  color ;  though,  with 
respect  to  the  first,  amidst  all  the  changes  through 
which  it  travelled,  the  old  original  outline  still  mani- 
festly predominated.  An  account  of  the  leading 
varieties  we  find  in  the  celebrated  third  chapter  of 
Isaiah. 

The  most  opulent  women  of  Palestine,  beyond  all 
other  colors  for  the  upper  robe,  preferred  purple ;  or, 
if  not  purple  throughout  the  entire  robe,  at  any  rate 
purple  flowers  upon  a  white  ground.  The  winter 
clothing  of  the  very  richest  families  in  Palestine  was 
manufactured  in  their  own  houses  ;  and  for  winter 
clothing,  more  especially  the  Hebrew  <-aste,  no  less 
than  the  Grecian  and  the  Roman,  pref<:;rred  the  warm 
and  sunny  scarlet,  the  puce  color,  the  violet,  and  the 
regal  purple.^'' 

Very  probable  it  is  that  the  Hebrew  ladies,  like  those 
of  Greece,  were  no  strangers  to  the  half-mantle  — 
fastened  by  a  clasp  in  front  of  each  shoulder,  and  suf- 
fered to  flow  in  free  draperies  down  the  back  ;  this 
was  an  occasional  and  supernumerary  garment  flung 
over  the  regular  upper  robe  —  properly  so  called. 

There  was  also  a  longer  mantle,  reaching  to  the 
ankles,  usually  of  a  violet  color,  which,  having  no 
sleeves,  was  meant  to  expose  to  view  the  beauty, 
not  only  of  the  upper  robe,  but  even  of  the  outer  tunic 
^ormexiy  described. 

Ey  the  way,  it  should  be  mentioned  that,  in  order  to 

*  By  which  was  probably  meant  a  color  nearer  to  crimson 
than  to  the  blue  or  violet  class  of  purples. 


TOILETTE  or  THE  HEBREW  LADY. 


559 


neep  them  in  fine  odor,  all  parts  of  the  wardrobe  were 
stretched  on  a  reticulated  or  grated  vessel  —  called  by 
the  Thalmud  (vi.  77)  Kanklin  —  from  which  the  steams 
of  rich  perfumes  were  made  to  ascend. 

In  what  way  the  upper  robe  was  worn  and  fastened 
may  be  collected  perhaps  with  sufficient  probability 
from  the  modern  Oriental  practice,  as  described  by 
travellers  ;  but  as  we  have  no  direct  authority  on  the 
subject,  I  shall  not  detain  the  reader  with  any  conjec- 
tural speculations. 

SCENE    THE  SIXTH. 

Dress  of  Ceremoiiy, 

One  magnificent  dress  remains  yet  to  be  mentioned 
—  viz.,  the  dress  of  honor  or  festival  dress,  which  an- 
swers in  every  respect  to  the  modern  caftan.  This 
was  used  on  all  occasions  of  ceremony,  as  splendid 
weddings,  presentations  at  the  courts  of  kings,  sump- 
tuous entertainments,  &c. ;  and  all  persons  who  stood 
in  close  connection  with  the  throne,  as  favorites,  crown- 
officers,  distinguished  military  commanders,  &c.,  re- 
ceived such  a  dress  as  a  gift  from  the  royal  treasury, 
in  order  to  prepare  them  at  all  times  for  the  royal 
presence.  According  to  the  universal  custom  of  Asia, 
the  trains  were  proportioned  in  length  to  the  rank  of 
the  wearer  ;  whence  it  is  that  the  robes  of  the  high- 
priest  were  adorned  with  a  train  of  superb  dimensions  ; 
and  even  Jehovah  is  represented  (Isaiah  vi.  1)  as  filling 
the  heavenly  palace  with  the  length  of  his  train 

*  It  has  been  doubted  whether  these  trains  were  supported 
^  y  train-bearers;  but  one  argument  makes  it  probable  that  they 


560 


TOILETTE  OF  THE  HEBREW  LADY. 


Another  distinction  of  this  festival  robe  was  the 
extraordinary  fulness  and  length  of  the  sleeves ;  these 
descended  to  the  knee,  and  often  ran  to  the  ankle  or 
to  the  ground.  In  the  sleeves  and  in  the  trains, 
but  especially  in  the  latter,  lay  the  chief  pride  of  a 
Hebrew  belle^  when  dressed  for  any  great  solemnity  or 
occasion  of  public  display. 

Final  Notes. 

I.  The  SyndoUi  mentioned  by  Isaiah,  &c.,  was  a  delicate  and 
transparent  substance,  Uke  our  tiffany,  and  in  point  of  money 
value  was  fully  on  a  level  with  the  caftan;  but  whether  imported 
from  Egypt  or  imitated  in  the  looms  of  the  Hebrews  and  Phoeni- 
cians, is  doubtful.  It  was  worn  next  to  the  skin,  and  conse- 
quently, in  the  harems  of  the  great,  occupied  the  place  of  the 
under  tunic  (ov  chemise)  previously  described;  and  as  luxury 
advanced,  there  is  reason  to  think  that  it  was  used  as  a  night 
chemise. 

II.  The  Caftan  is  the  Kalaat  of  the  East,  or  Kelaat  so  often 
mentioned  by  modern  travellers;  thus,  for  example,  Thevenot 
(torn.  iii.  p.  352)  says  —  '*  Le  Roi  fait  assez  souvent  des  pr  sens 
a  ses  Khans,  &c.,  L'on  appelle  ces  pr' sens  ^aZaai."  Chardin. 
(iii.  101),  *'  On  appelle  Calaat  les  habits  que  le  Roi  donne  par 
honneur."  And  lately,  in  Lord  Amherst's  progress  through  the  i 
northern  provinces  of  our  Indian  empire,  &c.,  we  read  continu- 
ally of  the  Khelau'ty  or  robe  of  state,  as  a  present  made  by  the 
native  princes  to  distinguished  officers. 

The  Caftan,  or  festival  robe  of  the  Hebrews,  was,  in  my  opin- 
ion, the  n^TcXoc  of  the  Greeks,  or  palla  of  the  Romans.  Among 
the  points  of  resemblance  are  these  :  — 

1.  The  palla  was  flung  like  a  cloak  or  mantle  over  the  stola  or 


were  not  —  viz.,  that  they  were  particularly  favorable  to  the 
peacock  walk  or  strut,  which  was  an  express  object  of  imitation 
iu  the_gait  of  the  Hebrew  women. 


TOILETTE   OF  THE  HEBREW  LADY. 


561 


uppermost  robe.  "  Ad  talcs  stola  demissa  et  circundata 
palla." 

2.  The  palla  not  only  descended  in  flowing  draperies  to  the 
feet  (thus  Tibullus,  i.  vii.  C,  **  Fusa  sed  ad  teneros  lutea  palla 
pedes"),  but  absolutely  swept  the  ground.  "  Verrit  humum 
Tyrio  saturata  murice  palla." 

3.  The  palla  was  one  of  the  same  wide  compass,  and  equally 
distinguished  for  its  splendor. 

4.  Like  the  Hebrew  festival  garment,  the  palla  was  a  vestis 
seposifa,  and  reserved  for  rare  solemnities. 

With  respect  to  the  IleTrAos,  Eustathius  describes  it  as  fxeyav 
Kol  7r€piKa\x4a  Koi  iroiKiXhu  iTEpi^oXaiov,  a  large  and  very  beau- 
tiful and  variegated  enveloping  mantle  ;  and  it  would  be  easy  in 
other  respects  to  prove  its  identity  with  the  Palla. 

Salmasius,  by  the  way,  in  commenting  upon  Tertullian  de 
Pallio,  is  quite  wrong  where  he  says  —  "Palla  nunquam  de  viriK 
palliodicitur."  Tibullus  (tora.  iii.  iv.  35)  sufficiently  contradicts 
that  opinion 


36 


THE  SPHINXES  KIJ)DLE. 


The  most  ancient*  story  in  the  Pagan  records, 
older  by  two  generations  than  the  story  of  Troy,  is 
that  of  (Edipus  and  his  mysterious  fate,  which  wrapt 
in  ruin  both  himself  and  all  his  kindred!  No  story 
whatever  continued  so  long  to  impress  the  Greek 
sensibilities  with  religious  awe,  or  was  felt  by  the 
great  tragic  poets  to  be  so  supremely  fitted  for  scen- 
ical  representation.  In  one  of  its  stages,  this  story 
is  clothed  with  the  majesty  of  darkness  ;  in  another 
stage,  it  is  radiant  with  burning  lights  of  female 
love,  the  most  faithful  and  heroic,  otfenng  a  beautiful 
relief  to  the  preternatural  malice  dividing  the  two 
sons  of  CEdipus.  This  malice  was  so  intense,  that 
when  the  corpses  of  both  brothers  were  burned 

*  That  is,  amongst  stories  not  wearing  a  mythologic  character,  such 
as  those  of  Prometheus,  Hercules,  <fec.  The  era  of  Troy  and  its  siege 
is  doubtless  by  some  centuries  older  than  its  usual  chronologic  date 
of  nine  centuries  before  Christ.  And  considering  the  mature  age  of 
Eteocles  and  Polynices,  the  two  sons  of  G^dipus,  at  the  period  of  the 

Seven  against  Thebes,"^  which  seven  were  contemporary  with  the 
fathers  of  the  heroes  engaged  in  the  Trojan  war,  it  becomes  necessary 
to  add  sixty  or  seventy  years  to  the  Trojan  date,  in  order  to  obtain 
that  of  (Edipus  and  the  Sphinx.  Out  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  there 
\s  nothing  purely  historic  so  old  as  this. 


THE  SPHINXES  RIDDLE. 


563 


together  on  the  same  funeral  pyre  (as  by  one  tradi 
tion  they  were);  the  flames  from  each  parted  asunder, 
and  refused  to  mingle.  This  female  love  was  so 
intense,  that  it  survived  the  death  of  its  object,  cared 
not  for  human  praise  or  blame,  and  laughed  at  the 
grave  which  waited  in  the  rear  for  itself,  yawning 
visibly  for  immediate  retribution.  There  are  four 
separate  movements  through  which  this  impassioned 
tale  devolves  ;  all  are  of  commanding  interest ;  and 
all  wear  a  character  of  portentous  solemnity,  which 
fits  them  for  harmonizing  with  the  dusky  shadows 
of  that  deep  antiquity  into  which  they  ascend. 

One  only  feature  there  is  in  the  story,  and  this 
belongs  to  its  second  stage  (which  is  also  its  sub- 
limest  stage),  where  a  pure  taste  is  likely  to  pause, 
and  to  revolt  as  from  something  not  perfectly  recon- 
ciled with  the  general  depth  of  the  coloring.  This 
lies  in  the  Sphinx's  riddle,  which,  as  hitherto  ex- 
plained, seems  to  us  deplorably  below  the  grandeur 
of  the  occasion.  Three  thousand  years,  at  the  least, 
have  passed  away  since  that  riddle  was  propounded  ; 
and  it  seems  odd  enough  that  the  proper  solution 
should  not  present  itself  till  November  of  1849.  That 
is  true  ;  it  seems  odd,  but  still  it  is  possible,  that 
we,  in  anno  doniini  1849,  may  see  further  through  a 
mile-stone  than  (Edipus,  the  king,  in  the  year  b.  c. 
twelve  or  thirteen  hundred.  The  long  interval  be- 
tween the  enigma  and  its  answer  may  remind  the 
reader  of  an  old  story  in  Joe  Miller,  where  a  travel- 
ler, apparently  an  inquisitive  person,  in  passing 
through  a  toll-bar,  said  to  the  keeper,  How  do  you 
like  your  eggs  dressed  ?  Without  waiting  for  the 
answer,  he  rode  off ;  but  twenty-five  years  later, 


564 


THE  sphinx's  riddle. 


riding  through  the  same  bar,  kept  by  the  same  man^ 
the  traveller  looked  steadfastly  at  him,  and  received 
the  monosyllabic  answer,  "  Poached.^ ^  A  long  pa- 
renthesis is  twenty-five  years  ;  and  we,  gazing  back 
over  a  far  wider  gulf  of  time,  shall  endeavor  to  look 
hard  at  the  Sphinx,  and  to  convince  that  mysteriouj:*. 
young  lady, —  if  our  voice  can  reach  her, —  that  she 
was  too  easily  satisfied  with  the  answer  given  ;  that 
the  true  answer  is  yet  to  come  ;  and  that,  in  fact, 
(Edipus  shouted  before  he  was  out  of  the  wood. 

But,  first  of  all,  let  us  rehearse  the  circumstances 
of  this  old  Grecian  story.  For  in  a  popular  journal 
it  is  always  a  duty  to  assume  that  perhaps  three 
readers  out  of  four  may  have  had  no  opportunity,  by 
the  course  of  their  education,  for  making  themselves 
acquainted  with  classical  legends.  And  in  this 
present  case,  besides  the  indispensableness  of  the 
story  to  the  proper  comprehension  of  our  own  im- 
proved answer  to  the  Sphinx,  the  story  has  a  sepa- 
rate and  independent  value  of  its  own  ;  for  it  illus- 
trates a  profound  but  obscure  idea  of  Pagan  ages, 
which  is  connected  with  the  elementary  glimpses  of 
man  into  the  abysses  of  his  higher  relations,  and 
lurks  mysteriously  amongst  what  Milton  so  finely 
calls  ''the  dark  foundations  of  our  human  nature. 
This  notion  it  is  hard  to  express  in  modern  phrase, 
for  we  have  no  idea  exactly  corresponding  to  it ;  but 
in  Latin  it  was  called  piacularify.  The  reader  must 
understand  upon  our  authority,  nostro  periculo,  and 
in  defiance  of  all  the  false  translations  spread  through 
books,  that  tlie  ancients  (meaning  the  Greeks  and 
Romans  before  the  time  of  Christianity)  had  no  idea, 
not  by  the  faintest  vestige,  of  what  in  the  scriptural 


THE  SPHINXES  RIDDLE. 


565 


system  is  called  sin.  The  Latin  word  peccatum,  the 
Greek  word  amartia,  are  translated  continually  by 
the  word  sin;  but  neither  one  word  nor  the  other 
has  any  such  meaning-  in  writers  belonging  to  the 
pure  classical  period.  When  baptized  into  new 
meaning  by  the  adoption  of  Christianity,  these 
wordS;  in  common  with  many  others,  transmigrated 
into  new  and  philosophic  functions.  But  originally 
they  tended  towards  no  such  acceptations,  nor  could 
have  done  so  ;  seeing  that  the  ancients  had  no 
avenue  opened  to  them  through  which  the  profound 
idea  of  sin  would  have  been  even  dimly  intelligible. 
Plato,  four  hundred  years  before  Christ,  or  Cicero, 
more  than  three  hundred  years  later,  was  fully 
equal  to  t?ie  idea  of  guilt  through  all  its  gamut ;  buL 
no  more  equal  to  the  idea  of  sin,  than  a  sagacious 
hound  to  the  idea  of  gravitation,  or  of  central  forces 
It  is  the  tremendous  postulate  upon  which  this  idea 
reposes  that  constitutes  the  initial  moment  of  that 
revelation  which  is  common  to  Judaism  and  to 
Christianity.  We  have  no  intention  of  wandering 
into  any  discussion  upon  tliis  question.  It  will 
suffice  for  the  service  of  the  occasion  if  we  say  that 
guilt,  in  all  its  modifications,  implies  only  a  defect  or 
a  wound  in  the  individual.  Sin,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
most  mysterious,  and  the  most  sorrowful  of  all  ideas, 
implies  a  taint  not  in  the  individual  but  in  the  race  — 
that  is  the  distinction  ;  or  a  taint  in  the  individual, 
not  through  any  local  disease  of  his  own,  but  through 
a  scrofula  equally  diffused  through  the  infinite  family 
Df  man.  We  are  not  speaking  controversially,  either 
as  teachers  of  theology  or  of  philosophy  ;  and  we  are 
careless  of  the  particular  construction  by  which  the 


566 


THE  sphinx's  riddle. 


reader  interprets  to  himself  this  profound  idea. 
What  we  aflSrin  iS;  that  this  idea  was  utterly  and 
exquisitely  inappreciable  by  Pagan  Greece  and  Kome  ; 
that  various  translations  from  Pindar,*  from  Aris- 
tophanes, and  from  the  Greek  tragedians,  embodying 
at  intervals  this  word  sin,  are  more  extravagant  than 
would  be  the  word  category  introduced  into  the  ha- 
rangue of  an  Indian  sachem  amongst  the  Cherokees  ; 
and  linally  that  the  very  nearest  approach  to  the 
abysmal  idea  which  we  Christians  attach  to  the  word 
sin  —  (an  approach,  but  to  that  which  never  can  be 
touched  —  a  writing  as  of  palmistry  upon  each  man's 
hand,  but  a  writing  which  no  man  can  read  —  lies 
in  the  Pagan  idea  of  piacularity ;  which  is  an  idea 
thus  far  like  hereditary  sin,  that  it  expresses  an  evil 
to  which  the  party  affected  has  not  consciously 
concurred  ;  wliich  is  thus  far  not  like  hereditary  sin, 
that  it  expresses  an  evil  personal  to  the  individual 
and  not  extending  itself  to  the  race. 

This  was  the  evil  exemplified  in  (Edipus.  He  was 
loaded  with  an  insupportable  burthen  of  pariah  par, 
ticipation  in  pollution  and  misery,  to  which  his  will 
had  never  consented.  He  seemed  to  have  committed 
the  most  atrocious  crimes  ;  he  was  a  murderer,  he  was 

*  And  when  we  are  speaking  of  this  subject,  it  may  be  proper  to 
mention  (as  the  very  extreme  anachronism  which  the  case  admits  of) 
that  Mr.  Archdeacon  W.  has  absolutely  introduced  the  idea  of  sin 
into  the  "  Iliad  ;  "  and,  in  a  regular  octavo  volume,  has  represented  it 
as  the  key  to  the  whole  movement  of  the  fable.  It  was  once  made  a 
reproach  to  Southey  that  his  Don  Pvoderick  spoke,  in  his  penitential 
moods,  a  language  too  much  resembling  that  of  Methodism  ;  yet, 
lifter  all,  that  prince  was  a  Christian,  and  a  Christian  amongst  Mus- 
sulmans, But  what  are  we  to  think  of  Achilles  and  Patroclus,  wboD 
iescribed  as  being  (or  not  being)    under  convictions  of  sin  "  ? 


.THE  SPHINXES  RIDDLE. 


567 


a  parricide;  be  was  doubly  incestuous,  and  yet  how  ? 
In  tbe  case  where  he  might  be  thought  a  murderer, 
he  had  stood  upon  his  self-defence,  not  benefiting  by 
any  superior  resources,  but,  on  the  contrary,  fighting 
as  one  man  against  three,  and  under  the  provocation 
of  insufferable  insolence.  .  Had  he  been  a  parricide  ? 
What  matter,  as  regarded  the  moral  guilt,  if  liis 
father  (and  by  the  fault  of  that  father)  were  utterly 
unknown  to  him  ?  Incestuous  had  he  been  ?  but 
how,  if  the  very  oracles  of  fate,  as  expounded  by 
events  and  by  mysterious  creatures  such  as  the 
Sphinx,  had  stranded  him,  like  a  ship  left  by  the 
tide,  upon  this  dark  unknown  shore  of  a  criminality 
unsuspected  by  himself?  All  these  treasons  against 
the  sanctities  of  nature  had  Oedipus  committed  ;  and 
yet  was  this  (Edipus  a  thoroughly  good  man,  no  more 
dreaming  of  the  horrors  in  which  he  was  entangled, 
than  the  eye  at  noonday  in  midsummer  is  consciouj^ 
of  the  stars  that  lie  far  behind  the  dayhght.  Let  us 
review  rapidly  the  incidents  of  his  life. 

Laius,  King  of  Thebes,  the  descendant  of  Labdacus, 
and  representing  the  illustrious  house  of  the  Labda- 
cidse,  about  the  time  when  his  wife,  Jocasta,  prom- 
ised to  present  him  with  a  child,  had  learned  from 
various  prophetic  voices  that  this  unborn  child  was 
destined  to  be  his  murderer.  It  is  singular  that  in 
all  such  cases,  which  are  many,  spread  through 
classical  literature,  the  parties  menaced  by  fate 
believe  the  menace  ;  else  why  do  they  seek  to  evade 
it  ?  and  yet  believe  it  not  ;  else  why  do  they  fancy 
themselves  able  to  evade  it  ?  This  fatal  child,  who 
was  the  (Edipus  of  tragedy,  being  at  length  boni; 
Laius  committed  the  infant  to  a  slave,  with  orders  to 


THE  sphinx's  riddle. 


expose  it  on  Mount  Cithaeron.  This  was  done  ;  the 
mfant  was  suspended,  by  thongs  running  through 
the  fleshy  parts  of  his  feet,  to  the  branches  of  a  tree, 
and  he  was  supposed  to  have  perished  by  wild  beasts. 
But  a  shepherd,  who  found  him  in  this  perishing 
state,  pitied  his  helplessness,  and  carried  him  to  his 
master  and  mistress.  King  and  Queen  of  Corinth, 
who  adopted  and  educated  him  as  their  own  child. 
That  he  was  not  their  own  child,  and  that  in  fact  he 
was  a  foundling  of  unknown  parentage,  CEdipus  was 
not  slow  of  finding  from  the  insults  of  his  schoolfel- 
lows ;  and  at  length,  with  the  determination  of  learn- 
ing his  origin  and  his  fate,  being  now  a  full-grown 
young  man,  he  strode  off  from  Corinth  to  Delphi. 
The  oracle  at  Delphi,  being  as  usual  in  collusion  with 
his  evil  destiny,  sent  him  off'  to  seek  his  parents  at 
Thebes.  On  his  journey  thither,  he  met,  in  a  narrow 
part  of  the  road,  a  chariot  proceeding  in  the  counter 
direction  from  Thebes  to  Delphi.  The  charioteer, 
relying  upon  the  grandeur  of  his  master,  insolently 
ordered  the  young  stranger  to  clear  the  road  ;  upon 
which,  under  the  impulse  of  his  youthful  blood, 
CEdipus  slew  him  on  the  spot.  The  haughty  gran- 
dee who  occupied  the  chariot  rose  up  in  fury  to 
avenge  this  outrage,  fought  with  the  young  stranger, 
and  was  himself  killed.  One  attendant  upon  the 
chariot  remained  ;  but  he,  warned  by  the  fate  of  his 
master  and  his  fellow-servant,  withdrew  quietly  into 
the  forest  that  skirted  the  road,  revealing  no  word  of 
what  had  happened,  but  reserved,  by  the  dark  destiny 
of  CEdipus,  to  that  evil  day  on  which  Ms  evidence, 
tjoncurring  with  other  circumstantial  exposures,  should 
convict  the  young  Corinthian  emigrant  of  parricide. 


Ii 


THE  SPHINXES  RIDDLE. 


569 


For  the  present,  (Edipus  viewed  himself  as  no  criminal, 
but  much  rather  as  an  injured  man,  who  had  simply 
used  his  natural  powers  of  self-defence  against  an  in- 
Bolent  aggressor.  This  aggressor,  as  the  reader  will 
suppose,  was  Laius.  The  throne  therefore  was  empty, 
on  the  arrival  of  CEdipus  in  Thebes  :  the  king's  death 
was  known,  but  not  the  mode  of  it  ;  and  that  CEdipus 
was  the  murderer  could  not  reasonably  be  suspected 
either  by  the  people  of  Thebes,  or  by  CEdipus  him- 
self. The  whole  affair  would  have  had  no  interest 
for  the  young  stranger  ;  but,  through  the  accident  of 
a  public  calamity  then  desolating  the  land,  a  mys- 
serious  monster,  called  the  Sphinx,  half  woman  and 
half  lion,  was  at  that  time  on  the  coast  of  Boeotia, 
and  levying  a  daily  tribute  of  human  lives  from  the 
Boeotian  territory.  This  tribute,  it  was  understood, 
would  continue  to  be  levied  from  the  territories 
attached  to  Thebes,  until  a  riddle  proposed  by  the 
monster  should  have  been  satisfactorily  solved.  By 
way  of  encouragement  to  all  who  might  feel  prompted 
to  undertake  so  dangerous  an  adventure,  the  author- 
ities of  Thebes  offered  the  throne  and  the  hand  of 
the  widowed  Jocasta  as  the  prize  of  success  ;  and 
CEdipus,  either  on  public  or  on  selfish  motives,  entered 
the  lists  as  a  competitor. 

The  rijdle  proposed  by  the  Sphinx  ,  ran  in  these 
terms  :  "  What  creature  is  that  which  moves  on  four 
feet  in  the  morning,  on  two  feet  at  noonday,  and  on 
three  towards  the  going  down  of  the  sun  ?  CEdipus, 
aftar  some  consideration,  answered  that  the  creature 
was  Man,  who  creeps  on  the  ground  with  hands  and 
feet  when  an  infant,  walks  upright  in  the  vigor  of 
manhood,  and  leans  upon  a  staff  in  old  age.  Imme- 


570 


THE  sphinx's  riddle. 


diately  the  dreadful  Sphinx  confessed  the  truth  of  his 
solution  by  throwing  herself  headlong  from  a  point  of 
rock  into  the  sea ;  her  power  being  overthrown  as 
soon  as  her  secret  had  been  detected.  Thus  was  the 
Sphinx  destroyed  ;  and,  according  to  the  promise  of 
the  proclamation,  for  this  great  service  to  the  state 
(Edipus  was  immediately  recompensed.  He  was 
saluted  King  of  Thebes,  and  married  to  the  royal 
widow  Jocasta.  In  this  way  it  happened,  but  with- 
out suspicion  either  in  himself  or  others,  pc>inting  to 
the  truth,  that  (Edipus  had  slain  his  father,  had 
ascended  his  father's  throne,  and  had  married  his 
own  mother. 

Through  a  course  of  years  all  these  dreadful  events 
lay  hushed  in  darkness  ;  but  at  length  a  pestilence 
arose,  and  an  embassy  was  despatched  to  Delphi,  in 
order  to  ascertain  the  cause  of  the  heavenly  wrath, 
and  the  proper  means  of  propitiating  that  wrath. 
The  embassy  returned  to  Thebes  armed  with  a 
knowledge  of  the  fatal  secrets  connected  with 
OKdipus,  but  under  some  restraints  of  prudence  in 
making  a  publication  of  what  so  dreadfully  affected 
the  most  powerful  personage  in  the  state.  Perhaps, 
in  the  whole  history  of  human  art  as  applied  to  the 
evolution  of  a  poetic  fable,  there  is  nothing  more 
exquisite  than  the  management  of  this  crisis  by 
Sophocles.  A  natural  discovery,  first  of  all,  con- 
nects (Edipus  with  the  death  of  Laius.  That  discov- 
ery comes  upon  him  with  some  surprise,  but  with  no 
shock  of  fear  or  remorse.  That  he  had  killed  a  man 
of  rank  in  a  sudden  quarrel,  he  had  always  known  ; 
that  this  man  was  now  discovered  to  be  Laius,  added 
nothing  to  the  reasons  for  regret.    The  affair  re* 


THE  sphinx's  riddle. 


571 


mained  as  it  was.  It  was  simply  a  case  of  personal 
strife  on  the  high  road,  and  one  which  had  really 
grown  out  of  aristocratic  violence  in  the  adverse 
party.  (Edipus  had  asserted  his  own  rights  ani 
dignity  only  as  all  brave  men  would  have  done  in  an 
age  that  knew  nothing  of  civic  police. 

It  was  true  that  this  first  discovery  —  the  identifica- 
tion of  himself  as  the  slayer  of  Laius  —  drew  after  it 
two  others,  namely,  that  it  was  the  throne  of  his 
dctim  on  which  he  had  seated  himself,  and  that  it 
was  his  widow  whom  he  had  married.  But  these 
were  no  offences  ;  and,  on  the  contrary,  they  were 
distinctions  won  at  great  risk  to  himself,  and  by  a 
great  service  to  the  country.  Suddenly,  however, 
the  reappearance  and  disclosures  of  the  shepherd 
who  had  saved  his  life  during  infancy  in  one  moment 
threw  a  dazzling  but  funereal  light  upon  the  previous 
discoveries  that  else  had  seemed  so  trivial.  In  an 
instant  everything  was  read  in  another  sense.  The 
death  of  Laius,  the  marriage  with  his  widow,  the 
appropriation  of  his  throne,  all  towered  into  colos- 
sal crimes,  illimitable,  and  opening  no  avenues  to 
atonement.  CEdipus,  in  the  agonies  of  his  horror, 
inflicts  blindness  upon  himself;  Jocasta  commits 
suicide;  the  two  sons  fall  into  fiery  feuds  for  the 
assertion  of  their  separate  claims  on  the  throne,  but 
previously  unite  for  the  expulsion  of  (Edipus,  as  one 
who  had  become  a  curse  to  Thebes.  And  thus  the 
poor,  heart-shattered  king  would  have  been  turned 
(  out  upon  the  public  roads,  aged,  blind,  and  a  helpless 
:  vagrant,  but  for  the  sublime  piety  of  his  two  daugh- 
ters, but  especially  of  Antigone,  the  elder.  They 
share  with  their  unhappy  father  the  hardships  and 


572 


THE  sphinx's  riddle. 


perils  of  the  road,  and  do  not  leave  him  until  the 
moment' of  his  mysterious  summons  to  some  ineffable 
death  in  the  woods  of  Colonus.  The  expulsion  of 
Polynices,  the  younger  son,  from  Thebes  ;  his  return 
with  a  confederate  band  of  princes  for  the  recovery 
of  his  rights  ;  the  death  of  the  two  brotliers  in  single 
combat ;  the  public  prohibition  of  funeral  rights  to 
Polynices,  as  one  who  had  levied  war  against  his 
native  land  ;  and  tlie  final  reiippearance  of  Antigone, 
who  defies  the  law,  and  secures  a  grave  to  her 
brother  at  the  certain  price  of  a  grave  to  herself — 
these  are  the  sequels  and  arrears  of  the  family  over- 
throw accomplished  through  the  dark  destiny  of 
(Edipus. 

And  now,  having  reviewed  the  incidents  of  the 
story,  in  what  respect  is  it  that  we  object  to  the 
solution  of  the  Sphinxes  riddle  ?  We  do  not  object 
to  it  as  a  solution  of  the  riddle,  and  the  only  one 
possible  at  the  moment ;  but  what  we  contend  is, 
that  it  is  not  the  solution.  All  great  prophecies,  all 
great  mysteries,  are  likely  to  involve  double,  triple, 
or  even  quadruple  interpretations  —  each  rising  in 
dignity,  each  cryptically  involving  -another.  ii]ven 
amongst  natural  agencies,  precisely  as  they  rise  in 
grandeur,  the}^  multiply  their  final  purposes.  Rivers 
and  seas,  for  instance,  are  useful,  not  merely  as 
means  of  separating  nations  from  each  other,  but 
also  as  means  of  uniting  them  ;  not  merely  as  baths 
and  for  all  purposes  of  washing  and  cleansing,  but 
also  as  reservoirs  of  fish,  as  high-roads  for  the  con* 
veyance  of  commodities,  as  permanent  sources  of 
agricultural  fertility,  &c.  In  like  manner,  a  mystery 
of  any  sort,  having  a  public  reference,  may  be  pre 


1 


THE  sphinx's  riddle. 


573 


Bumed  to  couch  within  it  a  secondary  and  a  pro- 
founder  interpretation.  The  reader  may  think  that 
the  Sphinx  ought  to  have  understood  her  own  riddle 
best  ;  and  that,  if  iilie  were  satisfied  with  the  answer 
of  OEdipus,  it  must  be  impertinent  in  us  at  this  time 
of  day  to  censure  it.  To  censure,  indeed,  is  more 
than  we  propose.  The  solution  of  Q^]dipus  was  a 
true  one  ;  and  it  was  all  that  he  could  have  given  in 
^that  early  period  of  his  life.  But,  perhaps,  at  the 
moment  of  his  death  amongst  the  gloomy  thickets 
of  Attica,  he  might  have  been  able  to  suggest  another- 
and  a  better.  If  not,  then  we  have  the  satisfaction 
of  thinkiijg  ourselves  somewhat  less  dense  than 
(Edipus  ;  for,  in  our  opinion,  the  full  and  j^/iaZ  answer 
to  the  Sphinx's  riddle  lay  in  the  word  (Edipus. 
OEdipus  himself  it  was  that  fulfilled  the  conditions 
of  the  enigma.  He  it  was,  in  the  most  pathetic 
sense,  that  went  upon  four  feet  when  an  infant ;  for 
the  general  condition  of  helplessness  attached  to  all 
mankind  in  the  period  of  infancy,  and  which  is  ex- 
pressed symbolically  by  this  image  of  creeping,  ap- 
plied to  ffidipus  in  a  far  more  significant  manner,  as 
one  abandoned  by  all  his  natural  protectors,  thrown 
upon  the  chances  of  a  wilderness,  and  upon  the 
mercies  of  a  slave.  The  allusion  to  this  general 
helplessness  had,  besides,  a  special  propriety  in  the 
case  of  OEdipus,  who  drew  his  very  name  {Swollen- 
.foot)  from  the  injury  done  to  his  infant  feet.  He, 
again,  it  was  that,  in  a  more  emphatic  sense  than 
usual,  asserted  that  majestic  self-sufiicientness  and 
independence  of  all  ahen  aid,  which  is  typified  by 
the  act  of  walking  upright  at  noonday  upon  his  own 
natural  basis  =     Throwing  off  all  the  power  and 


574 


THE  sphinx's  riddle. 


splendor  borrowed  from  his  royal  protectors  at 
Corinth,  trusting  exclusively  to  his  native  powers 
as  a  man,  he  had  fought  his  way  through  insult  to 
the  presence  of  the  dreadful  Sphinx ;  her  he  had 
confounded  and  vanquished  ;  he  had  leaped  into  a 
throne,  — the  throne  of  him  who  had  insulted  him,  — 
without  other  resources  than  such  as  he  drew  from 
himself,  and  he  had,  in  the  same  way,  obtained  a 
royal  bride.  With  good  right,  therefore,  he  was 
foreshadowed  in  the  riddle  as  one  who  walked  up- 
right by  his  own  masculine  vigor,  and  relied  upon 
no  gifts  but  those  of  nature.  Lastly,  by  a  sad  but  a 
pitying  image,  OEdipus  is  described  as  supporting 
himself  at  nightfall  on  three  feet ;  for  (Edipus  it  was 
that  by  his  cruel  sons  would  have  been  rejected  from 
Thebes,  with  no  auxiliary  means  of  motion  or  sup- 
port beyond  his  own  languishing  powers  :  blind  and 
broken-hearted,  he  must  have  wandered  into  snares 
and  ruin  ;  his  own  feet  must  have  been  supplanted  | 
immediately  :  but  then  came  to  his  aid  another  foot,  \ 
the  holy  Antigone.  She  it  was  that  guided  and  \ 
cheered  him,  when  all  the  world  had  forsaken  him ;  ] 
she  it  was  that  already,  in  the  vision  of  the  cruel 
Sphinx,  had  been  prefigured  dimly  as  the  staff  upon 
which  (Edipus  should  lean,  as  the  third  foot  that 
should  support  his  steps  when  the  deep  shadows 
of  his  sunset  were  gathering  and  settling  about  his 
grave. 

In  this  way  we  obtain  a  solution  of  the  Sphinx's 
riddle  more  commensurate  and  symmetrical  with 
the  other  features  of  the  story,  which  are  all  clothed 
mth.  the  grandeur  of  mystery.  The  Sphinx  herself 
is  a  mystery.    Whence  came  her  monstrous  nature, 


THE  sphinx's  riddle. 


575 


fchat  so  often  renewed  its  remembrance  amongst  men 
of  distant  lands,  in  Egyptian  or  Ethiopian  marble  ? 
Whence  came  her  wrath  against  Thebes  ?  This 
wrath,  how  durst  it  tower  so  high  as  to  measure 
itself  against  the  enmity  of  a  nation?  This  wrath, 
how  came  it  to  sink  so  low  as  to  collapse  at  the  ech< 
of  a  word  from  a  friendless  stranger?  Mysteriou 
again  is  the  blind  collusion  of  this  unhappy  strangei 
with  the  dark  decrees  of  fate.  The  very  misfortunes 
of  his  infancy  had  given  into  his  hands  one  chance 
more  for  escape  :  these  misfortunes  had  transferred 
him  to  Corinth;  and  staying  there  he  was  safe.  But 
the  headstrong  haughtiness  of  youthful  blood  causes 
him  to  recoil  unknowingly  upon  the  one  sole  spot  of 
all  the  earth  where  the  coefficients  for  ratifying  his 
destruction  are  waiting  and  lying  in  ambush.  Heaven 
and  earth  are  silent  for  a  generation  ;  one  might 
fancy  that  they  are  treacherously  silent,  in  order  that 
(Edipus  may  have  time  for  building  up  to  the  clouds 
the  pyramid  of  his  mysterious  offences.  His  four 
children,  incestuously  born,  sons  that  are  his  broth- 
ers, daughters  that  are  his  sisters,  have  grown  up  to 
be  men  and  women,  before  the  first  mutterings  are 
becoming  audible  of  that  great  tide  slowly  coming 
up  from  the  sea,  which  is  to  sweep  away  himself 
and  the  foundations  of  his  house.  Heaven  and  earth 
must  now  bear  joint  witness  against  him.  Heaven 
Bpeaks  first :  the  pestilence  that  walketh  in  darkness 
is  made  the  earliest  minister  of  the  discovery, — the 
pestilence  it  is,  scourging  the  seven-gated  Thebes, 
as  very  soon  the  Sphinx  will  scourge  her,  that  is 
appointed  to  usher  in,  like  some  great  ceremonial 
herald,  that  sad  drama  of  Nemesis,  —  that  vast  pro- 


576 


THE  sphinx's  riddle. 


cession  of  revelation  and  retribution  which  the  earth, 
and  the  graves  of  the  earth,  must  finish.  Myste- 
rious also  is  the  pomp  of  ruin  with  which  this  revela- 
tion of  the  past  descends  upon  that  ancient  house 
of  Thebes.  Like  a  shell  from  modern  artillery,  it 
leaves  no  time  for  prayer  or  evasion,  but  shatters  by 
the  same  explosion  all  that  stand  within  its  circle  of 
fury.  Every  member  of  that  devoted  household,  as 
if  they  had  been  sitting*  —  not  around  a  sacred  do- 
mestic hearth,  but  around  the  crater  of  some  surging 
volcano  —  all  alike,  father  and  mother,  sons  and 
daughters,  are  wrapt  at  once  in  fiery  whirlwinds  of 
ruin.  And,  amidst  this  general  agony  of  destroying 
wrath,  one  central  mystery,  as  a  darkness  within  a 
darkness,  withdraws  itself  into  a  secrecy  unap- 
proachable by  eyesight,  or  by  filial  love,  or  by 
guesses  of  the  brain  —  and  that  is  the  death  of  (Edi- 
pus.  Did  he  die  ?  Even  that  is  more  than  we  can 
say.  How  dreadful  does  the  sound  fall  upon  the 
heart  of  some  poor,  horror-stricken  criminal,  pirate 
or  murderer,  that  has  offended  by  a  mere  human 
offence,  when,  at  nightfiill,  tempted  by  the  sweet 
spectacle  of  a  peaceful  hearth,  he  creeps  stealthily 
into  some  village  inn,  and  hopes  for  one  night's 
respite  from  his  terror,  but  suddenly  feels  the  touch, 
and  hears  the  voice,  of  the  stern  officer,  saying, 
Sir,  you  are  wanted.''  Yet  that  summons  is  but 
too  intelligible  ;  it  shocks,  but  it  bewilders  not ;  and 
the  utmost  of  its  malice  is  bounded  by  the  scaffold. 
''Deep,"  says  the  unhappy  man,  "is  the  downward 
path  of  anguish  which  I  am  called  to  tread ;  but  it 
has  been  trodden  by  others."  For  Q^dipus  there 
was  no  such  comfort.    What  language  of  man  or 


THE  sphinx's  riddle. 


577 


trumpet  of  angel  could  decipher  the  woe  of  that  un- 
fathomable call,  when,  from  the  depth  of  ancient 
woods,  a  voice  that  drev^  like  gravitation, .  that 
sucked  in  like  a  vortex,  far  off  yet  near,  in  some 
distant  world  yet  close  at  hand,  cried,  ''Hark,  (Edi- 
pus  !  King  (Edipus  !  come  hither !  thou  art  wanted  !  " 
Wanted !  for  what  ?  Was  it  for  death  ?  was  it  for 
judgment  ?  was  it  for  some  wilderness  of  pariah 
eternities  ?  No  man  ever  knew.  Chasms  opened  in 
the  earth  ;  dark  gigantic  arms  stretched  out  to  re 
ceive  the  king ;  clouds  and  vapor  settled  over  the 
penal  abyss  ;  and  of  him  only,  though  the  neighbor- 
hood of  his  disappearance  was  known,  no  trace  or 
visible  record  survived  —  neither  bones,  nor  grave, 
nor  dust,  nor  epitaph. 

Did  the  Sphinx  follow  with  her  cruel  eye  this  fatal 
tissue  of  calamity  to  its  shadowy  crisis  at  Colonus  ? 
As  the  billows  closed  over  her  head,  did  she  perhaps 
attempt  to  sting  with  her  dying  words  ?  Did  she 
say,  ''I,  the  daughter  of  mystery,  am  called;  I  am 
wanted.  But,  amidst  the  uproar  of  the  sea,  and  the 
clangor  of  sea-birds,  high  over  all  I  hear  another 
though  a  distant  summons.  I  can  hear  that  thou, 
(Edipus,  the  son  of  mystery,  art  called  from  afar  : 
thou  also  wilt  be  wanted.^^  Did  the  wicked  Sphinx 
labor  in  vain,  amidst  her  parting  convulsions,  to 
breathe  this  freezing  whisper  into  the  heart  of  him 
that  had  overthrown  her  ? 

Who  can  say  ?  Both  of  these  enemies  were  pariah 
mysteries,  and  may  have  faced  each  other  again 
with  blazing  malice  in  some  pariah  world.  But  all 
things  in  this  dreadful  story  ought  to  be  harmonized. 
Already  in  itself  it  is  an  ennobling  and  an  idealizing 
37 


578 


THE  sphinx's  riddle. 


of  the  riddle,  that  it  is  made  a  double  riddle  ;  that  it 
contains  an  exoteric  sense  obvious  to  all  the  world, 
but  also  an  esoteric  sense  —  now  suggested  conjec- 
turally  after  thousands  of  years  — possibly  unknown 
to  the  Sphinx,  and  certainly  unknown  to  (Edipus  ; 
that  this  second  riddle  is  hid  within  the  first ;  that 
the  one  riddle  is  the  secret  commentary  upon  the 
other ;  and  that  the  earliest  is  the  hieroglyphic  of 
the  last.  Thus  far  as  regards  the  riddle  itself ;  and, 
as  regards  CEdipus  in  particular,  it  exalts  the  mys- 
tery around  him,  that  in  reading  this  riddle,  and  in 
tracing  the  vicissitudes  from  infancy  to  old  age^ 
attached  to  the  general  destiny  of  his  race,  uncon- 
sciously he  was  tracing  the  dreadful  vicissitudes 
attached  specially  and  separately  to  his  own. 


AELIUS  LAMIA.* 


For  a  period  of  centuries  there  has  existed  an 
enigma,  dark  and  insoluble  as  that  of  the  Sphinx,  in 
the  text  of  Suetonius.  Isaac  Casaubon,  as  modest 
as  he  was  learned,  had  vainly  besieged  it ;  then,  in 
a  mood  of  revolting  arrogance,  Joseph  Scaliger ; 
Ernesti ;  Gronovius  ;  many  others  ;  and  all  without  a 
gleam  of  success.  Had  the  tread-mill  been  awarded 
(as  might  have  been  wished)  to  failure  of  attempts 
at  solution,  under  the  construction  of  having  traded 
in  false  hopes  —  in  smoke-selling,  as  the  Roman  law 
entitled  it  —  one  and  all  of  these  big-wigs  must  have 
mounted  that  aspiring  machine  of  Tantalus,  nolentes 
volentes. 


*  In  this  case  I  acknowledge  no  shadow  of  doubt.  I  have  a 
list  of  conjectural  decipherings  applied  by  classical  doctors  to 
desperate  lesions  and  abscesses  in  the  text  of  famous  classic 
authors  ;  and  I  am  really  ashamed  to  say  that  my  own  emenda- 
tion stands  facile  princeps  among  them  all.  I  must  repeat, 
however,  that  this  preeminence  is  only  that  of  luck  ;  and  I  must 
remind  the  critic,  that,  in  judging  of  this  case,  he  must  not  do 
as  one  writer  did  on  the  first  publication  of  this  little  paper  — 
namely,  entirely  lose  sight  of  the  main  incident  in  the  legend 
of  Orpheus  and  Eurydice.  Never  perhaps  on  this  earth  was  so 
threatening  a  whisper,  a  whisper  so  portentously  significant, 
uttered  between  man  and  man  in  a  single  word,  as  in  that  secret 
suggestion  of  an  Orpheutic  voice  where  a  wife  was  concerned. 


580 


AELIUS  LAMIA. 


The  passage  in  Suetonius  which  so  excruciatinglj 
(but  so  unprofitably)  has  tormented  the  wits  ol  such 
scholars  as  have  sat  in  judgment  upon  it  through  a 
period  of  three  hundred  and  fifty  years,  arises  in  the 
tenth  section  of  hi«;  Domitian.  That  prince,  it  seems, 
had  displayed  in  his  outset  considerable  promise  of 
moral  excellence  ;  in  particular,  neither  rapacity  nor 
cruelty  was  then*  apparently  any  feature  in  his  char- 
acter. Both  qualities,  however,  found  a  pretty  large 
and  early  development  in  his  advancing  career,  but 
cruelty  the  largest  and  earliest.  By  way  of  illustra- 
tion, Suetonius  rehearses  a  list  of  distinguished  men, 
clothed  with  senatorian  or  even  consular  rank,  whom 
he  had  put  to  death  upon  allegations  the  most  friv- 
olous ;  amongst  them,  Aelius  Lamia,  a  nobleman 
whose  wife  he  had  torn  from  him  by  open  and  in- 
sulting violence.  It  may  be  as  well  to  cite  the 
exact  words  of  Suetonius  :  *  Aelium  Lamiam  (inter- 
emit)  ob  suspiciosos  quidem,  verum  et  veteres  et  in- 
noxios  jocos  ;  quod  post  abductam  uxorem  laudanti 
vocem  suam  —  dixerat'  Heu  taceo ;  quodque  Tito 
hortanti  se  ad  alterum  matrimonium,  responderat 
fu)  jcal  av  yaf^r^oai  Osleti;^^ — Anglice,  Aelius  Lamia 
he  put  to  death  on  account  of  certain  jests  ;  jests 

*  The  original  Latin  seems  singularly  careless.  Every  (evcD 
though  inattentive)  reader  says  —  Innoxios,  harmless?  But  if 
these  jests  were  harmless,  how  could  he  call  them  suspiciosos 
calculated  to  rouse  suspicion  ?  The  way  to  justify  the  drift  of 
Suetonius  in  reconcilement  with  his  precise  words  is  thus  — -on 
account  of  certain  repartees  which  undeniably  had  borne  a  sense 
justifying  some  uneasiness  and  jealousy  at  the  time  of  utteraiice, 
but  which  the  event  had  shown  to  be  practically  harmless,  what- 
ever had  been  the  intention,  and  which  were  now  obsolete. 


AELIUS  LAMIA. 


581 


liable  to  some  jealousy,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  of 
old  standing,  and  that  had  in  fact  proved  harmless 
as  regarded  practical  consequences  —  namely,  that 
to  one  who  praised  his  voice  as  a  singer  he  had 
replied,  lieu  taceo ;  and  that,  on  another  occasion, 
in  reply  to  the  Emperor  Titus,  when  urging  him  to 
a  second  marriage,  he  had  said,  What  now,  I  sup- 
pose you  are  looking  out  for  a  wife  ? 

The  latter  jest  is  intelligible  enough,  stinging,  and 
in  a  high  degree  witty.  As  if  the  young  men  of  the 
Flavian  family  could  fancy  no  wives  but  such  as  they 
had  won  by  violence  from  other  men,  he  affects  in  a 
bitter  sarcasm  to  take  for  granted  that  Titus,  in 
counselling  his  friends  to  marry,  was  simply  con- 
templating the  first  step  towards  creating  a  fund  of 
eligible  wives.  The  primal  qualification  of  any  lady 
as  a  consort  being,  in  Flavian  eyes,  that  she  had  been 
torn  away  violently  from  a  friend,  it  became  evident 
that  the  preliminary  step  towards  a  Flavian  wedding 
was,  to  persuade  some  incautious  friend  into  marry- 
ing, and  thus  putting  himself  into  a  capacity  of 
being  robbed.  Such,  at  least  in  the  stinging  jest  of 
Lamia,  was  the  Flavian  rule  of  conduct.  And  his 
friend  Titus,  therefore,  simply  as  the  brother  of 
Domitian,  simply  as  a  Flavian,  he  affected  to  regard 
as  indirectly  and  provisionally  extending  his  owd 
conjugal  fund,  whenever  he  prevailed  on  a  friend  tc 
select  a  wife. 

The  latter  jest,  therefore,  when  once  apprehended, 
speaks  broadly  and  bitingly  for  itself.  But  the 
other,  —  what  can  it  possibly  mean  ?  For  centuries 
has  that  question  been  reiterated  ;  and  hitherto  with- 


582 


AELIUS  LAMIA. 


out  advancing  by  one  step  nearer  to  solution.  Isaac 
Casaubon,  who  about  two  hundred  and  fifty  years 
since  was  the  leading  oracle  in  this  field  of  literature, 
writing  an  elaborate  and  continuous  commentary 
upon  Suetonius,  found  himself  unable  to  suggest  any 
real  aids  for  dispersing  the  thick  darkness  overhang- 
ing the  passage.  What  he  says  is  this  :  Parum  satis- 
faciunt  mihi  interpretes  in  explicatione  hujus  Lamiae 
dicti.  Nam  quod  putant  Heu  iaceo  suspirium  esse 
ejus  —  indicem  doloris  ob  abductam  uxorem  magni  sed 
latentis,  nobis  non  ita  videtur ;  sed  notatam  potius 
fuisse  tyrannidem  principis,  qui  omnia  in  suo  genere 
pulchra  et  excellentia  possessoribus  eriperet,  unde 
necessitas  incumbebat  sua  bona  dissimulandi  celan- 
dique/'  In  English  thus  :  Not  at  all  satisfactory  to 
me  are  the  commentators  in  the  explanation  of  the 
dictum  (here  equivalent  to  dicterium)  of  Lamia. 
For,  whereas  they  imagine  Heu  taceo  to  be  a  sigh  of 
his, — the  record  and  indication  of  a  sorrow,  great 
though  concealed,  on  behalf  of  the  wife  that  had 
been  violently  torn  away  from  him,  —  me,  I  confess, 
the  case  does  not  strike  in  that  light ;  but  rather 
that  a  satiric  blow  was  aimed  at  the  despotism  of 
the  sovereign  prince,  who  tore  away  from  their  pos- 
sessors all  objects  whatsoever  marked  by  beauty  oi 
distinguished  merit  in  their  own  peculiar  class ; 
whence  arose  a  pressure  of  necessity  for  dissembling 
and  hiding  their  own  advantages.  ^' Sic  esse  ex- 
ponendum/'  that  such  is  the  true  interpretation  (con- 
tinues Casaubon,)  decent  ilia  verba  [laudanti  vocem 
suam]  (we  are  instructed  by  these  words),  [to  one 
who  praised  his  singing  voice,  &c.] 


i^ELIUS  LAMIA. 


583 


This  commentary  was  obscure  enough,  and  did  no 
particular  honor  to  the  native  good  sense  of  Isaac 
Casaubon,  usually  so  conspicuous.  For,  whilst  pro- 
claiming a  settlement,  in  reality  it  settled  nothing. 
Naturally,  it  made  but  a  feeble  impression  upon  the 
scholars  of  the  day  ;  and  not  long  after  the  publica- 
tion of  the  book,  Casaubon  received  from  Joseph 
Scaliger  a  friendly  but  gasconading  letter,  in  which 
that  great  scholar  brought  forward  a  new  reading  — 
namely,  evruicTM,  to  which  he  assigned  a  profound 
technical  value  as  a  musical  term.  No  person  even 
affected  to  understand  Scaliger.  Casaubon  himself, 
while  treating  so  celebi*ated  a  man  with  kind  and 
considerate  deference,  yet  frankly  owned  that,  in  all 
his  vast  reading,  he  had  never  met  with  this  Greek 
word  in  such  a  sense.  But,  without  entering  into 
any  dispute  upon  that  verbal  question,  and  conced- 
ing to  Scaliger  the  word  and  his  own  interpretation 
of  the  word,  no  man  could  understand  in  what  way 
this  new  resource  was  meant  to  affect  the  ultimate 
[uestion  at  issue  —  namely,  the  extrication  of  the 
passage  from  that  thick  darkness  which  overshad- 
owed it. 

As  you  were^^  (to  speak  in  the  phraseology  of 
military  drill),  was  in  effect  the  word  of  command. 
All  things  reverted  to  their  original  condition  ;  and 
two  centuries  of  darkness  again  enveloped  this  un- 
solved or  insoluble  perplexity  of  Roman  literature. 
The  darkness  had  for  a  few  moments  seemed  to  be 
unsettling  itself  in  preparation  for  flight ;  but  imme- 
diately it  rolled  back  again  ;  and  through  seven  gen- 
erations  of  men  this  darkness  was  heavier,  because 


584 


AELIUS  LAMIA. 


now  loaded  with  disappointment,  and  in  that  degree 
less  hopeful  than  before. 

At  length  then,  I  believe,  all  things  are  re^dy  foi 
the  explosion  of  a  catastrophe :  "  Which  catas- 
trophe,'' I  hear  some  malicious  reader  whispering, 
'  is  doubtless  destined  to  glorify  himself  (meaning 
the  unworthy  writer  of  this  little  paper).  I  cannot 
deny  it.  A  truth  is  a  truth.  And,  since  no  medal, 
nor  ribbon,  nor  cross  of  any  known  order,  is  disposa- 
ble for  the  most  brilliant  successes  in  dealing  with 
desperate  (or  what  may  be  called  condemned)  pas- 
sages in  pagan  literature,  —  mere  sloughs  of  despond 
that  yawn  across  the  pages  of  many  a  heathen  dog, 
poet  and  orator,  that  1  could  mention,  —  so  much  the 
more  reasonable  it  is  that  a  large  allowance  should 
be  served  out  of  boasting  and  self-glorification  to  all 
those  whose  merits  upon  this  field  national  govern- 
ments have  neglected  to  proclaim.  The  Scaligers, 
both  father  and  son,  I  believe,  acted  upon  this  doc- 
trine ;  and  drew  largely  by  anticipation  upon  that 
leversionary  bank  which  they  conceived  to  be  an- 
swerable for  such  drafts.  Joseph  Scaliger,  it  strikes 
me,  was  drunk  when  he  wrote  his  letter  on  the  pres- 
ent occasion,  and  in  that  way  failed  to  see  (what 
Casaubon  saw  clearly  enough)  that  he  had  com- 
menced shouting  before  he  was  out  of  the  wood. 
For  my  own  part,  if  I  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  the 
result  promises,  in  the  Frenchman's  phrase,  ''to 
cover  me  with  glory,"  I  beg  the  reader  to  remember 
that  the  idea  of  "  covering"  is  of  most  variable  ex- 
tent. The  glory  may  envelop  one  in  a  voluminous 
robe,  a  princely  mantle  that  may  require  a  long  suite 


AELIUS  LAMIA. 


585 


f)f  train-bearers,  or  may  pinch  and  vice  one's  arms 
into  that  succinct  garment  (now  superannuated) 
which  some  eighty  years  ago  drew  its  name  from  the 
distinguished  Whig  family  in  England  of  Spencer. 

All  being  now  ready,  and  the  arena  being  cleared 
of  competitors  (for  I  suppose  it  is  fully  understood 
that  everybody  but  myself  has  retired  from  the  con- 
gest), let  it  be  clearly  understood  what  it  is  that  the 
contest  turns  upon.  Supposing  that  one  had  been 
called,  like  ffidipus  of  old,  to  a  turn-up  with  that 
venerable  girl  the  Sphinx,  most  essential  it  would 
have  been  that  the  clerk  of  the  course  (or  however 
you  designate  the  judge,  the  umpire,  &c.)  should 
have  read  the  riddle  propounded  ;  how  else  judge  of 
the  solution  ?  At  present  the  elements  of  the  case 
to  be  decided  stand  thus  : 

A  Roman  noble,  a  man  in  fact  of  senatorial  rank, 
has  been  robbed,  robbed  with  violence,  and  with 
cruel  scorn,  of  a  lovely  young  wife,  to  whom  he  was 
most  tenderly  attached.  But  by  whom  ?  the  indig- 
uant  reader  demands.    By  a  younger  son^  of  the 


*  But  holding  what  rank,  and  what  precise  station,  at  the  time 
of  the  outrage?  At  this  point  I  acknowledge  a  difficulty.  The 
sriminal  was  ixi  this  case  Domitian,  the  younger  son  of  the  tenth 
Caesar,  namely,  of  Vespasian  ;  2dly,  younger  brother  of  Titus, 
fhe  eleventh  Caesar  ;  and  himself,  3dly,  under  the  name  of  Domi- 
tian, the  twelfth  of  the  Caesars.  Now,  the  difficulty  lies  here, 
iv^hich  yet  I  have  never  seen  noticed  in  any  book  :  was  this  violence 
perpetrated  before  or  after  Domitian's  assumption  of  the  purple? 
U  after,  how,  then,  could  the  injured  husband  have  received  that 
advice  from  Titus  (as  to  repairing  his  loss  by  a  second  marriage), 
which  suggested  the  earliest  boa-mot  between  Titus  and  Lamia? 


586 


AELIUS  LAMIA. 


Roman  Emperor  Vespasian.  For  some  years  the 
wrong  has  been  borne  in  silence.  The  sullerer  knew 
himself  to  be  powerless  as  against  such  an  oppres- 
sor ;  and  that  to  show  symptoms  of  impotent  hatred 
was  but  to  call  down  thunderbolts  upon  his  own 
head.  Generally,  therefore,  prudence  had  guided 
him.  Patience  had  been  the  word  ;  silence,  and  be- 
low all,  the  deep,  deep  word,  loatcli  and  wait!  It  isf 
however,  an  awful  aggravation  of  such  afflictions, 
that  the  lady  herself  might  have  cooperated  in  the 
later  stages  of  the  tragedy  with  the  purposes  of  the 
imperial  ruiBfian.  Lamia  had  been  suffered  to  live, 
because,  as  a  living  man,  he  yielded  up  into  the  hands 
of  his  tormentor  his  whole  capacity  of  suffering ;  no 
part  of  it  escaped  the  hellish  range  of  his  enemy^a 
eye.    But  this  advantage  for  the  torturer  had  also 


Yet,  again,  if  not  after  but  before,  how  was  it  that  Lamia  had  not 
invoked  the  protection  of  Vespasian,  or  of  Titus  —  the  latter  of 
whom  enjoyed  a  theatrically  fine  reputation  for  equity  and  mod- 
eration ?  By  the  way,  another  bon-mot  arose  out  of  this  brutal 
Domitian's  evil  reputation.  He  had  a  taste  for  petty  cruelties  ; 
especially  upon  the  common  house-fly,  which,  in  the  Syrian  my- 
thology, enjoys  the  condescending  patronage  of  the  god  Belzebub. 
Flies  did  Caesar  massacre,  in  spite  of  Belzebub,  by  bushels  ;  and 
the  carnage  was  the  greater,  because  this  Apollyon  of  flies  was 
always  armed  ;  since  the  metallic  stylus^  with  which  the  Roman 
ploughed  his  waxen  tablets  in  writing  memoranda,  was  the  best 
of  weapons  in  a  pitched  battle  with  a  fly  ;  in  fact,  Caesar  had  an 
unfair  advantage.  Meantime  this  habit  of  his  had  become  noto- 
rious ;  and  one  day  a  man,  wishing  for  a  private  audience,  in* 
quired  in  the  antechambers  if  CaBsar  were  alone?  Quite  alone t 
was  the  reply.  Are  you  sure?  Is  nobody  with  him?  '  JVo* 
body    7iot  so  much  as  a  fly  {ne  musca  quidani). 


AELIUS  LAMIA. 


587 


its  weak  and  doubtful  side.  Use  and  monotony 
might  secretly  be  wearing  away  the  edge  of  the 
organs  on  and  through  which  the  corrosion  of  the 
inner  heart  proceeded.  And  when  that  point  was 
reached  —  a  callousness  which  neutralized  the  further 
powers  of  the  tormentor  —  it  then  became  the  true 
policy  of  such  a  fiend  (as  being  his  one  sole  unex- 
hausted resource)  to  inflict  death.  On  the  whole, 
therefore,  putting  together  the  facts  of  the  case,  it 
seems  to  have  been  resolved  that  he  should  die  ;  but 
previously  that  he  should  drink  off  a  final  cup  of  an- 
guish, the  bitterest  that  had  yet  been  offered.  The 
lady  herself,  again,  had  she  also  suffered  in  sympathy 
with  her  martyred  husband  ?  That  must  have  been 
known  to  a  certainty  in  the  outset  of  the  case  by  him 
that  knew  too  profoundly  on  what  terms  of  love  they 
had  lived.  Possibly  to  resist  indefinitely  might  have 
menaced  herself  with  ruin,  whilst  offering  no  benefit 
to  her  husband.  There  is  besides  this  dreadful  fact, 
placed  ten  thousand  times  on  record,  that  the  very 
goodness  of  the  human  heart  in  such  a  case  ministers 
fuel  to  the  moral  degradation  of  a  female  combatant. 
Any  woman,  and  exactly  in  proportion  to  the  moral 
sensibility  of  her  nature,  finds  it  painful  to  live  in 
the  same  house  with  a  man  not  odiously  repulsive  in 
manners  or  in  person  on  terms  of  eternal  hostility. 
What  it  was  circumstantially  that  passed,  long  since 
has  been  overtaken  and  swallowed  up  by  the  vast 
oblivions  of  time.  This  only  survives  —  namely, 
that  what  Lamia  had  said  gave  signal  offence  in  the 
highest  quarter,  was  ^.lot  forgotten,  and  that  his  death 
followed  eventually.    But  what  was  it  that  he  did 


588 


AELIUS  LAMIA. 


say  ?  That  is  precisely  the  question,  and  the  whole 
question  which  we  have  to  answer.  At  present  we 
know,  and  we  do  not  know,  what  it  was  that  he  said. 
We  find  bequeathed  to  us  by  history  the  munificent 
legacy  of  two  words  —  involving  eight  letters  ~ 
which  in  their  present  form,  with  submission  to  cer 
tain  grandees  of  classic  literature,  more  particularly 
to  the  scoundrel  Joe  Scaliger  (son  of  the  old  original 
ruffian,  J.  0.  Scaliger),  mean  exactly  nothing.  These 
two  words  must  be  regarded  as  the  raw  material 
upon  which  we  have  to  work  ;  and  out  of  these  we 
are  required  to  turn  out  a  rational,  but  also,  be  it 
observed,  a  memorably  caustic  saying  for  Aelius 
Lamia,  under  the  following  five  conditions  :  First,  it 
must  allude  to  his  wife,  as  one  that  is  lost  to  him 
irrecoverably  ;  secondly,  it  must  glance  at  a  gloomy 
tyrant  v^ho  bars  him  from  rejoining  her;  thirdly,  it 
must  reply  to  the  compliment  which  had  been  paid 
to  the  sweetness  of  his  own  voice  ;  fourthly,  it  should 
in  strictness  contain  some  allusion  calculated  not 
only  to  irritate,  but  even  to  alarm  or  threaten  his 
jealous  and  vigilant  enemy,  else  how  was  it  suspi- 
cious ?  fifthly,  doing  all  these  things,  it  ought  also 
to  absorb,  as  its  own  main  elements,  the  .eight  letters 
contained  in  the  present  senseless  words  —  Heu 

Here  is  a  monstrous  quantity  of  work  to  throw 
upon  any  two  words  in  any  possible  language. 
Even  Shakspeare^s  clown,*  when  challoDged  to  fur- 
nish a  catholic  answer  applicable  to  all  conceivable 


*  See  All 's  Well  that  Ends  Well,  Act  ii..  Scene  2. 


AELIUS  LAMIA. 


589 


occasions,  cannot  do  it  in  less  -than  nine  letters, 
namely,  0  lord,  sir!  I,  for  my  part,  satisfied  that 
the  existing"  form  of  Heu  taceo  was  mere  indict- 
able and  punishable  nonsense,  but  yet  that  this  non- 
sense must  enter  as  chief  element  into  the  stinging 
sense  of  Lamia,  gazed  for  I  cannot  tell  how  many 
weeks  (weeks,  indeed  1  say  years)  at  these  im- 
pregnable letters,  viewing  them  sometimes  as  a  for- 
tress that  I  was  called  upon  to  escalade,  sometimes 
as  an  anagram  that  I  was  called  upon  to  reorganize 
into  the  life  which  it  had  lost  through  some  disloca- 
tion of  arrangement.  One  day  I  looked  at  it  through 
a  microscope  ;  next  day  I  looked  at  it  from  a  dis- 
tance through  a  telescope.  Then  I  reconnoitred  it 
downwards  from  the  top  round  of  a  ladder  ;  then 
upwards,  in  partnership  with  Truth,  from  the  bottom 
of  a  well.  Finally,  the  result  in  which  I  landed, 
and  which  fulfilled  all  the  conditions  laid  down,  was 
this  :  Let  me  premise,  however,  what  at  any  rate  the 
existing  darkness  attests,  that  some  disturbance  of 
the  text  must  in  some  way  have  arisen,  whether 
from  the  gnawing  of  a  rat,  or  the  spilling  of  some 
obliterating  fluid  at  this  point  of  some  unique  MS. 
It  is  sufficient  for  ns  that  the  vital  word  has  sur- 
vived. I  suppose,  therefore,  that  Lamia  had  replied 
to  the  friend  who  praised  the  sweetness  of  his  voice. 
Sweet,  is  it  ?  Ah,  would  to  Heaven  it  might  prove 
w  sweet  as  to  be  even  Orpheutic  !  Ominous  m 
this  case  would  be  the  word  Orpheutic  to  the  ears 
of  Domitian  ;  for  every  schoolboy  knows  that  this 
means  a  wift-) -revoking  voice.  Let  me  remark  that 
there  is  such  a  legitimate  word  as  Orphcuiaceam  ; 


590 


AELIUS  LAMIA. 


and  in  that  case  the  Latin  repartee  of  Lamia  would 
stand  thus  :  Suavem  dixisti  ?  Quam  vellern  ei  Orpheu- 
taceam.  But,  perhaps,  reader,  you  fail  to  recognize 
in  this  form  our  old  friend  JHeu  taceo.  But  here  he  is 
to  a  certainty,  in  spite  of  the  rat  ;  and  in  a  different 
-^form  of  letters  the  compositor  will  show  him  up  to 
you,  as  vellern  et  Orp  [HEU  TACEAM].  Here, 
then,  shines  out  at  once,  (1)  Eurydice  the  lovely 
wife  ;  (2)  detained  by  the  gloomy  tyrant  Pluto  ;  (3) 
who,  however,  is  forced  into  surrendering  her  to  her 
husband,  whose  voice  (the  sweetest  ever  known) 
drew  stocks  and  stones  to  follow  him,  and  finally  his 
wife  ;  (4)  the  word  Orpheutic  involves,  therefore,  an 
alarming  threat,  showing  that  the  hope  of  recovering 
the  lady  still  survived  ;  (5)  we  now  find  involved 
in  the  restoration  all  the  eight,  or  perhaps  nine,  let- 
ters of  the  erroneous  (and  for  so  long  a  time  unintel 
ligible)  form. 


NOTES. 


Note  1.   Page  9. 

"  A  miJUon  and  a  half^^  which  was  the  true  numerical  return 
of  popuhition  from  the  English  capital  about  twenty  years  back, 
when  this  paper  was  written.  At  present,  and  for  some  time, 
it  has  stood  at  two  millions  plus  as  many  thousands  as  express 
the  days  of  a  solar  year.  But,  if  adjusted  to  meet  the  correc- 
tions due  upon  the  annual  growths  of  the  people,  in  that  case 
the  true  return  must  now  (viz.,  January  of  the  year  18.59)  show 
a  considerable  excess  beyond  two  and  a  lialf  millions.  Do  we 
mean  to  assert,  then,  that  the  ancient  Kome  of  the  Ciesars,  that 
mighty  ancestral  forerunner  of  the  Papal  Kome,  which,  in  this 
year  18.i9,  counts  about  180,000  citizens  (or,  in  fact,  above  Edin- 
burgh by  a  trifle ;  by  200,000  below  Glasgow ;  by  150,000  below 
Manchester),  did  in  reality  ever  surmount  numerically  the  now 
awful  London  ?  Is  that  what  we  mean  ?  Yes ;  that  is  what 
we  mean.  We  must  remember  the  prodigious  area  which  Rome 
stretched  over.  We  must  remember  that  feature  in  tlie  Roman 
domestic  architecture  (so  impressively  insisted  on  by  the  rhetor- 
ician Aristides),  in  which  the  ancient  Rome  resembled  the  an- 
cient Edinburgh,  and  so  far  greatly  eclipsed  London,  viz.,  the 
vast  ascending  series  of  stories,  laying  stratum  upon  stratum, 
tier  upon  tier,  of  men  and  women,  as  in  some  mighty  theatre  of 
human  hives  Not  .that  London  is  deficient  in  thousands  of 
lofty  streets ;  but  the  stories  rarely  ascend  beyond  the  fourth, 
or,  at  most,  the  fifth  ;  whereas  the  old  Rome  and  the  old  Edin- 
burgh counted  at  intervals  by  sevens  or  even  tens.  This  element 
in  the  calculation  being  allowed  for,  perhaps  the  four  millions 
Df  Lipsius  may  seem  a  reasonable  population  for  the  flourishing 
days  of  Caesarian  Rome,  which  ran  far  ahead  of  Republican 
Rome.    On  this  assumption,  Rome  will  take  the  Jirst  place, 


592 


NOTES. 


London  (as  it  now  is)  the  second,  Paris  (of  to-day)  the  thirds 
New  York  (800,000),  and  probably  the  ancient  Alexandria,  the 
fourth  places  on  the  world's  re*gister  of  mighty  metropolitan 
cities.  Babylon  and  Nineveh  are  too  entirely  within  the  ex- 
aggerating influences  of  misty  traditions  and  nursery  fables, 
like  the  vapoury  exhalations  of  tbe  Fata  Morgana  —  a  species 
of  delusion  resting  upon  a  primary  basis  of  reality,  but  repeat- 
ing this  reality  so  often,  through  endless  self-multiplication,  by 
means  of  optical  reflection  and  refraction,  that  the  final  result 
is  little  better  than  absolute  fiction.  And  universally  with 
regard  to  Asiatic  cities  (above  all,  with  regard  to  Chinese 
cities),  the  reader  must  carry  with  him  these  cautions:  — 

\st,  That  Asiatics,  with  rare  exceptions,  have  little  regard  for 
truth  :  by  habit  and  policy  they  are  even  more  mendacious  than 
they  are  perfidious.  Fidelity  to  engagements,  sincerity,  and 
disinterested  veracity,  rank,  in  Oriental  estimates,  as  the  per- 
fection of  idiocy. 

2d,  That,  hav  ing  no  liberal  curiosity,  the  Chinese  man  never 
troubles  his  head  about  the  statistical  circumstances  of  his  own 
city,  province,  or  natal  territory.  Such  researches  he  would 
regard  as  ploughing  the  sands  of  the  sea-shore,  or  counting  the 
waves. 

3c/,  That  two  grounds  of  falsification  being  thus  laid,  in  (A) 
the  ostentatious  mendacity,  and  (B)  which  glories  in  its  own 
blindness,  the  ignorance  of  all  those  who  ought  to  be  authorities 
upon  such  questions,  a  third  ground  arises  naturally  from  the 
peculiar  and  special  character  of  Eastern  cities,  which,  for  all 
European  ears,  too  readily  aids  in  misleading.  Too  often  such 
cities  are  improvised  by  means  of  mud,  turf,  light  spars,  canvas, 
&c.  Hibernian  cabins,  Scotch  bothies  (which  word  is  radically 
the  same  as  the  booth  of  Eugli>h  fairs),  hovels  for  sheltering 
cattle  from  the  weather,  —  or  buildiniis  of  a  similar  style  and 
fugitive  make-shift  character,  under  the  hurried  workmanship 
of  three  or  four  hundred  thousand  men,  run  up  within  a  single 
forenoon  a  perishable  town  that  meets  the  necessities  of  a  south- 
ern climate.  Schiller,  in  his.  "  Wallens  ein,*'*  sketches  such  a 
light  canvas  town  as  the  hurried  extempore  creation  of  soldiers. 
Bchjller's  description  is  a  sketch ;  and  such  a  military  creation 


NOTES. 


593 


is  itself  but  a  sketch  of  a  regular  and  finished  town.  Military 
hy  its  first  outline  and  suggestion,  such  a  frail  scenical  town 
always  retains  its  military  make-shift  character  ;  and  is,  in  fact, 
to  the  very  last,  an  encampment  of  gipsies  or  migrating  trav- 
ellers, rather  than  an  architectural  residence  of  settlers  who 
have  ceased  from  vagrancy.  Even  as  an  improvised  home,  such 
a  stage  mimicry  of  a  city  could  find  toleration  only  in  a  warm 
climate.  But  such  a  climate,  and  such  slender  masquerading 
abodes,  are  found  throughout  the  Northern  Tropic  in  the  south- 
ern regions  of  Asia. 

Note  2.    Page  10. 
Or  even  of  modern  wit;  witness  the  vain  attempt  of  so  manj 
eminent  jcti,  and  illustrious  Jintecessors^  to  explain  in  self-con- 
Bistency  the  dilfering  functions  of  the  Roman  Csesar,  and  in  what 
sense  he  was  legibtcs  solutus. 

Note  3.    Page  12. 

*  JVameless  city.'  —  The  true  name  of  Rome  it  was  a  point  of 
religion  to  conceal;  and,  in  fact,  it  was  never  revealed. 

Note  4.  Page  16. 
This  we  mention,  because  a  great  error  has  been  sometimes 
committed  in  exposing  their  error,  that  consisted,  not  in  suppos- 
ing that  f6r  a  fifth  time  men  were  to  be  gathered  under  one 
Bceptre,  and  that  sceptre  wielded  by  Jesus  Christ,  but  in  sup- 
posing that  this  great  era  had  then  arrived,  or  that  with  no 
deeper  moral  revolution  men  could  be  fitted  for  that  yoke. 

Note  6.    Page  20. 

*  Of  ancient  days,^ — For  it  is  remarkable,  and  it  serves  to 
mark  an  indubitable  progress  of  mankind,  that,  before  the  Chris- 
tian era,  famines  were  of  frequent  occurrence  in  countries  the 
most  civilized;  afterwards  the.y  became  rare,  and  latterly  have 
entirely  altered  their  character  into  occasional  dearths. 


594 


NOTES. 


Note  6.  Page  20. 
Unless  that  hand  were  her  own  armed  against  herself ;  upon 
which  topic  there  is  a  burst  of  noble  eloquence  in  one  of  the  an- 
cient Panegyrici,  when  haranguing  the  Emperor  Theodosius  :  — 
'  Thou,  Rome  !  that,  having  once  suffered  by  the  madness  of  Cinna, 
and  of  the  cruel  Marius  raging  from  banishment,  and  of  Sylla, 
that  won  his  wreath  of  prosperity  from  thy  disasters,  and  cf 
CaBsar,  compassionate  to  the  dead,  didst  shudder  at  every  blast  of 
the  trumpet  filled  by  the  breath  of  civil  commotion,  —  thou,  that, 
besides  the  wreck  of  thy  soldiery  perishing  on  either  side,  didst 
bewail,  amongst  thy  spectacles  of  domestic  woe,  the  luminaries  of 
thy  senate  extinguished,  the  heads  of  thy  consuls  fixed  upon  a 
halberd,  weeping  for  ages  over  thy  self-slaughtered  Catos,  thy 
headless  Ciceros  {truncosque  Cicerones) ,  and  unburied  Pompeys: 
—  to  whom  the  party  madness  of  thy  own  children  had  wrought 
in  every  age  heavier  woe  than  the  Carthaginian  thundering  at  thy 
gates,  or  the  Gaul  admitted  within  thy  walls;  on  whom  OEmathia, 
more  fatal  than  the  day  of  Allia,  —  CoUina,  more  dismal  than 
Cannae,  —  had  inflicted  such  deep  memorials  of  wounds,  that, 
from  bitter  experience  of  thy  own  valor,  no  enemy  was  to  thee  so 
formidable  as  thyself;  —  thou,  Rome  !  didst  now  for  the  first  time 
Dehold  a  civil  war  issuing  in  a  hallowed  prosperity,  a  soldiery 
appeased,  recovered  Italy,  and  for  thyself  liberty  established. 
Now  first  in  thy  long  annals  thou  didst  rest  from  a  .civil  war  in 
such  a  peace,  that  righteously,  and  with  maternal  tenderness, 
thou  mightst  claim  for  it  the  honors  of  a  civic  triumph.' 

Note  7.    Page  23. 
The  fact  is,  that  the  emperor  was  more  of  a  sacred  and  divine 
creature  in  his  lifetime  than  after  his  death.    His  consecrated 
character  as  a  living  ruler  was  a  truth;  his  canonization,  a 
fiction  of  tenderness  to  his  memory. 

Note  8.    Page  88. 
It  is  an  interesting  circumstance  in  the  habits  of  the  ancient 
Romans,  that  their  journeys  were  pursued  very  much  in  the 
night-time,  and  by  torch-light.    Cicero,  in  one  of  his  letters, 
speaks  of  passing  through  the  towns  of  Italy  by  night,  as  a  ser- 


NOTiSS. 


595 


viceable  scheme  for  some  political  purpose,  either  of  avoiding  too 
much  to  publish  his  motions,  or  of  evading  the  necessity  (else 
perhaps  not  avoidable),  of  drawing  out  the  party  sentiments  of 
the  magistrates  in  the  circumstances  of  honor  or  neglect  with 
which  they  might  choose  to  receive  him.  His  words,  however, 
imply  that  the  practice  was  by  no  means  an  uncommon  one. 
And,  indeed,  from  some  passages  in  writers  of  the  Augustan  era, 
it  would  seem  that  this  custom  was  not  confined  to  people  of  dis- 
tinction, but  was  familiar  to  a  class  of  travellers  so  low  in  rank 
as  to  be  capable  of  abusing  their  opportunities  of  concealment  for 
the  infliction  of  wanton  injury  upon  the  woods  and  fences  which 
bounded  the  margin  of  the  high-road.  Under  the  cloud  of  night 
and  solitude,  the  mischief-loving  traveller  was  often  in  the  habit 
of  applying  his  torch  to  the  withered  boughs  of  woods,  or  to  arti- 
ficial hedges;  and  extensive  ravages  by  fire,  such  as  now  happen 
not  unfrequently  in  the  American  woods,  (but  generally  from 
carelessness  in  scattering  the  glowing  embers  of  a  fire,  or  even 
the  ashes  of  a  pipe,)  were  then  occasionally  the  result  of  mere 
wantonness  of  mischief  Ovid  accordingly  notices,  as  one  amongst 
the  familiar  images  of  daybreak,  the  half-burnt  torch  of  the  trav- 
eller; and,  apparently,  from  the  position  which  it  holds  in  his 
description,  where  it  is  ranked  with  the  most  familiar  of  all  cir- 
cumstances in  all  countries,  —  that  of  the  rural  laborer  going  out 
to  his  morning  tasks,  —  it  must  have  been  common  indeed  : 

*  Semiustamque  ficem  vigilata  nocte  viator 
Ponet;  et  ad  solitum  rusticus  ibit  opus.' 

This  occurs  in  the  Fasti;  —  elsewhere  he  notices  it  for  its 
danger : 

*  Ut  facibus  sepes  ardent,  cum  forte  viator 
Vel  nimis  admovit,  vel  jam  sub  luce  reliquit.' 

He,  however,  we  see,  good-naturedly  ascribes  the  danger  to  mere 
carelessness,  in  bringing  the  torch  too  near  to  the  hedge,  or  tossing 
it  away  at  daybreak.  But  Varro,  a  more  matter-of-fact  observer, 
does  not  disguise  the  plain  truth,  that  these  disasters  were  often 
the  product  of  pure  malicious  frolic.  For  instance,  in  recom- 
mending a  certain  kind  of  quickset  fence,  he  insists  upon  it,  as 
one  of  its  advantages,  that  it  will  not  readily  ignite  under  the 


596 


NOTES. 


torch  of  the  mischievous  wayfarer;  *  Naturale  sepimentum,'  says 
he,  *quod  obseri  solet  virgultis  aut  spinis,  prcBtereuntis  lascivi 
non  metuet  facem.''  It  is  not  easy  to  see  the  origin  or  advantage 
of  this  practice  of  nocturnal  travelling  (which  must  have  consid- 
erably increased  the  hazards  of  a  journey),  excepting  only  in  the 
heats  of  summer.  It  is  probable,  however,  that  men  of  high 
rank  and  public  station  may  have  introduced  the  practice  by  way 
of  releasing  corporate  bodies  in  large  towns  from  the  burdensome 
ceremonies  of  public  receptions ;  thus  making  a  compromise 
between  their  own  dignity  and  the  convenience  of  the  provincial 
public.  Once  introduced,  and  the  arrangements  upon  the  road 
for  meeting  the  wants  of  travellers  once  adapted  to  such  a  prac- 
tice, it  would  easily  become  universal.  It  is,  however,  very  pos- 
sible that  mere  horror  of  the  heats  of  day-time  may  have  been  the 
original  ground  for  it.  The  ancients  appear  to  have  shrunk  from 
no  hardship  so  trying  and  insufferable  as  that  of  heat.  And  in 
relation  to  that  subject,  it  is  interesting  to  observe  the  way  in 
which  the  ordinary  use  of  language  has  accommodated  itself  to 
that  feeling.  Our  northern  way  of  expressing  effeminacy  is  de- 
rived chiefly  from  the  hardships  of  cold.  He  that  shrinks  from 
the  trials  and  rough  experience  of  real  life  in  any  department,  is 
described  by  the  contemptuous  prefix  of  chimney-corner,  as  if 
shrinking  from  the  cold  which  he  would  meet  on  coming  out  into 
the  open  air  amongst  his  fellow-men.  Thus,  a  chimney-corner 
politician,  for  a  mere  speculator  or  unpractical  dreamer.  But 
the  very  same  indolent  habit  of  aerial  speculation,  which  courts 
no  test  of  real  life  and  practice,  is  described  by  the  ancients  under 
the  term  umbraciicus,  or  seeking  the  cool  shade,  and  shrinking 
from  the  heat.  Thus,  an  umbracticus  doctor  is  one  who  has  no 
practical  solidity  in  his  teaching.  The  fatigue  and  hardship  of 
real  life,  in  short,  is  represented  by  the  ancients  under  the  uni- 
form image  of  heat,  and  by  the  moderns  under  that  of  cold. 

Note  9.  Page  41 
According  to  Suetonius,  the  circumstances  of  this  memorable 
night  were  as  follows  :  —  As  soon  as  the  decisive  intelligence  was 
received,  that  the  intrigues  of  his  enemies  had  prevailed  at  Eome, 
and  that  the  interposition  of  the  popular  magistrates  (the  trib- 
unes) was  set  aside,  Caesai  sent  forward  the  troops,  who  were 


NOTES. 


597 


then  at  his  head-quarters,  but  in  as  private  a  manner  as  possible, 
fle  himself,  bj  way  of  masque  {per  dissimulationem) ^  attended 
a  public  spectacle,  gave  an  audience  to  an  architect  who  wished 
to  lay  before  him  a  plan  for  a  school  of  gladiators  which  Caesar 
designed  to  build,  and  finally  presented  himself  at  a  banquet, 
which  was  very  numerously  attended.  From  this,  about  sunset, 
he  set  forward  in  a  carriage,  drawn  by  mules,  and  wdth  a  small 
escort  {modico  cornitatu).  Losing  his  road,  which  was  the  most 
private  he  could  find  {occultissunum),  he  quitted  his  carriage 
and  proceeded  on  foot.  At  dawn  he  met  with  a  guide;  after 
which  followed  the  above  incidents. 

Note  10.  Page  51. 
Middleton's  Life  of  Cicero,  which  still  continues  to  be  the  most 
readable  digest  of  these  affairs,  is  feeble  and  contradictory.  He 
discovers  that  Caesar  w^as  no  general  !  And  the  single  merit 
which  his  work  was  supposed  to  possess,  viz.  the  better  and  more, 
critical  arrangement  of  Cicero's  Letters,  in  respect  to  their 
chronology,  has  of  late  years  been  detected  as  a  robbery  from  the 
celebrated  Bellenden,  of  James  the  First's  time. 

Note  11.  Page  55. 
Suetonius,  speaking  of  this  conspiracy,  says,  that  Caesar  was 
nominatos  inter  socios  CatilineB,  which  has  been  erroneously 
understood  to  mean  that  he  was  talked  of  as  an  accomplice;  but 
in  fact,  as  Casaubon  first  pointed  out,  nominatus  is  a  technical 
term  of  the  Roman  jurisprudence,  and  means  that  he  was  for- 
mally denounced. 

Note  12.    Page  59. 

"  Tall: "  —  Whereas,  to  show  the  lawless  caprices  upon  which 
French  writers  have  endeavoured  to  found  a  brief  notoriety, 
some  contributor  to  the  memoirs  of  fJ Acodemie  des  Inscriptions, 
expressly  asserts,  without  a  vestige  of  countenance  from  any 
authority  whatsoever,  that  Caesar  was  "  several  feet  high,'^  but 
being  "  invited to  circumstantiate,  replied,  "  five  feet  noth- 
ing;'* but  this  being  French  measure,  would  give  him  (if  we 
rightly  remember  the  French  scale),  about  five  times  three- 
fourths  of  an  inch  more.  Nonsense.  Suetonius,  who  stood  so 
near  to  the  Julian  generation,  is  guarantee  for  his  proceritas. 


598 


NOTES. 


Note  13.  Page  64. 
Caesar  had  the  merit  of  being  the  first  person  to  propose  the 
daily  publication  of  the  acts  and  votes  of  the  senate.  In  the  form 
of  public  and  official  despatches,  he  made  also  some  useful  innova- 
tions; and  it  may  be  mentioned,  for  the  curiosity  of  the  incident, 
that  the  cipher  which  he  used  in  his  correspondence,  was  the 
following  very  simple  one  :  —  For  every  letter  of  the  alphabet  he 
Bubstituted  that  which  stood  fourth  removed  from  it  in  the  order 
of  succession.    Thus,  for  A,  he  used  D;  for  D,  G,  and  so  on. 

Note  14.   Page  67. 

"  The  son : "  —  This  is  a  fact  which  we  should  do  well  to  re- 
member more  seriously  than  we  have  ever  done  in  the  cases  of 
Indian  princes  claiming  under  this  title.  The  miscreant  Nana 
Sahib  to  all  appearance  was  really  ill-used  originally  by  us .  was 
he  not  really  and  truly  the  child  by  adoption  of  the  Peishwah  ? 
Let  us  recollect  that  one  of  the  Scipios,  received  for  such  by  the 
whole  Roman  world,  was  really  an  Emilian,  and  a  Scipio  only 
by  adoption. 

Note  15.    Page  80. 
*  The  painful  warrior,  famouscd  for  fight. 
After  a  thousand  victories  once  foil'd. 
Is  from  the  book  of  honor  razed  quite, 

And  all  the  rest  forgot  for  which  he  toil'd.' 

Shakspeare^s  Sonnets 

Note  16.  Page  56. 
And  rhis  was  entirely  by  the  female  side.  The  family  descent 
of  the  first  six  Caesars  is  so  intricate,  that  it  is  rarely  understood 
accurately;  so  that  it  may  be  well  to  state  it  briefly.  Augustus 
was  grand  nephew  to  Julius  Caesar,  being  the  son  of  his  sister's 
daughter.  He  was  also,  by  adoption,  the  son  of  Julius.  He 
himself  had  one  child  only,  viz.  the  infamous  Julia,  who  was 
brought  him  by  his  second  wife  Scribonia;  and  through  this  Julia 
it  was  that  the  three  princes,  who  succeeded  to  Tiberius,  claimed 
relationship  to  Augustus.  On  that  emperor's  last  marriage  with 
Li  via,  he  adopted  the  two  sons  whom  she  had  borne  to  her  di- 


NOTES. 


599 


forced  husband.  These  two  noblemen,  who  stood  in  no  degree 
of  consanguinity  whatever  to  Augustus,  were  Tiberius  and  Drusus. 
Tiberius  left  no  children;  but  Drusus,  the  younger  of  the  two 
brothers,  by  his  marriage  with  the  younger  Antonia  (daughter 
of  Mark  Anthony),  had  the  celebrated  Germanicus,  and  Claudius 
(afterwards  emperor).  Germanicus,  though  adopted  by  his 
uncle  Tiberius,  and  destined  to  the  empire,  died  prematurely. 
But,  like  Banquo,  though  he  wore  no  crown,  he  left  descendants 
who  did.  For,  by  his  marriage  with  Agrippina,  a  daughter  of 
Julia's  by  Agrippa  (and  therefore  grand-daughter  of  Augustus), 
he  had  a  large  family,  of  whom  one  son  became  the  Emperor 
Caligula;  and  one  of  the  daughters,  Agrippina  the  younger,  by 
her  marriage  with  a  Roman  nobleman,  became  the  mother  of  the 
Emperor  Nero.  Hence  it  appears  that  Tiberius  was  uncle  to 
Claudius,  Claudius  was  uncle  to  Caligula,  Caligula  was  uncle  to 
Nero.  But  it  is  observable,  that  Nero  and  Caligula  stood  in 
another  degree  of  consanguinity  to  each  other  through  their 
grandmothers,  who  were  both  daughters  of  Mark  Anthony  the 
triumvir ;  for  the  elder  Antonia  married  the  grandfather  of  Nero ; 
the  younger  Antonia  (as  we  have  stated  above)  married  Drusus, 
the  grandfather  of  Caligula;  and  again,  by  these  two  ladies,  they 
were  connected  not  only  with  each  other,  but  also  with  the  Julian 
house,  for  the  two  Antonias  were  daughters  of  Mark  Anthony  by 
Octavia,  sister  to  Augustus. 

Note  17.    Page  96. 
But  a  memorial  stone,  in  its  inscription,  makes  the  time  longer 
*  Quando  urbs  per  novem  dies  arsit  Neronianis  temporibus.' 

Note  18.  Page  106. 
At  this  early  hour,  witnesses,  sureties,  &c.,  and  all  concerned 
in  the  law  courts,  came  up  to  Rome  from  villas,  country  towns, 
^c.  But  no  ordinary  call  existed  to  summon  travellers  in  the 
opposite  direction;  which  accounts  for  the  comment  of  the  trav- 
ellers on  the  errand  of  Nero  and  his  attendants. 

Note  19.    Page  113. 
We  may  add  that  the  unexampled  public  grief  which  followed 
the  death  of  Otho,  exceeding  even  that  which  followed  the  death 


600 


NOTES. 


of  Germanicus,  and  causing  seyeral  officers  to  commit  suicide, 
implies  some  remarkable  goodness  in  this  Prince,  and  a  very 
unusual  power  of  conciliating  attachment. 

Note  20.  Page  117. 
Blackwell,  in  his  Court  of  Augustus,  vol.  i.  p.  882,  when  no- 
ticing these  lines,  upon  occasion  of  the  murder  of  Cicero,  in  the 
final  proscription  under  the  last  triumvirate,  comments  thus  : 
'  Those  of  the  greatest  and  truly  Roman  spirit  had  been  murdered 
in  the  field  by  Julius  Caesar  :  the  rest  were  now  massacred  in  the 
city  by  his  son  and  successors;  in  their  room  came  Syrians,  Cap- 
padocians,  Phrygians,  and  other  enfranchised  slaves  from  the 
conquered  nations; '  —  *  these  in  half  a  century  had  sunk  so  low, 
that  Tiberius  pronounced  her  very  senators  to  be  homines  ad 
xerviiutem  natosy  men  born  to  be  slaves.' 

Note  21.  Page  117. 
Suetonius  indeed  pretends  that  Augustus,  personally  at  least, 
struggled  against  this  ruinous  practice  —  thinking  it  a  matter  of 
the  highest  moment,  '  Sincerum  atque  ab  omni  coUuvione  pere- 
grini  et  servilis  sanguinis  incorruptum  servare  populum.'  And 
Horace  is  ready  with  his  flatteries  on'  the  same  topic,  lib.  8,  Od.  6. 
But  the  f^icts  are  against  them;  for  the  question  is  not  what 
Augustus  did  in  his  own  person,  i  which  at  most  could  not  operate 
very  widely  except  by  the  example,)  but  what  he  permitted 
to  be  done.  Now  there  was  a  practice  familiar  to  those  times  * 
that  when  a  congiary  or  any  other  popular  liberality  was  an- 
nounced, multitudes  were  enfranchised  by  avaricious  masters  in 
order  to  make  them  capable  of  the  bounty  (as  citizens),  and  yet 
under  the  condition  of  transferring  to  their  emancipators  what- 
soever they  should  receive;  lia  tov  dt;uuoiu)g  didoiiKror  oirov  Xafi- 
^avorjfc  y.ura  inpa — ifxovDOi  roig  (hdoixaoi  Ttjv  tAfi;6fomv,  says 
Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus,  in  order  that  after  receiving  the  corn 
given  publ.cly  in  every  month,  they  might  carry  it  to  those  who 
had  bestowed  upon  them  their  freedom.  In  a  case,  then,  where 
an  extensive  practice  of  this  kind  was  exposed  to  Augustus,  and 
publicly  reproved  by  him,  how  did  he  proceed  ?  Did  he  reject 
the  new-made  citizens  ?  No;  he  contented  himself  with  diminish- 
ing the  proportion  originally  destined  for  each,  so  that  the  same 


NOTES. 


601 


absolute  sum  being  distributed  among;  a  number  increased  by  the 
wbole  amount  of  the  new  enrolments,  of  necessity  the  relative 
sum  for  each  separately  was  so  much  less.  But  this  was  a  rem- 
edy applied  only  to  the  pecuniary  fraud  as  it  would  have  affected 
himself.    The  permanent  mischief  to  the  state  went  unredressed. 

Note  22.  Page  118. 
Part  of  the  story  is  well  known,  but  not  the  whole.  Tiberius 
PJero,  a  promising  young  nobleman,  had  recently  married  a  very 
splendid  beauty.  Unfortunately  for  him,  at  the  marriage  of 
Octavia  ( sister  to  Augustus)  with  Mark  Anthony,  he  allowed  his 
young  wife,  then  about  eighteen,  to  attend  upon  the  bride.  Au- 
gustus was  deeply  and  suddenly  fascinated  by  her  charms,  and 
without  further  scruple  sent  a  message  to  Nero  —  intimating  that 
he  was  in  love  with  his  wife,  and  would  thank  him  to  resign  her. 
The  other,  thinking  it  vain,  in  those  days  of  lawless  proscription, 
to  contest  a  point  of  this  nature  with  one  who  commanded  twelve 
legions,  obeyed  the  requisition.  Upon  some  motive,  now  un- 
known, he  was  persuaded  even  to  degrade  himself  farther;  for  he 
actually  officiated  at  the  marriage  in  character  of  father,  and 
gave  away  the  young  beauty  to  his  rival,  although  at  that  time 
six  months  advanced  in  pregnancy  by  himself  These  humiliat- 
ing concessions  were  extorted  from  him,  and  yielded  (probably 
at  the  instigation  of  friends)  in  order  to  save  his  life.  In  the 
sequel  they  had  the  very  opposite  result;  for  he  died  soon  after, 
and  it  is  reasonably  supposed  of  grief  and  mortification.  At  the 
marriage  feast,  an  incident  occurred  which  threw  the  whole  com- 
pany into  confusicn  :  A  little  boy,  roving  from  couch  to  couch 
among  the  guests,  came  at  length  to  that  in  which  Livia  (the 
bride)  was  lying  by  the  side  of  Augustus,  on  which  he  cried  out 
aloud,  —  *  Lady,  what  are  you  doing  here  ?  You  are  mistaken  — 
this  is  not  your  husband  —  he  is  there,'  (pointing  to  Tiberius,) 
*  go,  go  —  rise,  lady,  and  recline  beside  him,^ 

Note  23.    Page  121. 
Augustus,  indeed,  strove  to  exclude  the  women  from  one  part 
of  the  circension  spectacles;  and  what  was  that?    Simply  from 
the  sight  of  the  Mhletce,  as  being  naked.    But  that  they  should 
witness  the  pangs  of  the  dying  gladiators,  he  deemed  quite  allow- 


602 


NOTES. 


Iible.  The  smooth  barbarian  considered,  that  a  license  of  the 
first  sort  offended  against  decorum,  whilst  the  other  violated  only 
the  sanctities  of  the  human  heart,  and  the  whole  sexual  character 
of  women.  It  is  our  opinion,  that  to  the  brutalizing  effect  of 
these  exhibitions  we  are  to  ascribe,  not  only  the  early  extinction 
of  the  Roman  drama,  but  generally  the  inferiority  of  Rome  to 
Greece  in  every  department  of  the  fine  arts.  The  fine  temper  of 
Roman  sensibility,  which  no  culture  could  have  brought  to  the 
level  of  the  Grecian,  was  thus  dulled  for  every  application. 

Note  24.  Page  130. 
No  fiction  of  romance  presents  so  awful  a  picture  of  the  ideal 
tyrant  as  that  of  Caligula  by  Suetonius.  His  palace  —  radiant 
witli  purple  and  gold,  but  murder  everywhere  lurking  beneath 
flowers;  his  smiles  and  echoing  laughter  —  masking  (yet  hardly 
meant  to  mask)  his  foul  treachery  of  heart;  his  hideous  and  tu- 
multuous dreams  —  his  baffled  sleep  —  and  his  sleepless  nights  — 
compose  the  picture  of  an  ^schylus.  What  a  master's  sketch 
lies  in  these  few  lines:  '  Incitabatur  insomnio  maxime;  neque 
enim  plus  tribus  horis  nocturnis  quiescebat;  ac  ne  his  placida 
quiete,  at  pavida  miris  rerum  imaginibus;  ut  qui  inter  ceteras 
pelagi  quondam  speciem  colloquentem  secum  videre  visus  sit. 
Ideoque  magna  parte  noctis,  vigilae  cubandique  taedio,  nunc  toro 
residens,  nunc  per  longissimas  portions  vagus,  invocare  identi- 
dem  atque  exspectare  lucem  consueverat : '  —  i,  e.  *  But,  above 
all,  he  was  tormented  with  nervous  irritation,  by  sleeplessness  ; 
for  he  enjoyed  not  more  than  three  hours  of  nocturnal  repose  ; 
nor  these  even  in  pure  untroubled  rest,  but  agitated  by  phantas- 
mata  of  portentous  augury;  as,  for  example,  upon  one  occasion 
he  fancied  that  he  saw  the  sea,  under  some  definite  impersona- 
tion, conversing  with  himself.  Hence  it  was,  and  from  this  in- 
capacity of  sleeping,  and  from  weariness  of  lying  awake,  that  he 
had  fallen  into  habits  of  ranging  all  the  night  long  through  the 
palace,  sometimes  throwing  himself  on  a  couch,  sometimes  wan- 
dering along  the  vast  corridors,  watching  for  the  earliest  dawn, 
and  anxiously  invoking  its  approach. 


KOTES. 


603 


Note  25.    Page  131. 

"  The  five  Cccsars:  "  —  Namely,  Nerva,  Trajan,  Hadrian,  and 
:he  two  Antouines,  Pius,  and  his  adopted  son,  Marcus  Aurelius. 

Note  26.   Page  132 
And  hence  we  may  the  better  estimate  the  trial  to  a  Roman's 
feelings  in  the  personal  deformity  of  baldness,  connected  with  the 
Roman  theory  of  its  cause,  for  the  exposure  of  it  was  perpetual. 

Note  27.    Page  133. 
*  Expeditiones  sub  eo,'  says  Spartian,  '  graves  nullse  fuerunt. 
Bella  etiam  silentio  pene  transacts.'    But  he  does  not  the  less 
add,  '  A  militibus,  propter  curam  exercitus  nimiam,  multum 
amatus  est.' 

Note  28.  Page  134. 
In  the  true  spirit  of  Parisian  mummery,  Bonaparte  caused 
letters  to  be  written  from  the  War-office,  in  his  own  name,  to 
particular  soldiers  of  high  military  reputation  in  every  brigade, 
(whose  private  history  he  had  previously  caused  to  be  investi- 
gated,) alluding  circumstantially  to  the  leading  facts  in  their 
personal  or  fam  ly  career;  a  furlough  accompanied  this  letter, 
and  they  were  requested  to  repair  to  Paris,  where  the  emperor 
anxiously  desired  to  see  them.  Thus  was  the  paternal  interest 
expressed,  which  their  leader  took  in  each  man's  fortunes  and 
ihe  eflect  of  every  such  letter,  it  was  not  dc7;bted,  would  diffuse 
itself  through  ten  thousand  other  men. 

Note  29.    Page  135. 

'  War  in  procinct '  —  a  phrase  of  Milton's  in  Paradise  Re- 
gained, which  strikingly  illustrates  his  love  of  Latin  phraseology; 
for  unless  to  a  scholar,  previously  acquainted  with  the  Latin 
phrase  of  in  procinctu,  it  is  so  absolutely  unintelligible  as  to 
Vnterrupt  the  current  of  the  feeling. 


604 


NOTES. 


Note  30.    Page  138. 

*  Crypts  '  —  these,  which  Spartian,  in  his  life  of  Hadrian, 
denominates  simply  cryptcB,  are  the  same  which,  in  the  Roman 
jurisprudence,  and  in  the  architectural  works  of  the  Eomans, 
yet  surviving,  are  termed  hypogcea  deambulationes,  i.  e.  subter« 
ranean  parades.  Vitruvius  treats  of  this  luxurious  class  of 
apartments  in  connection  with  the  Apothecc^,  and  other  reposi- 
tories or  store-rooms,  which  were  also  in  many  cases  under- 
ground, (for  the  same  reason  as  our  ice-houses,  wme-cellars,  &c. 
He  (and  from  him  Pliny  and  Apollonaris  Sidonius)  calls  them 
crypto-porticus  (cloistral  colonnades) ;  and  Ulpian  calls  them 
refugia  (sanctuaries,  or  places  of  refuge) ;  St.  Ambrose  notices 
them  under  the  name  of  hypogcea  and  umbrosa  penetralia^  as  the 
resorts  of  voluptuaries  :  Luxuriosormn  est,  says  he,  hypogcea 
qucerere  —  captantium  frigus  (Bstivum;  and  again  he  speaks  of 
desidiosi  qui  ignava  sub  terris  agant  otia. 

Note  31.    Page  136. 

*  The  topiary  arf*  —  so  called,  as  Salmasius  thinks,  from 
T07Ti]iov,  a  rope;  because  the  process  of  construction  was  con- 
ducted chiefly  by  means  of  cords  and  strings.  This  art  was 
much  practised  in  the  1 7  th  century ;  and  Casaubon  describes  one, 
which  existed  in  his  early  days  somewhere  in  the  suburbs  of 
Paris,  on  so  elaborate  a  scale,  that  it  represented  Troy  besieged, 
with  the  two  hosts,  their  several  leaders,  and  all  other  objects  in 
their  full  proportion. 

Note  32.    Page  136. 

"  Miss  Linwood:  —  Alas!  Fuit  Ilium;  and  it  has  actually 
become  necessary,  in  a  generation  that  knew  not  Joseph,  that 
we  should  tell  the  reader  who  was  Miss  Linwood.  For  many  a 
long  year  between  1800  and  perhaps  1835  or  1840,  she  had  in 
Leicester  Square,  London,  a  most  gorgeous  exhibition  of  needle- 
work —  arras  that  by  its  exquisite  effects  ri stalled  the  works  of 
mighty  painters. 

Note  33.    Page  137. 
Very  remarkable  it  is,  and  a  fact  which  speaks  volumes  as  to 
Uie  democratic  constitution  of  the  Koman  army,  in  the  midst  of 


jSrOTES. 


605 


uhat  aristocracy  which  enveloped  its  parent  state  in  a  civil  sense, 
that  although  there  was  a  name  for  a  common  soldier  (or  senti- 
nel,  as  he  was  termed  by  our  ancestors)  —  viz.  miles  gregarius, 
or  miles  manipularis  —  there  was  none  for  an  officer  ;  that  is  to 
say,  each  several  rank  of  officers  had  a  name;  but  there  was  no 
generalization  to  express  the  idea  of  an  officer  abstracted  from 
its  several  species  or  classes. 

Note  34.  Page  139. 
Vitis :  and  it  deserves  to  be  mentioned,  that  this  staff,  or 
cudgel,  which  was  the  official  engine  and  cognizance  of  the  Cen- 
turion's dignity,  was  meant  expressly  to  be  used  in  caning  or 
cudgelling  the  inferior  soldiers  :  *  Propterea  vitis  in  manum 
data,'  says  Salmasius,  *  verberando  scilicet  militi  qui  deliquisseV 
We  are  no  patrons  of  corporal  chastisement,  which,  on  the  con- 
trary, as  the  vilest  of  degradations,  we  abominate.  The  soldier, 
who  does  not  feel  himself  dishonored  by  it,  is  already  dishonored 
beyond  hope  or  redemption.  But  still  let  this  degradation  not 
be  imputed  to  the  English  army  exclusively. 

Note  35.   Page  145. 
In  the  original  ter  millies,  which  is  not  much  above  two  mil- 
lions and  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  pounds  sterling;  but 
it  must  be  remembered  that  one  third  as  much,  in  addition  to 
this  popular  largess,  had  been  given  to  the  army. 

Note  36.    Page  145. 

 ^nam  bene  gesti  rebus,  vel  potius  feliciter,  etsi  non. 

summi  —  medii  tamen  obtinuit  ducis  famam.^  Eor  by  the  able, 
or  rather  by  the  fortunate^  conduct  of  affiiirs^  he  won  the  repu- 
tation—  though  not  of  a  supreme  —  yet  of  a  tolerable  or  sec- 
ond class  strategist. 

Note  37.    Page  146. 
This,  however,  is  a  point  in  which  royal  personages  claim  an 
old  prescriptive  right  to  be  unreasonable  in  their  exactions  ;  and 
Bome,  even  amongst  the  most  humane  of  Christian  princes,  have 
irred  as  flagrantly  as  ^lius  Verus.    George  IV.  we  ha\  e  under- 


606 


NOTES. 


stood,  was  generally  escorted  from  Dalkeith  to  Holy  rood  at  a 
rate  of  twenty-two  miles  an  hour.  And  of  his  father,  the  truly 
kind  and  paternal  king,  it  is  recorded  by  Miss  Hawkins,  (daugh* 
ter  of  Sir  J.  Hawkins,  the  biographer  of  Johnson,  &c.)  that 
families  who  happened  to  have  a  son,  brother,  lover,  &c.  in  the 
particular  regiment  of  cavalry  which  furnished  the  escort  for  the 
day,  used  to  suffer  as  much  anxiety  for  the  result  as  on  the  eve 
of  a  great  battle. 

Note  38.    Page  150. 

"  He  practised  a  mode  of  usury  at  the  very  lowest  rates,  viz., 
under  a  discount  of  two-thirds  from  the  ordinary  terms,  so  as 
that,  from  his  own  private  patrimonial  funds,  he  might  thus 
relieve  the  greatest  number  possible  of  clients." 

Note  39.  Page  154. 
And  not  impossibly  of  America  ;  for  it  must  be  remembered 
that,  when  we  speak  of  this  quarter  of  the  earth  as  yet  undiscov- 
ered, we  mean  —  to  ourselves  of  the  western  climates;  since  as 
respects  the  eastern  quarters  of  Asia,  doubtless  America  waa 
known  there  familiarly  enough ;  and  the  high  bounties  of  imperial 
Rome  on  rare  animals,  would  sometimes  perhaps  propagate  their 
influence  even  to  those  regions. 

Note  40.    Page  155. 
In  default  of  whalebone,  one  is  curious  to  know  of  what  they 
were  made  :  —  thin  tablets  of  the  linden-tree,  it  appears,  were 
the  best  materials  which  the  Augustus  of  that  day  could  com- 
mand. 

Note  41.  Page  156. 
There  is,  however,  a  good  deal  of  delusion  prevalent  on  such 
subjects.  In  some  English  cavalry  regiments,  the  custom  is  for 
^he  privates  to  take  only  one  meal  a  day,  which  of  course  is  din- 
ner; and  by  some  curious  experiments  it  has  appeared  that  such- 
a  mode  of  life  is  the  healthiest.  But  at  the  same  time  we  have 
ascertained  that  the  quantity  of  porter  or  substantial  ale  drunk 
m  these  regiments  does  virtually  allow  many  meals,  by  compar- 
\son  with  the  washy  tea  breakfasts  of  most  Englishmen. 


NOTES. 


607 


^OTE  42.    Page  158. 

We  should  all  have  been  much  indebted  to  the  philosophic 
emperor,  had  he  found  it  convenient  to  tell  us  with  what  result 
to  the  public  interests,  as  also  to  the  despatch  of  business.  Na- 
poleon made  La  Place  a  Secretary  of  State,  but  had  reason  to 
rue  his  appointment.  Our  ow^n  Addison  suffered  a  kind  of 
locked  jaw  in  dictating  despatches  as  foreign  Secretary.  And 

about  a  hundred  years  earlier  Lord  Bacon  played  "  H  and 

Tommy  when  casually  raised  to  the  supreme  seat  in  the  coun- 
cil by  the  brief  absence  in  Edinburgh  of  the  king  and.  the  Duke 
of  Buckingham. 

Note  43.    Page  159. 

So  much  improvement  had  Christianity  already  accomplished 
in  the  feelings  of  men  since  the  time  of  Augustus.  That  prince, 
in  whose  reign  the  Founder  of  this  ennobling  religion  was  born, 
had  delighted  so  much  and  indulged  so  freely  in  the  spectacles 
of  the  amphitheatre,  that  Msecenas  summoned  him  reproachfully 
to  leave  them,  saying,  *  Surge  tandem,  carnifex.' 

It  is  the  remark  of  Capitoline,  that  *  gladiator ia  spectacula 
omnifariam  temperavit;  temperavit  etiam  scenicas  donationes 
—  he  controlled  in  every  possible  way  the  gladiatorial  specta- 
cles ;  he  controlled  also  the  rates  of  allowance  to  the  stage  per- 
formers. In  these  latter  reforms,  which  simply  restrained  the 
exorbitant  salaries  of  a  class  dedicated  to  the  public  pleasures, 
and  unprofitable  to  the  State,  Marcus  may  have  had  no  farther 
view  than  that  which  is  usually  connected  with  sumptuary  laws. 
But  in  the  restraints  upon  the  gladiators,  it  is  impossible  to 
believe  that  his  highest  purpose  was  not  that  of  elevating  human 
vature,  and  preparing  the  way  for  still  higher  regulations.  As 
little  can  it  be  believed  that  this  lofty  conception,  and  the  sense 
of  a  degradation  entailed  upon  human  nature  itself,  in  the  spec- 
tacle of  human  beings  matched  against  each  other  like  brute 
beasts,  and  pouring  out  their  blood  upon  the  arena  as  a  libation 
to  the  caprices  of  a  mob,  could  have  been  derived  from  any  other 
source  than  the  contagion  of  Christian  standards  and  Christian 
sentiments,  then  beginning  to  pervade  -  and  ventilate  the 
atmosphere  of  society  in  its  higher  and  philosophic  regions. 


608 


Christianity,  without  expressly  affirming,  everywhere  indirectly 
supposes  and  presumes  the  infinite  value  and  dignity  of  man  as  a 
creature,  exclusively  concerned  in  a  vast  and  mysterious  economy 
of  restoration  to  a  state  of  moral  beauty  and  power  in  some 
former  age  mysteriously  forfeited.  Equally  interested  in  its  ben- 
efits, joint  heirs  of  its  promises,  all  men,  of  every  color,  language, 
and  rank.  Gentile  or  Jew,  were  here  first  represented  as  in  one 
sense  (and  that  the  most  important)  equal;  in  the  eye  of  this 
religion,  they  were,  by  necessity  of  logic,  equal,  as  equal  partici- 
pators in  the  ruin  and  the  restoration.  Here  first,  in  any  avail- 
able sense,  was  communicated  to  the  standard  of  human  nature 
a  vast  and  sudden  elevation;  and  reasonable  enough  it  is  to 
suppose,  that  some  obscure  sense  of  this,  some  sympathy  with  the 
great  changes  for  man  then  beginning  to  operate,  would  first  of 
all  reach  the  inquisitive  students  of  philosophy,  and  chiefly  those 
in  high  stations,  who  cultivated  an  intercourse  with  all  the  men 
of  original  genius  throughout  the  civilized  world.  The  Emperor 
Hadrian  had  already  taken  a  solitary  step  in  the  improvement 
of  human  nature^  and  not,  we  may  believe,  without  some  sub- 
conscious influence  received  directly  or  indirectly  from  Christian- 
ity. So  again,  with  respect  to  Marcus,  it  is  hardly  conceivable 
that  he,  a  prince  so  indulgent  and  popular,  could  have  thwarted, 
and  violently  gainsaid,  a  primary  impulse  of  the  Roman  populace, 
without  some  adequate  motive;  and  none  could  be  adequate 
which  was  not  built  upon  some  new  and  exalted  views  of  human 
nature,  with  which  these  gladiatorial  sacrifices  were  altogether 
at  war.  The  reforms  which  Marcus  introduced  into  these  '  cru- 
delissima  spectacula,'  all  having  the  common  purpose  of  limiting 
their  extent,  were  three.  Eirst,  he  set  bounds  to  the  extreme 
cost  of  these  exhibitions;  and  this  restriction  of  the  cost  covertly 
operated  as  a  restriction  of  the  practice.  Secondly,  —  and  this 
ordinance  took  effect  whenever  he  was  personally  present,  if  not 
S)ftener,  —  he  commanded,  on  great  occasions,  that  these  displays 
should  be  bloodless.  Dion  Cassius  notices  this  fact  in  the  fol- 
lowing words  :  — '  The  Emperor  Marcus  was  so  far  from  taking 
delight  in  spectacles  of  bloodshed,  that  even  the  gladiators  in 
Rome  could  not  obtain  his  inspection  of  their  contests,  unless, 
like  the  wrestlers,  they  contended  without  imminent  risk ;  for  he 
never  allowed  them  the  use  of  sharpened  weapons,  but  univer- 


NOTES. 


609 


sally  they  fought  before  him  with  weapons  previously  blunted.' 
Thirdly,  he  repealed  the  old  and  uniform  regulation,  which 
secured  to  tne  gladiators  a  perpetual  immunity  from  military 
service.  This  necessarily  diminished  their  available  amount. 
Being  now  liable  to  serve  their  country  usefully  in  the  field  of 
battle,  whilst  the  concurrent  limitation  of  the  expenses  in  this 
direction  prevented  any  proportionate  increase  of  their  numbers, 
they  were  so  much  the  less  disposable  in  aid  of  the  public  luxury. 
His  ffitherly  care  of  all  classes,  and  the  universal  benignity  with 
which  he  attempted  to  raise  the  abject  estimate  and  condition  of 
even  the  lowest  Pariahs  in  his  vast  empire,  appears  in  another 
little  anecdote,  relating  to  a  class  of  men  equally  with  the  gladia- 
tors given  up  to  the  service  of  luxiiry  in  a  haughty  and  cruel 
populace.  Attending  one  day  at  ar  exhibition  of  rope-dancing, 
one  of  the  performers  (a  boy)  fell  and  hurt  himself ;  from  which 
time  the  paternal  emperor  would  never  allow  the  rope-dancers  to 
perform  without  mattresses  or  feather-beds  spread  below,  tc 
mitigate  the  violence  of  their  falls. 

Note  44.    Page  160. 
Marcus  had  been  associated,  as  Caesar,  and  as  emperor,  with 
the  son  of  the  late  beautiful  Verus,  who  is  usually  mentioned  by 
the  same  name. 

Note  45.    Page  161. 

By  color:'' — It  must  be  remembered  that  the  true  purple 
(about  which  the  controversy  has  been  endless,  and  is  yet  un- 
settled—  possibly  it  was  our  crimson,  though  this  seems  properly 
expressed  by  the  word  puniceus ;  possibly  it  was  our  common 
violet ;  but  of  whatever  tint,  this  color  of  purple)  was  interdicted 
to  the  Roman  people,  aiid  consecrated  to  the  sole  personal  use 
of  the  imperatorial  house.  Kecollecting  the  early  "  taboo  "  in 
this  point  amongst  the  children  of  Romulus,  and  that  thus  far  it 
\iad  not  been  suspended  under  the  two  gentlest  and  most  philo- 
sophic princes  of  the  divina  domiis,  we  feel  that  some  injustice 
has,  perhaps,  been  done  to  Diocletian  in  representing  him  as  the 
miporter  of  Oriental  degradations. 
39 


610 


NOTES. 


Note  46.    Page  162 

Murrhine  vases:''  —  What  might  these  Pagan  articles  be 
Unlearned  reader,  if  any  such  is  amongst  the  flock  of  our  au- 
dience, the  question  you  ask  has  been  asked  by  four  or  five  cen 
tnries  that  have  fleeted  away,  and  hitherto  has  had  no  answer 
They  were  not  porcelain  from  China ;  they  could  not  be  Vene- 
tian glass,  into  which,  when  poison  w^as  poured,  suddenly  the 
venom  fermented,  bubbled,  boiled,  and  finally  shivered  the  glass 
into  fragments  (so  at  least  saith  the  pretty  fable  of  our  ances- 
tors) ;  this  it  could  not  be  :  why  ?  Because  Venice  herself  did 
not  arise  until  two  and  a  half  centuries  after  Marcus  Aurelius. 
They  were  however  like  diaphanous  china,  but  did  not  break  on 
falling.  The  Japanese  still  possess  a  sort  of  porcelain  much 
superior  to  any  now  produced  in  China.  And  by  Chinese  con- 
fession, a  far  superior  order  of  porcelain  was  long  ago  manufac- 
tured in  China  itself,  of  which  the  art  is  now  wholly  lost.  Per- 
haps the  murrhine  vase  might  belong  to  this  forgotten  class  of 
vertu. 

Note  47.  Page  163. 
Because  the  most  effectual  extinguishers  of  all  ambition  applied 
in  that  direction;  since  the  very  excellence  of  any  particular 
fabric  was  the  surest  pledge  of  its  virtual  suppression  by  means 
of  its  legal  restriction  (which  followed  inevitably)  to  the  use  of 
the  imperial  house. 

Note  48.  Page  165. 
Upon  which  some  mimographus  built  an  occasional  notice  of 
the  scandal  then  floating  on  the  public  breath  in  the  following 
terms  :  One  of  the  actors  having  asked  '  Who  was  the  adulterous 
paramour  7 '  receives  for  answer,  Tullus.  Who  ?  he  asks 
again  ;  and  again  for  three  times  running  he  is  answered, 
Tullus.  But  asking  a  fourth  time,  the  rejoinder  is.  Jam  diiy 
Ser  Tullus. 

Note  49.    Page  166. 
In  reality,  if  by  divus  and  divine  honors  we  understand  a  saint 
or  spiritualized  being  having  a  right  of  intercession  with  the  Su- 


NOTES. 


611 


preme  Deity,  and  by  his  temple,  &c.,  if  we  understand  a  shrine 
attended  by  a  priest  to  direct  the  prayers  of  his  devotees,  there 
is  no  such  wide  chasm  between  this  pagan  superstition  and  the 
adoration  of  saints  in  the  Romish  church,  as  at  first  sight  ap- 
pears. The  fault  is  purely  in  the  names  :  divus  and  templum  are 
words  too  undistinguishing  and  generic. 

Note  50.  Page  168. 
Not  long  after  this  Alexander  Severus  meditated  a  temple  to 
Christ;  upon  which  design  Lampridius  observes,  —  Quod  ei 
Hadrianus  cogitasse  fertur  ;  and,  as  Lampridius  was  himself  a 
pagan,  we  believe  him  to  have  been  right  in  his  report,  in  spite 
of  all  which  has  been  written  by  Casaubon  and  others,  who 
maintain  that  these  imperfect  temples  of  Hadrian  were  left  void 
of  all  images  or  idols,  —  not  in  respect  to  the  Christian  practice, 
but  because  he  designed  them  eventually  to  be  dedicated  to  him- 
self. However,  be  this  as  it  may,  thus  much  appears  on  the  face 
of  the  story,  —  that  Christ  and  Christianity  had  by  that  time 
begun  to  challenge  the  imperial  attention;  and  of  this  there  is 
an  indirect  indication,  as  it  has  been  interpreted,  even  in  the 
memoir  of  Marcus  himself.  The  passage  is  this  :  *  Fama  fuit 
Bane  quod  sub  philosophorum  specie  quidam  rempublicam  vexa- 
rent  et  privates.*  The  philosophic  here  mentioned  by  Capitoline, 
are  by  some  supposed  to  be  the  Christians ;  and  for  many  reasons 
we  believe  it ;  and  we  understand  the  molestations  of  the  public 
services  and  of  private  individuals,  here  charged  upon  them,  as 
a  very  natural  reference  to  the  Christian  doctrines  falsely  under- 
stood. There  is,  by  the  way,  a  fine  remark  upon  Christianity, 
made  by  an  infidel  philosopher  of  Germany,  which  suggests  a 
remarkable  feature  in  the  merits  of  Marcus  Aurelius.  There 
were,  as  this  German  philospher  used  to  observe,  two  schemes 
of  thinking  amongst  the  ancients,  which  severally  ful filled  the 
two  functions  of  a  sound  philosophy  as  respected  the  moral  nature 
of  man.  One  of  these  schemes  presented  us  with  a  just  ideal  of 
moral  excellence,  a  standard  sufficiently  exalted  ;  this  was  the 
Stoic  philosophy ;  and  thus  far  its  pretensions  were  unexception- 
able and  perfect.  But  unfortunately,  whilst  contemplating  thLj 
pure  ideal  of  man  as  he  ought  to  be,  the  Stoic  totally  forgot  the 
trail  nature  of  man  as  he  is;  and  by  refusing  all  compromises 


612 


NOTES. 


and  all  condescensions  to  human  infirmity,  this  philosophy  of  the 
Porch  presented  to  us  a  brilliant  prize  and  object  for  our  elforts, 
but  placed  on  an  inaccessible  height. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  was  a  very  different  philosophy  at 
the  very  antagonist  pole,  —  not  blinding  itself  by  abstractions  too 
elevated,  submitting  to  what  it  finds,  bending  to  the  absolute 
facts  and  realities  of  man's  nature,  and  alfably  adapting  itself  to 
human  imperfections.  There  was  the  philosophy  of  Epicurus  ; 
and  undoubtedly,  as  a  beginning,  and  for  the  elementary  pur- 
pose of  conciliating  the  affections  of  the  pupil,  it  was  well  devised; 
but  here  the  misfortune  was,  that  the  ideal,  or  maximum  per- 
fectionis,  attainable  by  human  nature,  was  pitched  so  low,  that 
the  humility  of  its  condescensions  and  the  excellence  of  its  means 
Were  all  to  no  purpose,  as  leading  to  nothing  further  One 
mode  presented  a  splendid  end,  but  insulated,  and  with  no  meanis 
fitted  to  a  human  aspirant  for  communicating  with  its  splendors; 
the  other,  an  excellent  road,  but  leading  to  no  worthy  or  propor- 
tionate end.  Yet  these,  as  regarded  morals,  were  the  best  and 
ultimate  achievements  of  the  pagan  world.  Now  Christianity, 
said  he,  is  the  synthesis  of  whatever  is  separately  excellent  in 
either.  It  will  abate  as  little  as  the  haughtiest  Stoicism  of  the 
ideal  which  it  contemplates  as  the  first  postulate  of  true  moral- 
ity; the  absolute  holiness  and  purity  which  it  demands  are  as 
much  raised  above  the  poor  performances  of  actual  man,  as  the 
absolute  wisdom  and  impeccability  of  the  Stoic.  Yet,  unlike  the 
Stoic  scheme,  Christianity  is  aware  of  the  necessity,  and  provides 
for  it,  that  the  means  of  appropriating  this  ideal  perfection 
should  be  suv^h  as  are  consistent  with  the  nature  of  a  most  erring 
and  imperfect  creature.  Its  motion  is  towards  the  divine,  but 
by  and  through  the  human.  In  fact,  it  ofiers  the  Stoic  human- 
ized in  his  scheme  of  means,  and  the  Epicurean  exalted  in  his 
final  objects.  Nor  is  it  possible  to  conceive  a  practicable  scheme 
of  morals  which  should  not  rest  upon  such  a  synthesis  of  the  two 
elements  as  the  Christian  scheme  presents;  nor  any  other  mode 
of  fulfilling  that  demand  than  such  a  one  as  is  there  first  brought 
forward,  viz.,  a  double  or  Janus  nature,  which  stands  in  an 
equivocal  relation,  —  to  the  divine  nature  by  his  actual  perfec- 
tions, to  the  human  nature  by  his  participation  in  the  same 
animal  frailties  and  capacities  of  fleshly  temptation.    No  other 


NOTES. 


G13 


vinculum  could  bind  the  two  postulates  together,  of  an  absolute 
perfection  in  the  end  proposed,  and  yet  of  utter  imperfection  in 
the  means  for  attaining  it. 

Such  was  the  outline  of  this  famous  tribute  by  an  unbelieving 
philosopher  to  the  merits  of  Christianity  as  a  scheme  of  moral 
discipline.  Now,  it  must  be  remembered  that  Marcus  Aurelius 
was  by  profession  a  Stoic;  and  that  generally,  as  a  theoretical 
philosopher,  but  still  more  as  a  Stoic  philosopher,  he  might  be 
supposed  incapable  of  descending  from  these  airy  altitudes  of 
speculation  to  the  true  needs,  infirmities,  and  capacities  of  hu- 
man  nature.  Yet  strange  it  is,  that  he,  of  all  the  good  emperors, 
was  the  most  thoroughly  human  and  practical.  In  evidence  of 
which,  one  body  of  records  is  amply  sufficient,  which  is,  the  very 
extensive  and  wise  reforms  which  he,  beyond  all  the  Caesars, 
executed  in  the  existing  laws.  To  all  the  exigencies  of  the  times> 
and  to  all  the  new  necessities  developed  by  the  progress  of 
society,  he  adjusted  the  old  laws,  or  supplied  new  ones.  The 
same  praise,  therefore,  belongs  to  him,  which  the  German  phi- 
losopher conceded  to  Christianity,  of  reconciling  the  austerest 
ideal  with  the  practical;  and  hence  another  argument  for  pre- 
suming him  half  baptized  into  the  new  faith. 

Note  51.    Page  170. 

"  Elogiis  :  —  The  elogium  was  the  public  record  or  titulus  of 
a  malefactor's  crime  inscribed  upon  his  cross  or  scaffold. 

Note  52.    Page  175. 

Turning  against  every  one  of  his  assassins:"  —  It  was  a 
general  belief  at  the  time  that  each  individual  among  the  mur- 
derers of  Caesar  had  died  by  his  own  sword. 

Note  53.    Page  176. 

In  these  words  we  hear  the  very  spirit  of  Robespierre. 

Note  54.    Page  177. 

"  Parcerent :  "  —  She  means  pepercissent.  "  Don't/'  she  says, 
"  show  mercy  to  man  that  showed  none  to  you,  nor  would  have 
shown  any  to  me  or  my  sons  in  case  they  had  gained  the  victory." 


614 


NOTES. 


Note  55.  Page  182. 
Amongst  these  institutions,  none  appear  to  us  so  remarkablej 
3r  fitted  to  accomplish  so  prodigious  a  circle  of  purposes  belong- 
ing to  the  highest  state  policy,  as  the  Roman  method  of  coloniza.- 
tion.  Colonies  were,  in  effect,  the  great  engine  of  Roman  con- 
quest; and  the  following  are  among  a  few  of  the  great  ends  to 
which  they  were  applied.  First  of  all,  how  came  it  that  the 
early  armies  of  Rome  served,  and  served  cheerfully,  without 
pay  ?  Simply  because  all  who  were  victorious  knew  that  they 
would  receive  their  arrears  in  the  fullest  and  amplest  form  upon 
their  final  discharge,  viz.,  in  the  shape  of  a  colonial  estate  — 
large  enough  to  rear  a  family  in  comfort,  and  seated  in  the  midst 
of  similar  allotments,  distributed  to  their  old  comrades  in  arms. 
These  lands  were  already,  perhaps,  in  high  cultivation,  being 
often  taken  from  conquered  tribes;  but,  if  not,  the  new  occu- 
pants could  rely  for  aid  of  every  sort,  for  social  intercourse,  and 
for  all  the  offices  of  good  neighborhood  upon  the  surrounding 
proprietors  —  who  were  sure  to  be  persons  in  the  same  circum- 
stances as  themselves,  and  draughted  from  the  same  legion. 
For  be  it  remembered,  that  in  the  primitive  ages  of  Rome,  con- 
cerning which  it  is  that  we  are  now  speaking,  entire  legions  — 
privates  and  officers  —  were  transferred  in  one  body  to  the  new 
colony.  '  Antiquitus,'  says  the  learned  Goesius,  '  deducebantur 
integrge  legiones,  quibus  parta  victoria.'  Neither  was  there 
much  waiting  for  this  honorary  gift.  In  later  ages,  it  is  true, 
when  such  resources  were  less  plentiful,  and  when  regular  pay 
was  given  to  the  soldiery,  it  was  the  veteran  only  who  obtained 
this  splendid  provision ;  but  in  the  earlier  times,  a  single  fortu- 
nate campaign  not  seldom  dismissed  the  young  recruit  to  a  life 
of  ease  and  honor.  '  Multis  legionibus,'  says  Hyginus,  •  ccntigit 
helium  feliciter  transigere,  et  ad  laboriosam  agriculturae  requiem 
prima  iyrocinii  gradu  pu^-venire.  Nam  cum  signis  et  aquila  el 
primis  ordinibus  et  tribunis  deducebantur.'  Tacitus  also  notices 
this  organization  of  the  early  colonies,  and  adds  the  reason  of  it, 
and  its  happy  effect,  when  contrasting  it  with  the  vicious  ar- 
tangements  of  the  colonizing  system  in  his  own  days.  *  Olim,' 
says  he,  *  universae  legiones  deducebantur  cum  tribunis  et  cen- 
turionibus,  et  sui  cujusque  ordinis  militibus,  ut  consensu  et 
%hariiaie  republicam  efficerent.^    Secondly,  not  only  were  the 


^JOTES. 


G15 


troops  in  this  way  at  a  time  when  the  public  purse  was  unequal 
to  the  expenditure  of  war  —  but  this  pay,  being  contingent  on 
the  successful  issue  of  the  war,  added  the  strength  of  self-interest 
to  that  of  patriotism  in  stimulating  the  soldier  to  extraordinary 
efforts.  Thirdly,  not  only  did  the  soldier  in  this  way  reap  his 
pay,  but  also  he  reaped  a  reward  (and  that  besides  a  trophy  and 
perpetual  monument  of  his  public  services),  so  munificent  as  to 
constitute  a  permanent  provision  for  a  family;  and  accordingly 
he  was  now  encouraged,  nay,  enjoined,  to  marry.  For  here  was 
an  hereditary  landed  estate  equal  to  the  liberal  maintenance  of 
a  family.  And  thus  did  a  simple  people,  obeying  its  instinct  of 
conquest,  not  only  discover,  in  its  earliest  days,  the  subtle  prin- 
ciple of  Machiavel  —  Let  war  support  war  ;  but  (which  is  far 
more  than  Machiavel's  viewj  they  made  each  present  war  sup- 
port many  future  wars  —  by  making  it  support  a  new  offset  from 
the  population,  bound  to  the  mother  city  by  indissoluble  ties  of 
privilege  and  civic  duties;  and  in  many  other  ways  they  made 
every  war,  by  and  through  the  colonizing  system  to  which  it 
gave  occasion,  serviceable  to  future  aggrandizement.  War,  man- 
aged in  this  way,  and  with  these  results,  became  to  Rome  what 
commerce  or  rural  industry  is  to  other  countries,  viz. ,  the  only 
hopeful  and  general  way  for  making  a  fortune.  Fourthly,  by 
means  of  colonies  it  was  that  Rome  delivered  herself  from  her 
surplus  population.  Prosperous  and  well-governed,  the  Roman 
citizens  of  each  generation  outnumbered  those  of  the  generation 
preceding.  But  the  colonies  provided  outlets  for  these  continual 
accessions  of  people,  and  absorbed  them  faster  than  they  could 
arise.*  And  thus  the  great  original  sin  of  modern  States,  that 
heel  of  Achilles  in  which  they  are  all  vulnerable,  and  which 
(generally  speaking)  becomes  more  oppressive  to  the  public  pros- 
perity as  that  prosperity  happens  to  be  greater,  (for  in  poor 


*  A  ml  in  this  way  we  must  explain  the  fact  —  that,  in  the 
aany  successive  numerations  of  the  people  continually  noticed  hy 
Livy  and  others,  we  do  not  find  that  sort  of  multiplication  which 
U-e  might  have  looked  for  in  a  State  so  ably  governed.  The 
truth  is,  that  the  continual  surpluses  had  been  carried  off  by  the 
oolonizing  drain,  before  they  could  become  noticeable  or  trouble, 
some. 


616 


KOTES. 


States  and  under  despotic  governmen-^s  this  evil  does  not  exist*) 
that  flagrant  infirmity  of  our  own  country,  for  which  no  states- 
man has  devised  any  commensurate  remedy,  was  to  ancient  Rome 
a  perpetual  foundation  and  well-head  of  public  strength  and  en- 
larged resources.  With  us  of  modern  times,  when  population 
greatly  outruns  the  demand  for  labor,  whether  it  be  under  the 
stimulus  of  upright  government,  and  just  laws  justly  adminis- 
teied,  in  combination  with  the  manufacturing  system  (as  in 
England),  or  (as  in  Ireland)  under  the  stimulus  of  idle  habits, 
cheap  subsistence,  and  a  low  standard  of  comfort  —  we  think  it 
much  if  we  can  keep  down  insurrection  by  the  bayonet  and  the 
sabre.  Lucro  ponamus  is  our  cry,  if  we  can  effect  even  thus 
much ;  whereas  Rome,  in  her  simplest  and  pastoral  days,  con- 
verted this  menacing  danger  and  standing  opprobrium  of  modern 
statesmanship  to  her  own  immense  benefit.  Not  satisfied  merely 
to  have  neutralized  it,  she  drew  from  it  the  vital  resources  of  her 
martial  aggrandizement.  For,  Fifthly,  these  colonies  were  in 
two  ways  made  the  corner-stones  of  her  martial  policy  :  1st, 
They  were  looked  to  as  nurseries  of  their  armies;  during  one 
generation  the  original  colonists,  already  trained  to  military 
habits,  were  themselves  disposable  for  this  purpose  on  any  great 
emergency;  these  men  transmitted  heroic  traditions  to  their  pos- 
terity; and,  at  all  events,  a  more  robust  population  was  always 
at  hand  in  agricultural  colonies  than  could  be  had  in  the  metrop- 
olis. Cato  the  elder,  and  all  the  early  writers,  notice  the  quality 
of  such  levies  as  being  far  superior  to  those  drawn  from  a  popu- 
lation of  sedentary  habits.  2dly,  The  Italian  colonies,  one  and 
all,  performed  the  functions  which  in  our  day  are  assigned  to 
garrisoned  towns  and  frontier  fortresses.  In  the  earliest  times 
they  discharged  a  still  more  critical  service,  by  sometimes  en- 
tirely displacing  a  hostile  population,  and  more  often  by  dividing 
it,  and  breaking  its  unity.  In  cases  of  desperate  resistance  to 
the  Roman  arms,  marked  by  frequent  infraction  of  treaties,  it 
was  usual  to  remove  the  offending  population  to  a  safer  situa- 
tion, separated  from  Rome  by  the  Tiber;  sometimes  entirely  to 
disperse  and  scatter  it.  But,  where  these  extremities  were  not 
called  for  by  expediency  or  the  Roman  maxims  of  justice,  it  was 
'udged  sufficient  to  interpolate,  as  it  were,  the  hostile  people  by 


NOTES. 


617 


colonizations  from  Rome,  whicli  were  completely  organized  *  for 
mutual  aid,  having  officers  of  all  ranks  dispersed  amongst  them, 
and  for  overawing  the  growth  of  insurrectionary  movements 
amongst  their  neighbors.  Acting  on  this  system,  the  Roman 
colonies  in  some  measure  resembled  the  English  Pale,  as  exist- 
ing at  one  era  in  Ireland.  This  mode  of  service,  it  is  ti-ue,  be- 
came obsolete  in  process  of  time,  concurrently  with  the  dangers 
which  it  was  shaped  to  meet;  for  the  whole  of  Italy  proper, 
together  with  that  part  of  Italy  called  Cisalpine  Gaul,  was  at 
length  reduced  to  unity  and  obedience  by  the  almighty  republic. 
But  in  forwarding  that  great  end,  and  indispensable  condition 
towards  all  foreign  warfare,  no  one  military  engine  in  the  whole 
armory  of  Rome  availed  so  much  as  her  Italian  colonies.  The 
other  use  of  these  colonies,  as  frontier  garrisons,  or,  at  any  rate, 
as  interposing  between  a  foreign  enemy  and  the  gates  of  Rome, 
they  continued  to  perform  long  after  ^heir  earlier  uses  had 
passed  away ;  and  Cicero  himself  notices  their  value  in  this  view. 
'  Colonias,*  says  he  lOrat.  in  Rullmn']^  '  sic  idoneis  in  locis 
contra  suspicionem  periculi  collacarunt,  ut  esse  non  oppida 
Italise  sed  propugnacula  imperii  viderentur.*  Finally,  the 
colonies  were  the  best  means  of  promoting  tillage,  and  the  cul- 
ture of  vineyards.  And  though  this  service,  as  regarded  the 
Italian  colonies,  was  greatly  defeated  in  succeeding  times  by  the 
ruinous  largesses  of  corn  \_  frumentationes'] ,  and  other  vices  of  the 
Roman  policy  after  the  vast  revolution  effected  by  universal 
luxury,  it  is  not  the  less  true  that,  left  to  themselves  and  their 
natural  tendency,  the  Roman  colonies  would  have  yielded  this 
last  benefit  as  certainly  as  any  other.  Large  volumes  exist, 
illustrated  by  the  learning  of  Rigaltius,  Salmasius,  and  Goesius, 
upon  the  mere  technical  arrangements  of  the  Roman  colonies; 
and  whole  libraries  might  be  written  on  these  same  colonies, 
considered  as  engines  of  exquisite  state  policy. 


*  That  is  indeed  involved  in  the  technical  term  of  JDeductio  ; 
for  unless  the  ceremonies,  religious  and  political,  of  inauguration 
and  organization,  were  duly  complied  with,  the  colony  was  not 
entitled  to  be  considered  as  deducta  —  that  is,  solemnly  and  cere- 
monially transplanted  from  the  metropolis. 


618 


NOTES. 


Note  56.    Page  191. 

On  this  occasion  we  may  notice  that  the  final  execution  of  the 
vengeance  projected  by  Mater nus,  was  reserved  for  a  public  fes- 
tival, exactly  corresponding  to  the  modern  carnival ;  and  from 
ftn  expression  used  by  Herodian,  it  is  plain  that  masquerading 
had  been  an  ancient  practice  in  Rome. 

Note  57.    Page  192. 
See  Casaubon's  notes  upon  Theophrastus. 

Note  58.    Page  193. 

Viz.  the  Temple  of  Peace;  at  that  time  the  most  magnificent 
edifice  in  Rome.  Temples,  it  is  well  known,  were  the  places  used 
in  ancient  times  as  banks  of  deposit.  For  this  function  they 
we^e  admirably  fitted  by  their  inviolable  sanctity. 

Note  59.    Page  194. 

What  a  prodigious  opportunity  for  the  zoologist  !  — And  con- 
sidering that  these  shows  prevailed  for  five  hundred  years,  during 
all  which  period  the  amphitheatre  gave  bounties,  as  it  were,  to 
the  hunter  and  the  fowler  of  every  climute,  and  that,  by  means 
of  a  stimulus  so  constantly  applied,  scarcely  any  animal,  the 
shyest,  rarest,  fiercest,  escaped  the  demands  of  the  arena,  —  no 
one  fact  so  much  illustrates  the  inertia  of  the  public  mind  in 
those  days,  and  the  indifference  to  all  scientific  pursuits,  as  that 
no  annotator  should  have  risen  to  Pliny  the  elde*  — no  rival  to 
the  immortal  tutor  of  Alexander. 

Note  60.  Page  198. 
It  is  worthy  of  notice,  that,  under  any  suspension  of  the  im 
peratorial  power  or  office,  the  senate  was  the  body  to  whom  the 
Roman  mind  even  yet  continued  to  turn.  In  this  case,  both  to 
color  their  crime  with  a  show  of  public  motives,  and  to  interest 
this  great  body  in  their  own  favor  by  associating  them  in  their 


KOTES. 


619 


own  dangers,  the  conspirators  pretended  to  have  found  a  long 
roll  of  senatorial  names  included  in  the  same  page  of  condemnor 
tion  with  their  own.    A  manifest  fabrication. 

Note  61.    Page  199. 
Historians  have  failed  to  remark  the  contradiction  between 
this  statement  and  the  allegation  that  Laetus  selected  Pertinax 
for  the  throne  on  a  consideration  of  his  ability  to  protect  the 
assassins  of  Commodus. 

Note  62.    Page  200. 

["  Didius :  ^'  —  The  reader  will  Mnd  an  amusing  reference  to 
this  imperial  bidder  in  ^'  Orthographic  Mutineers,"  Yol.  IV. 
p.  489,  of  the  present  series  of  De  Quincey's  writings.] 

Note  63.  Page  213. 
"  The  completion  of  a  thousand  years^'^  —  i.  e.,  of  a  thousand 
years  since  the  foundation  of  Rome,  and  not  (let  the  reader  ob- 
serve) since  the  birth  of  Romulus.  Subtract  from  1000  (as  the 
total  lapse  of  years  since  the  natal  day  of  Rome)  the  number  247 
as  representing  that  part  of  the  1000  which  had  accumulated 
since  the  era  of  Christ,  at  the  epoch  of  the  Secular  Games,  and 
there  will  remain  753  for  the  sum  of  the  years  between  Rome'? 
nativity  and  the  year  of  our  Lord.  But  as  Romulus  must  have 
reached  manhood  when  he  founded  the  robber  city,  suppose  him 
23  years  old  at  that  era,  and  his  birth  will  fall  in  the  year  776 
before  Christ.  And  this  is  the  year  generally  assigned.  But  it 
must  be  remembered  that  there  are  dissentient  schemes  of  chro- 
nology. 

Note  64.    Page  223. 
And  it  is  a  striking  illustration  of  the  extent  to  which  the  rev- 
olution had  gone,  that,  previously  to  the  Persian  expedition  of 
the  last  Gordian,  Antioch,  the  Roman  capital  of  Syria,  had  beea 
occupied  by  the  enemy. 

Note  65.    Page  224. 
This  Arab  emperor  reigned  about  five  years;  and  the  jubilee 
telebration  occurred  in  his  second  year.    Another  circumstance 


620 


NOTES. 


jrives  importance  to  the  Arabian,  that,  according  to  one  tradition, 
he  was  the  first  Christian  emperor.  If  so,  it  is  singular  that  one 
of  the  bitterest  persecutors  of  Christianity  should  have  been  his 
immediate  successor  —  Decius. 

Note  66.  Page  224. 
It  has  proved  a  most  difficult  problem,  in  be  hands  of  all 
Speculators  upon  the  imperial  history,  to  fathom  the  purposes, 
or  throw  any  light  upon  the  purposes,  of  the  Emperor  Decius,  in 
attempting  the  revival  of  the  ancient  but  necessarily  obsolete 
office  of  a  public  censorship.  Either  it  was  an  act  of  pure  verbal 
pedantry,  or  a  mere  titular  decoration  of  honor,  (as  if  a  modern 
prince  should  create  a  person  Arch-Grand-Elector,  with  no  ob- 
jects assigned  to  his  electing  faculty,)  or  else,  if  it  really  meant 
to  revive  the  old  duties  of  the  censorship,  and  to  assign  the  very 
same  field  for  the  exercise  of  those  duties,  it  must  be  viewed  as 
the  very  grossest  practical  anachronism  that  has  ever  been  com- 
mitted. We  mean  by  an  anachronism,  in  common  usage,  that 
sort  of  blunder  when  a  man  ascribes  to  one  age  the  habits,  cus- 
toms, or  generally  the  characteristics  of  another.  This,  however, 
may  be  a  mere  lapse  of  memory,  as  to  a  matter  of  fact,  and 
implying  nothing  at  all  discreditable  to  the  understanding,  but 
only  that  a  man  has  shifted  the  boundaries  of  chronology  a  little 
this  way  or  that;  as  if,  for  example,  a  writer  should  speak  of 
printed  books  as  existing  at  the  day  of  Agincourt,  or  of  artillery 
as  existing  in  the  first  Crusade,  here  would  be  an  error,  but  a 
venial  one.  A  far  worse  kind  of  anachronism,  though  rarely 
noticed  as  such,  is  where  a  writer  ascribes  sentiments  and  modes 
of  thought  incapable  of  co-existing  with  the  sort  or  the  degree  of 
civilization  then  attained,  or  otherwise  incompatible  with  the 
structure  of  society  in  the  age  or  the  country  assigned.  For  in- 
stance, in  Southey's  Don  Koderick  there  is  a  cast  of  sentiment  in 
the  Gothic  king's  remorse  and  contrition  of  heart,  which  has 
gtruck  many  readers  as  utterly  unsuitable  to  the  social  and  moral 
development  of  that  age,  and  redolent  of  modern  methodism. 
Ihis,  however,  we  mention  only  as  an  illustration,  without  wish- 
ing to  hazard  an  opinion  upon  the  justice  of  that  criticism.  But 
even  such  an  anachronism  is  less  startling  and  extravagant 


KOTES. 


621 


when  it  is  confined  to  an  ideal  representation  of  things,  than 
where  it  is  practically  embodied  and  brought  into  play  amongst 
the  realities  of  life.  What  would  be  thought  of  a  man  who 
Bhould  attempt,  in  1833,  to  revive  the  ancient  office  of  Fool,  as  it 
existed  down  to  the  reign,  suppose,  of  our  Henry  VIII.  in  Eng- 
land ?  Yet  the  error  of  the  Emperor  Decius  was  far  greater,  if  he 
did  in  sincerity  and  good  faith  believe  that  the  Rome  of  his  times 
was  amenable  to  that  license  of  unlimited  correction,  and  of  inter- 
ference with  private  aflairs,  which  republican  freedom  and  sim- 
plicity had  once  conceded  to  the  censor.  In  reality,  the  ancient 
censor,  in  some  parts  of  his  office,  was  neither  more  nor  less  than 
a  compendious  legislator.  Acts  of  attainder,  divorce  bills,  &c.!, 
illustrates  the  case  in  England ;  they  are  cases  of  law,  modified 
to  meet  the  case  of  an  individual;  and  the  censor,  having  a  sort 
of  equity  jurisdiction,  was  intrusted  with  discretionary  powers  for 
reviewing,  revising,  and  amending,  pro  re  nata,  whatever  in  the 
private  life  of  a  Roman  citizen  seemed,  to  his  experienced  eye, 
alien  to  the  simplicity  of  an  austere  republic ;  whatever  seemed 
vicious  or  capable  of  becoming  vicious,  according  to  their  rude 
notions  of  political  economy;  and,  generally,  whatever  touched 
the  interests  of  the  commonwealth,  though  not  falling  within  the 
general  province  of  legislation,  either  because  it  might  appear 
undignified  in  its  circumstances,  or  too  narrow  in  its  range  of 
operation  for  u  public  anxiety,  or  because  considerations  of  deli- 
cacy and  prudence  might  render  it  unfit  for  a  public  scrutiny. 
Take  one  case,  drawn  from  actual  experience,  as  an  illustration  : 
A  Roman  nobleman,  under  one  of  the  early  emperors,  had 
thought  fit,  by  way  of  increasing  his  income,  to  retire  into  rural 
lodgings,  or  into  some  small  villa,  whilst  his  splendid  mansion 
in  Rome  was  let  to  a  rich  tenant.  That  a  man  who  wore  the 
Icicticlave,  (which  in  practical  effect  of  splendor  we  may  consider 
equal  to  the  ribbon  and  star  of  a  modern  order, )  should  descend 
to  such  a  degrading  method  of  raising  money,  was  felt  as  a  scan- 
ial  to  the  whole  nobility.*    Yet  what  could  be  done  ?   To  have 


*  This  feeling  still  exists  in  France.  *  One  winter,'  says  the 
author  of  The  English  Army  in  France,  vol.  ii.  p.  106-7, 
*  our  commanding  officer's  wife  formed  the  project  of  hiring  the 


622 


I^OTES. 


interfered  with  his  conduct  by  an  express  law,  would  be  to 
infringe  the  sacred  rights  of  property,  and  to  say,  in  effect,  that 
a  man  should  not  do  what  he  would  with  his  own.  This  would 
have  been  a  remedy  far  worse  than  the  evil  to  which  it  was 
applied ;  nor  could  it  have  been  possible  so  to  shape  the  principle 
of  a  law,  as  not  to  make  it  far  more  comprehensible  than  was 
desired.  The  senator's  trespass  was  in  a  matter  of  decorum j 
but  the  law  would  have  trespassed'  on  the  first  principles  of 
justice.  Here,  then,  was  a  case  Avithin  the  proper  jurisdiction 
of  the  censor ;  he  took  notice,  in  his  public  report,  of  the  sena- 


chateau  during  the  absence  of  the  owner  ;  but  a  more  profound 
insult  could  not  have  been  offered  to  a  Chevalier  de  St.  Louis. 
Hire  his  house !  What  could  these  people  take  him  for  ?  A 
sordid  wretch  who  would  stoop  to  make  money  by  such  means  ? 
They  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  themselves.  He  could  never  respect 
an  Englishman  again.'  '  And  yet,'  adds  the  writer,  '  this  gen- 
tleman (had  an  ofl&cer  been  billeted  there)  would  have  sold  him 
a  bottle  of  wine  out  of  his  cellar,  or  a  billet  of  wood  from  his 
stack,  or  an  egg  from  his  hen-house,  at  a  profit  of  fifty  per  cent.j 
not  only  without  scruple,  but  upon  no  other  terms  It  was  as 
common  as  ordering  wine  at  a  tavern,  to  call  the  servant  of  any 
man's  establishment  where  we  happened  to  be  quartered,  and 
demand  an  account  of  his  cellar,  as  well  as  the  price  of  the  wine 
we  selected !  '  This  feeling  existed,  and  perhaps  to  the  same 
extent,  two  centuries  ago,  in  England.  Not  only  did  the  aris- 
tocracy think  it  a  degradation  to  act  the  part  of  landlord  with 
respect  to  their  own  houses,  but  also,  except  in  select  cases,  to 
act  that  of  tenant.  Thus,  the  first  Lord  Brooke  (the  famous 
Fulke  Greville),  writing  to  inform  his  next  neighbor,  a  woman 
of  rank,  that  the  house  she  occupied  had  been  purchased  by  a 
London  citizen,  confesses  his  fears  that  he  shall  in  consequence 
lose  so  valuable  a  neighbor;  for,  doubtless  he  adds,  your  lady- 
ship will  not  remain  as  tenant  to  '  such  a  fellow.'  And  yet  the 
man  had  notoriously  held  the  office  of  Lord  Mayor,  which  made 
jjim,  for  the  time.  Right  Honorable.  The  Italians  of  this  day 
make  no  scruple  to  let  off  the  whole,  or  even  part,  0/  their  fine 
mansions  to  strangers. 


NOTES. 


623 


tor's  error;  or  probably,  before  coming  to  that  extremity,  he 
admonished  him  privately  on  the  subject.  Just  as,  in  England, 
had  there  been  such  an  officer,  he  would  have  reproved  those 
men  of  rank  who  mounted  the  coach-box,  who  extended  a  public 
patronage  to  the  '  fancy,'  or  who  rode  their  own  horses  at  a 
race.  Such  a  reproof,  however,  unless  it  were  made  practically 
operative,  and  were  powerfully  supported  by  the  whole  body  of 
the  aristocracy,  would  recoil  upon  its  author  as  a  piece  of  imper- 
tinence, and  would  soon  be  resented  as  an  unwarrantable  liberty 
taken  with  private  life ;  the  censor  would  be  kicked  or  challenged 
to  private  combat,  according  to  the  taste  of  the  parties  aggrieved. 
The  office  is  clearly  in  this  dilemma  :  if  the  censor  is  supported 
by  the  State,  then  he  combines  in  his  own  person  both  legislative 
and  executive  functions,  and  possesses  a  power  which  is  fright- 
fully irresponsible;  if,  on  the  other  hand,  he  is  left  to  such  sup- 
port as  he  can  find  in  the  prevailing  spirit  of  manners,  and  the 
old  traditionary  veneration  for  his  sacred  character,  he  stands 
very  much  in  the  situation  of  a  priesthood,  which  has  great 
power  or  none  at  all,  according  to  the  condition  of  a  country  in 
moral  and  religious  feeling,  coupled  with  the  more  or  less  prim- 
itive state  of  manners.  How,  then,  with  any  rational  prospect 
of  success ,  could  Decius  attempt  the  revival  of  an  office  depend- 
ing so  entirely  on  moral  supports,  in  an  age  when  all  those  sup- 
ports were  withdrawn  ?  The  prevailing  spirit  of  manners  was 
hardly  fitted  to  sustain  even  a  toleration  of  such  an  office  ;  and 
as  to  the  traditionary  veneration  for  the  sacred  character,  from 
long  disuse  of  its  practical  functions,  that  probably  was  altogether 
extinct.  If  these  considerations  are  plain  and  intelligible  even 
to  us,  by  the  men  of  that  day  they  must  have  been  felt  with  a 
degree  of  force  that  could  leave  no  room  for  doubt  or  speculatiou 
on  the  matter.  How  was  it,  then,  that  the  emperor  only  should 
have  been  blind  to  such  general  light  ? 

In  the  absence  of  all  other,  even  plausible,  solutions  of  this 
difficulty,  we  shall  state  our  own  theory  of  the  matter.  Decius, 
as  is  evident  from  his  fierce  persecution  of  the  Christians,  was 
not  disposed  to  treat  Christianity  with  indifference,  under  any 
form  which  it  might  assume,  or  however  masked.  Yet  there 
were  quarters  in  which  it  lurked  not  liable  to  the  ordinary 
modes  of  attack.    Christianity  was  creeping  up  with  inaudible 


624 


KOTES. 


Bteps  into  high  places  —  nay,  into  the  very  highest.  The  im- 
mediate predecessor  of  Decius  upon  the  throne,  Philip  the  Arab, 
was  known  to  be  a  disciple  of  the  new  faith;  and  amongst  the 
nobles  of  Rome,  through  the  females  and  the  slaves,  that  faith 
had  spread  its  roots  in  every  direction.  Some  secrecy,  however, 
attached  to  the  profession  of  a  religion  so  often  proscribed. 
W^ho  should  presume  to  tear  away  the  mask  which  prudence  or 
timidity  had  taken  up  ?  A  delator,  or  professional  informer, 
was  an  infamous  character.  To  deal  with  the  noble  and  illus- 
trious, the  descendants  of  the  Marcelli  and  the  Gracchi,  there 
must  be  nothing  less  than  a  great  state  officer,  supported  by  the 
censor  and  the  senate,  having  an  unlimited  privilege  of  scrutiny 
and  censure,  authorized  to  inflict  the  brand  of  infamy  for  ofi'ences 
not  challenged  by  express  law,  and  yet  emanating  from  an  elder 
institution,  familiar  to  the  days  of  reputed  liberty.  Such  an 
officer  was  the  censor;  and  such  were  the  antichristian  purposes 
of  Decius  in  his  revival. 

Note  67.    Page  228. 

Some  of  these  traditions  have  been  preserved,  which  repre- 
sent Sapor  as  using  his  imperial  captive  for  his  stepping-stone, 
or  anabathrum^  in  mounting  his  horse.  Others  go  farther,  and 
pretend  that  Sapor  actually  flayed  his  unhappy  prisoner  while 
yet  alive.  The  temptation  to  these  stories  was  perhaps  found 
in  the  craving  for  the  marvellous,  and  in  the  desire  to  make 
the  contrast  more  striking  between  the  two  extremes  in  Vale- 
rian's life. 

Note  68.    Page  228. 

Palmyra,  the  Scriptural  Tadmor  in  the  wilderness^  to  which  in 
our  days  Lady  Hester  Stanhope  (niece  to  the  great  minister 
Pitt,  and  seventy  times  seven  more  orientally  proud,  though 
daughter  of  the  freeborn  nation,  than  ever  was  Zenobia  that 
from  infancy  trode  on  the  necks  of  slaves)  made  her  way  from 
Damascus,  at  some  risk,  amongst  clouds  of  Arabs,  she  riding 
che  whole  way  on  horseback  in  the  centre  of  robber  tribes,  and 
with  a  train  such  as  that  of  sultans  or  of  Roman  pro-consuls. 


NOTES. 


625 


Note  69.    Page  229. 

And  this  incompetency  was  permanently  increased  by  rebel- 
lions that  were  brief  and  fugitive  :  for  each  insurgent  almost 
necessarily  maintained  himself  for  the  moment  by  spoliations 
and  robberies  which  left  lasting  effects  behind  them  ;  and  too 
often  he  was  tempted  to  ally  himself  with  some  foreign  enemy 
amongst  the  barbarians  ;  and  perhaps  to  introduce  him  into  the 
heart  of  the  empire. 

Note  70.    Page  230. 

Balkan  ; "  —  A  Russian  general  in  our  own  day,  for  cross- 
ing this  difficult  range  of  mountains  as  a  victor,  was  by  the 
Czar  Nicholas  raised  to  the  title  of  Balkanshi.  But  it  seems 
there  should  rightfully  have  been  an  elder  creation.  Claudius 
might  have  pre-occiipied  the  ground,  as  the  original  Balkanski. 

Note  71.    Page  232. 

Zenobia  is  complimented  by  all  historians  for  her  magna- 
nimity; but  with  no  foundation  in  truth.  Her  first  salutation 
to  Aurelian  was  a  specimen  of  abject  flattery;  and  her  last 
public  words  were  evidences  of  the  basest  treachery  in  giving  up 
her  generals,  and  her  chief  counsellor  Longinus,  to  the  vengeance 
of  the  ungenerous  enemy. 

Note  72.    Page  232. 

^' Difficulty  1 —  Difficulty  from  what?  We  presume  from 
scarcity  of  provisions,  and  (as  regarded  the  siege)  scarcity  of 
wood.  But  mark  how  these  vaunted  and  vaunting  Romans,  so 
often  as  they  found  themselves  in  our  modern  straits,  sat  down 
to  cry.  Heavier  by  far  have  been  our  British  perplexities  upon 
many  an  Oriental  field;  but  did  we  sit  down  to  cryl 

Note  73.    Page  236. 

"  A  fortune  of  three  millions  sterling ;  —  Whence  came  these 
enormous  fortunes  ?  Several  sources  might  be  indicated ;  but 
amongst  them  perhaps  the  commonest  was  this  —  every  citizen 
of  marked  distinction  made  it  a  practice,  if  circumstances 
favored,  to  leave  a  legacy  to  others  of  the  same  class  whom  he 
40 


626 


NOTl^S. 


happened  to  esteem,  or  wished  to  acknowledge  as  special  friends 
A  very  good  custom,  more  honoured  in  the  observance  than  the 
breach,  and  particularly  well  suited  to  our  own  merits. 

Note  74.    Page  245. 

*  Tliirteen  thousand  chambers.' — The  number  of  the  chambers 
in  this  prodigious  palace  is  usually  estimated  at  that  amount.  But 
Lady  Miller,  who  made  particular  inquiries  on  this  subject, 
ascertained  that  the  total  amount,  including  cellars  and  close's, 
capable  of  receiving  a  bed,  was  fifteen  thousand. 

Note  75.  Page  248. 
In  no  point  of  his  policy  was  the  cunning  or  the  sagacity  of 
Augustus  so  much  displayed,  as  in  his  treaty  of  partition  with 
the  senate,  which  settled  the  distribution  of  the  provinces,  and 
their  future  administration.  Seeming  to  take  upon  himself  all 
the  trouble  and  hazard,  he  did  in  effect  appropriate  all  the 
power,  and  left  to  the  senate  little  more  than  trophies  of  show 
and  ornament.  As  a  first  step,  all  the  greater  provinces,  as 
Spain  and  Gaul,  were  subdivided  into  many  smaller  ones.  This 
done,  Augustus  proposed  that  the  senate  should  preside  over  the 
administration  of  those  amongst  them  which  were  peaceably 
settled,  and  which  paid  a  regular  tribute  ;  whilst  all  those  which 
were  the  seats  of  danger,  —  either  as  being  exposed  to  hostile 
Inroads,  or  to  internal  commotions,  —  all,  therefore,  in  fact, 
which  could  justify  the  keeping  up  of  a  military  force,  he 
assigned  to  himself.  In  virtue  of  this  arrangement,  the  senate 
possessed  in  Africa  those  provinces  which  had  been  formed  out 
of  Carthage,  Cyrene,  and  the  kingdom  of  Numidia;  in  Europe, 
the  richest  and  most  quiet  part  of  Spain  {Hispania  Bostica,) 
with  the  large  islands  of  Sicily,  Sardinia,  Corsica,  and  Crete, 
and  some  districts  of  Greece;  in  Asia,  the  kingdoms  of  Pontua 
and  Bithynia,  with  that  part  of  Asia  Minor  technically  called 
^sia;  whilst,  for  his  own  share,  Augustus  retained  Gaul,  Syria, 
the  chief  part  of  Spain,  and  Egypt,  the  granary  of  Rome  ; 
finally,  all  the  military  posts  on  the  Euphrates,  on  the  Danube, 
or  the  Rhine. 

Yet  even  the  showy  concessions  here  made  to  the  senate  were 


KOTES. 


627 


defeated  by  another  political  institution,  settled  at  the  same  time. 
It  had  been  agreed  that  the  governors  of  provinces  should  be 
appointed  by  the  emperor  and  the  senate  jointly.  But  within 
the  senatorial  jurisdiction,  these  governors,  with  the  title  of 
Proconsuls,  were  to  have  no  military  power  whatsoever;  and 
the  appointments  were  good  only  for  a  single  year.  Whereas,  in 
the  imperatorial  provinces,  where  the  governor  bore  the  title  of 
ProprcBtor,  there  was  provision  made  for  a  military  establish- 
ment; and  as  to  duration,  the  office  was  regulated  entirely  by 
the  emperor's  pleasure.  One  other  ordinance,  on  the  same 
head,  riveted  the  vassalage  of  the  senate.  Hitherto,  a  great 
source  of  the  senate's  power  had  been  found  in  the  uncontrolled 
management  of  the  provincial  revenues  ;  but  at  Ihis  time, 
Augustus  so  arranged  that  branch  of  the  administration,  that, 
throughout  the  senatorian  or  proconsular  provinces,  all  taxea 
were  immediately  paid  into  the  cer avium,  or  treasury  of  the  State: 
whilst  the  whole  revenues  of  the  propraetorian  (or  imperatorial) 
provinces,  from  this  time  forward,  flowed  into  the  fiscus,  or 
private  treasure  of  the  individual  emperor. 

Note  76.  Page  253. 
On  the  abdication  of  Dioclesian  and  of  Maximian,  Galerius  and 
Constantius  succeeded  as  the  new  Augusti.  But  Galerius,  as 
the  more  immediate  representative  of  Dioclesian,  thought  him- 
self entitled  to  appoint  both  Caesars,  —  the  Daza  (or  Maximus) 
in  Syria,  Severus  in  Italy.  Meantime,  Constantine,  the  son  of 
Constantius,  \\  ith  difficulty  obtaining  permission  from  Galerius 
paid  a  visit  to  his  father;  upon  whose  death,  which  followed 
soon  after,  Constuntine  came  forward  as  a  Caesar,  under  the 
appointment  of  his  father.  Galerius  submitted  with  a  bad 
grace;  but  Maxentius,  a  reputed  son  of  Maximian,  was  roused 
by  emulation  with  Constantine  to  assume  the  purple;  and  being 
joined  by  his  father,  they  jointly  attacked  and  destroyed 
Severus.  Galerius,  to  revenge  the  death  of  his  own  Caesar, 
advanced. towards  Rome;  but  being  compelled  to  a  disastrous 
retreat,  he  resorted  to  the  mea.sUTe  of  associating  another  empe- 
ror with  himself,  as  a  balance  to  his  new  enemies.  This  was 
tiicinius;  and  thus,  at  one  time,  there  were  six  emperors,  either 


628 


NOTE?, 


as  Augusti  or  as  Caesars.  Galerius,  however,  dying,  all  the  rest 
were  in  succession  destroyed  by  Constantine. 

Note  77.  Page  254. 
Valentinian  the  First,  who  admitted  his  brother  Valens  to  a 
partnership  in  the  empire,  had,  by  his  first  wife,  an  elder  son, 
Gratian,  who  reigned  and  associated  with  himself  Theodosius, 
commonly  called  the  Great.  By  his  second  wife  he  had  Val- 
entinian the  Second,  who,  upon  the  death  of  his  brother  Gratian, 
was  allowed  to  share  the  empire  by  Theodosius.  Theodosiiis,  by 
his  first  wife,  had  two  sons,  —  Arcadius,  who  afterwards  reigned 
in  the  east,  and  Honor ius,  whose  weytern  reign  was  so  much 
illustrated  by  Stilicho.  By  a  second  wife,  daughter  to  Valen- 
tinian the  First,  Theodosius  had  a  daughter,  (half-sister,  there- 
fore, to  Honorius,  whose  son  was  Valentinian  the  Third;  and 
through  this  alliance  it  was  that  the  two  last  emperors  of  con- 
spicuous mark  united  their  two  houses,  and  entwined  their  sep- 
arate ciphers,  so  that  more  gracefully,  and  with  the  commen- 
surate grandeur  of  a  doubleheaded  eagle  looking  east  and  west 
to  the  rising,  but  also,  alas  !  to  the  setting  sun,  the  brother 
Csesars  might  take  leave  of  the  children  of  Romulus  in  the  pa- 
thetic but  lofty  words  of  the  departing  gladiators,  Morituri,  we 
that  are  now  to  die,  vos  salutamus,  make  our  farewell  salutation 
to  you !  • 

Note  78.  Page  265. 

Even  here  there  is  a  risk  of  being  misunderstood.  Some  will 
read  this  term  ex  parte  in  the  sense,  that  now  there  are  no  neu- 
tral statements  surviving.  But  such  statements  there  never 
were.  The  controversy  moving  for  a  whole  century  in  Rome 
before  Pharsalia,  was  not  about  facts,  but  about  constitutional 
principles  ;  and  as  to  that  question  there  could  be  no  neutrality. 
From  the  nature  of  the  case,  the  truth  must  have  lain  with  one 
of  the  parties  ;  compromise,  or  intermediate  temperament,  was 
inapplicable.  What  we  complain  of  as  overlooked  is,  not  that 
*.he  surviving  records  of  the  quarrel  are  partisan  records, 
(that  being  a  mere  necessity,)  but  in  the  forensic  use  of  thi 


XOTES, 


629 


term  ex  parte,  that  they  are  such  without  benefit  of  equilibrium 
or  modification  from  the  partisan  statements  in  the  opposite 
interest 

Note  79,  Page  266. 

Cicero  in  Seinen  Brief en^  Von  Bernhard  Ruuolf  Abeken, 
Professor  am  Raths-Gymnas,  zu  Osnabriich.   Hanover,  1885. 

Note  80.   Page  268. 

^Hatred.'' — It  exemplifies  the  pertinacity  of  this  hatred  to 
mention,  that  Middleton  was  one  of  the  men  who  sought,  for 
twenty  years,  some  historical  ficts  that  might  conform  to  Leslie's 
four  conditions,  {Short  Method  with  the  Deists,)  and  yet  evade 
Leslie's  logic.  We  think  little  of  Leslie's  argument,  which  never 
could  have  been  valued  by  a  sincerely  religious  man.  But  the 
rage  of  Middleton,  and  his  perseverance,  illustrate  his  temper  of 
warfare. 

Note  81.  Page  270. 

<  Rich.''  —  We  may  consider  Cicero  as  worth,  in  a  case  of  ne- 
cessity, at  least  £400,000.  Upon  that  part  of  this  property  which 
lay  in  money,  there  was  always  a  very  high  interest  to  be  ob- 
tained ;  but  not  so  readily  a  good  security  for  the  principal.  The 
means  of  increasing  this  fortune  by  marriage  was  continually 
offering  to  a  leading  senator,  such  as  Cicero,  and  the-  facility 
of  divorce  aided  this  resource. 

Note  82.  Page  283. 

*  Laurel  crown.''  — Amongst  the  honors  granted  to  Pompey  at 
a  very  early  period,  was  the  liberty  to  wear  a  diadem  or  corona 
on  ceremonial  occasions.  The  common  reading  was  *  auream 
coronam '  until  Lipsius  suggested  lauream  ;  which  correction 
has  since  been  generally  adopted  into  the  text.  This  distinction 
is  remarkable  when  contrasted  with  the  same  trophy  as  after- 


630 


NOTES. 


wards  conceded  to  Caesar,  in  relation  to  the  popular  feelings,  so 
different  in  the  two  cases. 

Note  83.  Page  315. 

*  Of  the  superb  Aurelian  : '  — The  particular  occasion  was  the 
msurrection  in  the  East,  of  which  the  ostensible  leaders  were  the 
great  lieutenants  of  Palmyra  —  Odenathus,  and  his  widow, 
Zenobia.  The  alarm  at  Rome  was  out  of  all  proportion  to  the 
danger,  and  well  illustrated  the  force  of  the  great  historian's 
aphorism — Oinne  ignoiuin  pro  magnifico.  In  one  sentence  of 
his  despatch,  Aurelian  aimed  at  a  contest  with  the  great  Julian 
gasconade  of  Veni,  vidi,  vici.  His  words  are — Fugavivius, 
obsedimus,  cruciavimus,  occidimus. 

Note  84.  Page  322. 

*  Pretended  barbarians^  Gothic^  Vandalish,'*  <§*c.  —  Had  it 
been  true  that  these  tramontane  people  were  as  ferocious  in  man- 
ners or  appe:irance  as  was  alleged,  it  would  not  therefore  have 
followed  that  they  were  barbarous  in  their  modes  of  thinking 
and  feeling;  or,  if  that  also  had  been  true,  surely  it  became  the 
Romans  to  recollect  what  very  barbarians,  both  in  mind,  and 
manners,  and  appearance,  were  some  of  their  own  Csesars. 
Meantime  it  appears,  that  not  only  Alaric  the  Goth,  but  even 
Attila  the  Hun,  in  popular  repute  the  most  absolute  Ogre  cf  all 
the  Transalpine  invaders,  turns  out  in  more  thoughtful  repre- 
sentations to  have  been  a  prince  of  peculiarly  mild  demeanor, 
and  apparently  upright  character. 

Note  85.  Page  326. 

*  Eaten  a  dish  of  boiled  hippopotamus  : '  —  We  once  thought 
that  some  error  might  exist  in  the  text  —  edisse  for  edidisse  — 
and  that  a  man  exposed  a  hippopotamus  at  the  games  of  the 
amphitheatre  ;  but  we  are  now  satisfied  that  he  ate  the  hippo- 
potamus. 

.  ^  Note  86.  Page  329. 

*  All  had  been  forgotten.'  —  It  is  true  that  the  Augustan 
Heritor,  rather  than  appear  to  know  nothing  at  all,  tells  a  most 


NOTES. 


631 


idle  fable  about  a  scurra  having  intruded  into  Caesar's  tent,  and 
upon  finding  the  young  Emperor  awake,  had  excited  his  com- 
rades to  the  murder  for  fear  of  being  punished  for  his  insolent 
intrusion.  But  the  whole  story  is  nonsense  ;  a  camp  legend,  or 
at  the  best  a  fable  put  forth  by  the  real  conspirators  to  mask  the 
truth.  The  writer  did  not  believe  it  himself.  By  the  way,  a 
scurra  does  not  retain  its  classical  sense  of  a  bulfoon  in  the 
A-Ugustan  History  ;  it  means  a  au  uarocpvXa^y  or  body-guard  ; 
but  why,  is  yet  undiscovered.  Our  own  belief  is  —  that  the 
word  is  a  Thracian  or  a  Gothic  word  ;  the  body-guards  being 
derived  from  those  nations. 

Note  87.  Page  382. 

Geographie  des  Herodot  —  dargestellt  von  Hermanii  Bobrik 
Koenigsberg,  1838. 

Note  88.  Page  386. 

But  —  *  How  has  it  prevailed,'  some  will  ask,  '  if  an  error  : 
Have  not  great  scholars  sate  upon  Herodotus  ?  '  Doubtless, 
many.  There  is  none  greater,  for  instance,  merely  as  a  verbal 
scholar,  than  Valckenaer.  Whence  we  conclude  that  inevitably 
this  error  has  been  remarked  somewhere.  And  as  to  the  erro- 
neous Latin  version  still  keeping  its  ground,  partly  that  may  be 
due  to  the  sort  of  superstition  which  everywhere  protects  old 
usages  in  formal  situations  like  a  title-page,  partly  to  the  fact 
that  there  is  no  happy  Latin  word  to  express  *  Researches. ' 
But,  however,  that  may  be,  all  the  scholars  in  the  world  cannot 
get  lid  of  the  evidence  involved  in  the  general  use  of  the  word 
lOToQia  by  Herodotus. 

Note  89.  Page  392. 

*  Two-horned,^  in  one  view,  as  having  no  successor,  Alexander 
was  called  the  one-horned.  But  it  is  very  singular  that  all 
Oriental  nations,  without  knowing  anything  of  the  scriptural 
symbols  under  which  Alexander  is  described  by  Daniel  as  the 
ptrong  he-goat  who  butted  against  the  ram  of  Persia,  have 
always  called  him  the  *  two-horned,'  with  a  covert  allusion  to 


632 


KOTES. 


his  European  and  liis  Asiatic  kingdom.  And  it  is  equally  singu- 
lar, that  unintentionally  this  symbol  falls  in  with  Alexander's 
own  assumption  of  a  descent  from  Libyan  Jupiter- A mmon,  to 
whom  the  double  horns  were  an  indispensable  and  characteristic 
sj'mbol. 

Note  90.    Page  393. 

Viz.  (as  I  believ6),  by  Vicessimus  Knox  —  a  writer  now 
entirely  forgotten.  Father  of  History  you  call  him  ?  Much 
rather  the  Father  of  Lies" 

Note  91.  Page  397. 

Which  edition  the  arrogant  Mathias  in  his  PursvMs  of  Litera- 
ture, (by  far  the  most  popular  of  books  from  1797  to  1802,) 
highly  praised  ;  though  otherwise  amusing  himself  with  the 
folly  of  the  other  gray-headed  men  contending  for  a  school- 
boy's prize.  It  was  the  loss  of  dignity,  however,  in  the  transla^ 
tor,  not  their  worthless  Greek,  which  he  saw  cause  to  ridicule. 

Note  92.    Page  402. 

Which  word  Iiidia,  it  must  be  remembered,  was  liable  to  no 
such  equivocation  as  it  is  now.  India  meant  simply  the  land  of 
the  river  Indus,  i.  e.,  all  the  territory  lying  eastward  of  that 
river  down  to  the  mouths  of  the  Gauges ;  and  the  Indians 
meant  simply  the  Hindoos,  or  natives  of  Hiiidostan.  Whereas, 
at  present,  we  give  a  secondary  sense  to  the  word  Indian,  ap- 
plying it  to  a  race  of  savages  in  the  New  World,  viz.,  to  all  the 
aboriginal  natives  of  the  American  continent,  and  also  to  the 
aboriginal  natives  of  all  the  islands  scattered  over  the  Pacific 
Ocean  to  the  west  of  that  continent ;  and  all  the  islands  in  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico  to  the  east  of  it.  Standing  confusion  has  thus 
been  introduced  into  the  acceptation  of  the  word  Indian  ;  a  con- 
fusion corresponding  to  that  which  besieged  the  ancient  use  of 
the  term  Scythian,  and,  in  a  minor  degree,  the  term  Ethiopian. 

Note  93.    Page  453. 

But  how  like  Homer  ?  Homer,  and  most  other  classical  nar- 
rative poets,  move  inditferently  (and  perhaps  equally)  by  inter- 


NOTES. 


633 


change  of  speeches^  sometimes  colloquial  and  gossiping,  some- 
times stately  and  haranguing.    Plato  forgets  his  Homer. 

Note  94.    Page  454. 

Prohahly :  —  more  than  probably,  I  fear :  Plato,  it  may  be 
suspected,  cultivated  the  arts  of  petty  larceny  to  an  extent  that 
was  far  from  philosophic.  I  said  nothing,  but  winked  at  his 
dishonesty,  when  some  pages  back  he  thought  proper  to  charge 
upon  Homer  and  Hesiod  the  monstrous  forgery  of  Jupiter  Op- 
timus  Maximus  and  all  Olympus,  nothing  less  (if  the  reader 
will  believe  me)  than  the  whole  Pantheon.  But  in  fact  that 
charge  was  fraudulently  appropriated  by  Plato  from  a  better 
man,  viz.,  Herodotus,  who  must  have  been  fifty  years  older 
than  the  philosopher.  And  now  at  this  point  again  we  find 
the  philosopher  filching  from  Euripides  ! 

Note  95.    Page  471. 

What  I  mean  is  —  that  each  individual  amongst  the  women 
could  know  for  certain  whether  she  ever  had  been  a  parent, 
though  not  whether  she  still  continued  such  :  but  to  the  men 
even  this  limited  knowledge  was  denied.  Their  own  hypothetic 
interest  in  the  young  rear-guard  who  were  snatching  a  holiday 
spectacle  from  the  bloody  conflict  of  their  possible  papas,  wonld 
therefore  reasonably  sink  below  zero.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that 
Plato  would  not  forbid  the  soldiers  to  distribute  an  occasional 
kicking  amongst  these  young  scoundrels,  who  would  doubtless 
be  engaged  in  betting  on  the  several  events  as  at  a  main  of 
game  cocks  —  an  amusement  so  extensively  patronized  by  Plato 
himself. 

Note  96.   Page  484. 
In  product :  ^  —  Milton's  translation   (somewhere  m  the 
•  Paradise  Regained  ')  of  the  technical  phrase  *  in  procinctu.* 

Note  97.  Page  485. 
«  Geologists  know  not:^  —  In  man  the  sixtieth  part  of  six  thou- 
sand years  is  a  very  venerable  age.  But  as  to  a  planet,  as  to  our 
little  earth,  instead  of  arguing  dotage,  six  thousand  years  may 
have  scarcely  carried  her  beyond  babyhood.  Some  people  think 
she  is  cutting  her  first  teeth ;  some  think  her  in  her  teens.  But, 


634 


NOTES. 


seriously,  it  is  a  very  interesting  problem.  Do  the  sixty  centu- 
ries of  our  earth  imply  youth,  maturity,  or  dotage  ? 

Note  98.  Page  486. 
^  Kvery where  the  ancients  went  to  bed,  like  good  boys,  from 
seven  to  nine  o^ clock  :  '  — 7  As  I  am  perfectly  serious,  I  must  beg 
the  reader,  who  fancies  any  joke  in  all  this,  to  consider  what  an 
immense  difference  it  must  have  made  to  the  earth,  considered  as 
a  steward  of  her  own  resources  —  whether  great  nations,  in  a  pe- 
riod when  their  resources  were  so  feebly  developed,  did,  or  did 
not,  for  many  centuries,  require  candles;  and,  I  may  add,  fire. 
The  five  heads  of  human  expenditure  are —  1.  Food;  2.  Shelter; 
3.  Clothing;  4.  Fuel;  5.  Light.  All  were  pitched  on  a  lower  scale 
in  the  Pagan  era;  and  the  two  last  were  almost  banished  from 
ancient  housekeeping.  What  a  great  relief  this  must  have  been 
to  our  good  mother  the  earth  !  who  at  fi,rst  was  obliged  to  request 
of  her  children  that  they  would  settle  round  the  Mediterranean. 
She  could  not  even  afford  them  water,  unless  they  would  come 
and  fetch  it  themseites  out  of  a  commnn  tank  or  cistern. 

Note  99.  Page  487. 
^  The  mane  salutantes  :  ^  —  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
levees  of  modern  princes  and  ministers  have  been  inherited  from 
this  ancient  usage  of  Rome;  one  which  belonged  to  Rome  repub- 
lican, as  well  as  Rome  imperial.  The  fiction  in  our  modern 
practice  is  —  that  we  wait  upon  the  lever,  or  rising  of  the  prince. 
In  France,  at  one  era,  this  fiction  was  realized  :  the  courtiera 
did  really  attend  the  king's  dressing.  And,  as  to  the  queen, 
even  up  to  the  Revolution,  Marie  Antoinette  gave  audience  at  her 
toilette. 

Note  100.  Page  490, 
*  Or  again,  **  siccum  pro  biscocto,  ut  hodie  vocamus,  sume* 
mus  ?  "  '  —  It  is  odd  enough  that  a  scholar  so  complete  aa 
Salmasius,  whom  nothing  ever  escapes,  should  have  overlooked 
so  obvious  an  alternative  as  that  of  siccus  in  the  sense  of  being 
without  opsoniuni —  Scotice,  without  *  kitchen.' 


NOTES. 


635 


Note  101.  Page  492. 

*  The  whole  amount  of  relief : '  —  From  which  it  appears  ho^ 
grossly  Locke  (see  his  *  Education  ')  was  deceived  in  fancying 
that  Augustus  practised  any  remarkable  abstinence  in  taking 
only  a  bit  of  bread  and  a  raisin  or  two,  by  way  of  luncheon. 
Augustus  did  no  more  than  most  people  did;  secondly,  he  ab- 
stained only  upon  principles  of  luxury  with  a  view  to  dinner  ; 
and  thirdly,  for  this  dinner  he  never  waited  longer  than  up  to 
four  o'c^ck. 

Note  102.  Page  498. 

*  Mansiones  : '  —  The  halts  of  the  Roman  legions,  the  station- 
ary places  of  repose  which  divided  the  marches,  were  so  called. 

Note  103.  Page  503. 

*  The  Everlasting  Jeiv : '  —  The  German  name  for  what  we 
English  call  the  Wandering  Jew.  The  German  imagination  has 
been  most  struck  by  the  duration  of  the  man's  life,  and  his  un- 
happy sanctity  from  death;  the  English,  by  the  unrestingness  oi 
the  man's  life,  his  incopacity  of  repose. 

Note  104.  Page  509. 

*  Immeasurable  toga  ; '  —  It  is  very  true  that  in  the  time  of 
Augustus  the  toga  had  disappeared  amongst  the  lowest  plebs, 
and  greatly  Augustus  was  shocked  at  that  spectacle.  It  is  a  very 
curious  fact  in  itself,  especially  as  expounding  the  main  cause  of 
the  civil  wars.  Mere  poverty,  and  the  absence  of  bribery  from 
Rome,  whilst  all  popular  competition  for  offices  drooped,  can 
alone  explain  this  remarkable  revolution  of  dress. 

Note  105.  Page  517. 
'  His  young  English  Bride  : '  —  The  case  of  an  old  man,  or 
one  reputed  old,  marrying  a  very  girlish  wife,  is  always  too  much 
for  the  gravity  of  history;  and,  rather  than  lose  the  joke,  the 
historian  prudently  disguises  the  age,  which,  after  all,  in  this 
case  was  not  above  fifty-four.    And  the  very  persons  who  insist 


636 


NOTES. 


on  the  late  dinner  as  the  proximate  cause  of  death,  elsewhere  in- 
sinuate something  more  plausible,  but  not  so  decorously  expressed. 
It  is  odd  that  this  amiable  prince,  so  memorable  as  having  been 
a  martyr  to  late  dining  at  eleyen  a.  m.,  was  the  same  person  who 
is  so  equally  memorable  for  the  noble,  almost  the  sublime,  answer 
about  a  King  of  France  not  remembering  the  wrongs  of  a  Duke 
of  Orleans. 

Note  106.  Page  520 
*  Took  their  carta  at  noon : '  —  And,  by  the  way,  in  order  to 
show  how  little  ccKna  had  to  do  with  any  evening  hour  (though, 
in  any  age  but  that  of  our  fathers,  four  in  the  afternoon  would, 
never  have  been  thought  an  evening  hour),  the  Roman  gour- 
mands and  bons  vivants  continued  through  the  very  last  ages  of 
Rome  to  take  their  ccena^  when  more  than  usually  sumptuous,  at 
noon.  This,  indeed,  all  people  did  occasionally,  just  as  we  some- 
times give  a  dinner  even  now  so  early  as  four  p.  m.,  under  the 
name  of  a  breakfast.  Those  who  took  their  ccena  so  early  aa 
this,  were  said  de  die  c(znare  —  to  begin  dining  from  high  day, 
That  line  in  Horace  —  *  Ut  jugulent  homines,  surgunt  de  node 
latrones '  —  does  not  mean  that  the  robbers  rise  when  others 
are  going  to  bed,  viz.,  at  nightMl,  but  at  midnight.  For,  says 
one  of  the  three  best  scholars  of  this  eaith,  de  die,  de  node. 
mean  from  that  hour  which  was  most  fully,  most  intensely  day 
or  night,  viz.,  the  centre,  the  meridian.  This  one  fact  is  surely 
a  clincher  as  to  the  question  whether  ccena  meant  dinner  or 
supper.  * 


ESSAYS 


ON 


HRISTIANITY,  PAGANISM,  AND 
SUPERSTITION. 


BOSTON: 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY. 

1881. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1854,  by 

TiCKNOR  AND  FIELDS, 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts 


Copyright,  1877, 
By  KURD  AND  HOUGHTON. 


The  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge : 
PriJded  by  H.  O.  Hotighion  and  Company, 


I 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

On  Christianity  as  an  Organ  of  Political  Movement    .  3 

The  Essenes  52  " 

Secret  Societies       .   138 

Supplementary  Note  on  the  Essenes      ....  199 

Judas  Iscariot  223 

The  True  Kelations  of  the  Bible  to  merely  Human 

Science  ...   262 

On  the  Supposed  Scriptural  Expression  for  Eternity  271 
On  Hume's  Argument  Against  Miracles  .      .      .  291 

Protestantism  317 

Secession  from  the  Church  of  Scotland  ....  407 

The  Pagan  Oracles  465 

Modern  Superstition        ........  533 

Sortilege  on  Behalf  of  the  Glasgow  Athen^um  .  589 
Xotes    .      .  £      <      .  .  .  615 


ESSAYS  ON  CHRISTIANITY,  PAGANISM,  AND 
SCPEESTITION. 


ON  CHRISTIANITY, 

AS  AN  ORGAN  OF  POLITICAL  MOVEMENT. 

Forces,  which  are  illimitable  in  their  compass  of 
effect,  are  often,  for  the  same  reason,  obscure  and  un- 
traceable in  the  steps  of  their  movement.  Growth, 
for  instance,  animal  or  vegetable,  what  eye  can  arrest 
its  eternal  increments  ?  The  hour-hand  of  a  watch, 
who  can  detect  the  separate  fluxions  of  its  advance  ? 
Judging  by  the  past,  and  the  change  which  is  registered 
between  that  and  the  present,  we  know  that  it  must 
be  awake  ;  judging  by  the  immediate  appearances,  we 
should  say  that  it  was  always  asleep.  Gravitation, 
again,  that  works  without  holiday  forever,  and  searches 
every  corner  of  the  universe,  what  intellect  can  follow 
it  to  its  fountains  ?  And  yet,  shyer  than  gravitation, 
less  to  be  counted  than  the  fluxions  of  sun-dials, 
stealthier  than  the  growth  of  a  forest,  are  the  footsteps 
of  Christianity  amongst  the  political  workings  of  man. 
Nothing,  that  the  heart  of  man  values,  is  so  secret ; 
nothing  is  so  potent, 
i 


2 


ON   CHRISTIANITY   AS  AN  ORGAN 


ll  is  because  Christianity  works  so  secret!}  that  it 
works  so  potently ;  it  is  because  Christianity  burrows 
and  hides  itself,  that  it  towers  above  the  clouds  ;  and 
hence  partly  it  is  that  its  working  comes  to  be  misap- 
prehended, or  even  lost  out  of  sight.  It  is  dark  to 
eyes  touched  with  the  films  of  human  frailty:  but  it  is 
"  dark  with  excessive  bright."-''  Hence  it  has  happened 
sometimes  that  minds  of  the  highest  order  have  entered 
into  enmity  with  the  Christian  faith,  have  arraigned  it 
as  a  curse  to  man,  and  have  fought  against  it  even  J 
upon  Christian  impulses  (impulses  of  benignity  that  5 
could  not  have  had  a  birth  except  in  Christianity).  ^ 
All  comes  from  the  labyrinthine  intricacy  in  which  the  i 
social  action  of  Christianity  involves  itself  to  the  eye 
of  a  contemporary.  Simplicity  the  most  absolute  is 
reconcilable  with  intricacy  the  most  elaborate.  The 
weather  —  how  simple  would  appear  the  laws  of  its 
oscillations,  if  we  stood  at  their  centre  !  and  yet,  be- 
cause we  do  7iot,  to  this  hour  the  weather  is  a  mystery. 
Human  health  —  how  transparent  is  its  economy  under 
ordinary  circumstances  !  abstinence  and  cleanliness, 
labor  and  rest,  these  simple  laws,  observed  in  just 
proportions,  laws  that  may  be  engrossed  upon  a  finger 
nail,  are  sufiScient,  on  the  whole,  to  maintain  the  equi- 
librium of  pleasurable  existence.  Yet,  if  once  that 
equilibrium  is  disturbed,  where  is  the  science  often- 
times deep  enough  to  rectify  the  unfathomable  watch- 
work  ?  Even  the  simplicities  of  planetary  motions  do 
not  escape  distortion  :  nor  is  it  easy  to  be  convinced 
that  the  distortion  is  in  the  eye  which  beholds,  not  in 

•  **  Dark  with  excessive  bright.'*    Paradise  Lost.  Book  IIL 


OF   POLITICAL  MOVEMENT. 


the  object  beheld.  Let  a  planet  be  wheeling  with 
neavenly  science,  upon  arches  of  divine  geometry  : 
suddenly,  to  us,  it  shall  appear  unaccountably  retro- 
grade ;  flying  when  none  pursues  ;  and  unweaving  its 
own  work.  Let  this  planet  in  its  utmost  elongations 
travel  out  of  sight,  and  for  us  its  course  will  become 
incoherent :  because  our  sight  is  feeble,  the  beautiful 
curve  of  the  planet  shall  be  dislocated  into  segments, 
by  a  parenthesis  of  darkness  ;  because  our  earth  is  in 
no  true  centre,  the  disorder  of  parallax  shall  trouble 
the  laws  of  light  ;  and,  because  we  ourselves  are 
w^andering,  the  heavens  shall  seem  fickle. 

Exactly  in  the  predicament  of  such  a  planet  is 
Christianity  :  its  motions  are  intermingled  with  other 
motions  ;  crossed  and  thwarted,  eclipsed  and  disguised, 
by  counter-motions  in  man  himself,  and  by  disturb- 
ances that  man  cannot  overrule.  Upon  lines  that  are 
direct,  upon  curves  that  are  circuitous,  Christianity  is 
advancing  forever  ;  but  from  our  imperfect  vision,  or 
from  our  imperfect  opportunities  for  applying  even 
such  a  vision,  we  cannot  trace  it  continuously.  We 
lose  it,  we  regain  it;  we  see  it  doubtfully,- we  see  it 
interruptedly  ;  we  see  it  in  collision,  we  see  it  in  ccm- 
bination  ;  in  collision  with  darkness  that  confounds, 
in  combination  with  cross  lights  that  perplex.  And 
this  in  j)art  is  irremediable  ;  so  that  no  finite  intellect 
will  ever  retrace  the  total  curve  upon  which  Christi- 
anity has  moved,  any  more  than  eyes  that  are  incar- 
viate  will  ever  see  God. 

But  part  of  this  diflftculty  in  unweaving  the  maze 
has  its  source  in  a  misconception  of  the  original 
machinery  by  which  Christianity  moved,  and  of  the 


4 


ON   CHUISTIANITY  AS  AN  OKGAN 


initial  principle  which  constituted  its  differential  power. 
In  books,  at  least,  I  have  observed  one  capital  blunder 
upon  the  relations  which  Christianity  bears  to  Pagan- 
ism :  and  out  of  that  one  mistake,  grows  a  liability  to 
others,  upon  the  possible  relations  of  Christianity  to 
the  total  drama  of  this  world.  I  will  endeavor  to  ex- 
plain my  views.  And  the  reader,  who  takes  any  in- 
terest in  the  subject,  will  not  need  to  fear  that  the 
explanation  should  prove  tedious  ;  for  the  mere  want 
of  space,  will  put  me  under  a  coercion  to  move  rapidly 
over  the  ground  ;  I  cannot  be  diffuse  ;  and,  as  regards 
quality,  he  will  find  in  this  paper  little  of  what  is  scat- 
tered over  the  surface  of  books. 

I  begin  with  this  question  :  — What  do  people  mean 
in  a  Christian  land  by  the  word  "religion?''  My 
purpose  is  not  to  propound  any  metaphysical  prob- 
lem ;  I  wish  only,  in  the  plainest  possible  sense,  to 
ask,  and  to  have  an  answer,  upon  this  one  point  — 
how  much  is  understood  by  that  obscure  term,^'  "  re- 

*  *•*  That  obscure  term  ;  " —  i.  e.,  not  obscure  as  regards  the  use 
of  the  term,  or  its  present  value,  but  as  regards  its  original 
genesis,  or  what  in  civil  law  is  called  the  deductio.  Under  what 
angle,  under  what  aspect,  or  relation,  to  the  field  which  it  con- 
cerns, did  the  term  religion  originally  come  forward  ?  The  gen- 
eral field,  overlooked  by  religion,  is  the  ground  which  lies  between 
the  spirit  of  man  and  the  supernatural  world.  At  present,  under 
the  humblest  conception  of  religion,  the  human  spirit  is  supposed 
to  be  interested  in  such  a  field  by  the  conscience  and  the  nobler 
affections.  But  I  suspect  that  originally  these  great  fixculties 
were  absolutely  excluded  from  the  point  of  view.  Probably  the 
relation  between  spiritual  terrors  and  man's  power  of  propitia- 
tion, was  the  problem  to  which  the  word  religion  formed  the 
answer.  Keligion  meant  apparently,  in  the  infimcies  of  the  va- 
rious idolatries,  that  latreia,  or  service  of  sycophantic  fear,  hy 


OF   POLITICAL  MOVEMENT. 


5 


ligion,"  when  used  by  a  Chrisiian?  Only  I  am  punc- 
tilious upon  one  demand,  viz.,  that  the  answer  shall  be 

which,  as  the  most  approved  method  of  approach,  man  was  able 
to  conciliate  the  favor,  or  to  buy  off  the  malice  of  supernatural 
powers.  In  all  Pagan  nations,  it  is  probable  that  religion  would^ 
on  the  whole,  be  a  degrading  influence;  although  I  see,  even  for 
such  nations,  two  cases,  at  the  least,  where  the  uses  of  a  religion 
would  be  indispensable;  viz.,  for  the  sanction  of  oaths ^  and  as  a 
channel  for  gratitude  not  pointing  to  a  human  object.  If  so,  the 
answer  is  easy;  religion  was  degrading  :  but  heavier  degradations 
would  have  arisen  from  irreligion.  The  noblest  of  all  idolatrous 
peoples,  viz.,  the  Romans,  have  left  deeply  scored  in  their  very 
use  of  their  word  religiOy  their  testimony  to  the  degradation 
wrought  by  any  religion  that  Paganism  could  yield.  Karely  in- 
deed is  this  word  employed,  by  a  Latin  author,  in  speaking  of  an 
individual,  without  more  or  less  of  sneer.  Rea'ding  that  word, 
in  a  Latin  book,  we  all  try  it  and  ring  it,  as  a  petty  shopkeeper 
rings  a  half-crown,  before  we  venture  to  receive  it  as  offered  in 
good  faith  and  loyalty.  Even  the  Greeks  are  nearly  in  the  same 
anoqia^  when  they  wish  to  speak  of  religiosity  in  a  spirit  of 
serious  praise.  Some  circuitous  form,  com.mending  the  correct- 
ness of  a  man,  n^ni  ra  6ifa,  in  respect  of  divine  things,  becomes 
requisite;  for  all  the  direct  terms,  expressing  the  religious  tem- 
per, are  preoccupied  by  a  taint  of  scorn.  The  word  60 tog,  means 
pious,  — not  as  regards  the  gods,  but  as  regards  the  dead;  and 
even  tva^^ric,  though  not  used  sneeringly,  is  a  world  short  of  our 
word  ''religious."  This  condition  of  language  we  need  not 
wonder  at :  the  language  of  life  must  naturally  receive,  as  in  a 
mirror,  the  realities  of  life.  Difficult  it  is  to  maintain  a  just 
equipoise  in  any  moral  habits,  but  in  none  so  much  as  in  habita 
of  religious  demeanor  under  a  Pagan  [that  is,  a  degrading] 
religion.  To  be  a  coward,  is  base  :  to  be  a  sycophant,  is  base  : 
but  to  be  a  sycophant  in  the  service  of  cowardice,  is  the  perfection 
of  baseness  :  and  yet  this  was  the  brief  analysis  of  a  devotee 
imongst  the  ancient  Romans.  Now,  considering  that  the  word 
reliyion  is  originally  Roman  [probably  from  the  Etruscan],  it 
Beems  probable  that  it  presented  the  idea  of  religion  under  som^j 


6 


ON   CHRISTIANITY  AS  AN  ORGAN 


comprehensive.  We  are  apt  in  such  cases  to  answer 
elliptically,  omitting,  because  silently  presuming  as 
understood  between  us,  whatever  seems  obvious.  To 
prevent  that,  we  will  suppose  the  question  to  be  pro- 
posed by  an  emissary  from  some  remote  planet,  — 
who,  knowing  as  yet  absolutely  nothing  of  us  and  our 
intellectual  differences,  must  insist  (as  /  insist)  upon 
absolute  precision,  so  that  nothing  essential  shall  be 
wanting,  and  nothing  shall  be  redundant. 

What,  then,  is  religion  ?  Decomposed  into  its  ele- 
ments, as  they  are  found  in  Christianity,  how  many 
poivers  for  acting  on  the  heart  of  man,  does,  by  possi- 
bility, this  great  agency  include  ?  According  to  my 
own  view,  four.^'  I  will  state  them,  and  number 
them. 

1st.  A  form  of  worship,  a  cultus. 

2dly.  An  idea  of  God  ;  and  (pointing  the  analysis  to 

one  of  its  bad  aspects.  Coleridge  must  quite  have  forgotten  this 
Paganism  of  the  word,  when  he  suggested  as  a  plausible  idea, 
that  originally  it  had  presented  religion  under  the  aspect  of  a 
coercion  or  restraint.  Morality  having  been  viewed  as  the  prime 
restraint  or  obligation  resting  upon  man,  then  Coleridge  thought 
that  religion  might  have  been  viewed  us  a  religatio,  a  reiterated 
restraint,  or  secondary  obligation.  This  is  ingenious,  but  it  will 
not  do.  It  is  cracked  in  the  ring.  Perhaps  as  many  as  three 
objections  might  be  mustered  to  such  a  derivation  :  but  the  last 
of  the  three  is  conclusive.  The  ancients  never  did  view  morality 
as  a  mode  of  obligation  :  I  affirm  this  peremptorily ;  and  with  the 
more  emphasis,  because  there  are  great  consequences  suspended 
upon  that  question. 

*  "  Four  :  "  there  are  six,  in  one  sense,  of  religion:  viz.  dthly^ 
corresponding  moral  affections;  Qthly,  a  suitable  life.  But  this 
applies  to  religion  as  subjectively  possessed  by  a  man,  not  to 
religion  as  objectively  contemplated. 


OF   POLITICAL  MOVEMENT. 


7 


Christianity  in  particular)  an  idea  not  purified  merely 
from  ancient  pollutions,  but  recast  and  absolutely  born 
again. 

3dly.  An  idea  of  the  relation  which  man  occupies 
to  God  :  and  of  this  idea  also,  when  Christianity  is  the 
religion  concerned,  it  must  be  said,  that  it  is  so  entirely 
remodelled,  as  in  no  respect  to  resemble  any  element 
in  any  other  religion.  Thus  far  we  are  reminded  of 
the  poet's  expression,  "  Pure  religion  breathing  house- 
hold laws;  "  that  is,  not  teaching  such  laws,  not  for- 
mally prescribing  a  new  economy  of  life,  so  much  as 
inspiring  it  indirectly  through  a  new  atmosphere  sur- 
rounding all  objects  with  new  attributes.  But  there  is 
also  in  Christianity, 

4thly.  A  doctrinal  part,  a  part  directly  and  explicitly 
occupied  with  teaching ;  and  this  divides  into  two 
great  sections  :  cc,  A  system  of  ethics  so  absolutely  new 
as  to  be  untranslatable-''  into  either  of  the  classical 

Untranslatable.-^  —  This  is  not  generally  perceived.  On 
contrary,  people  are  ready  to  say,  Why,  so  far  from  it,  the 
very  earliest  language  in  which  the  Gospels  appeared,  excepting 
only  St.  Matthew's,  was  the  Greek."  Yes,  reader  ;  but  what 
Greek  ?  Had  not  the  Greeks  been,  for  a  long  time,  colonizing 
Syria  under  princes  of  Grecian  blood,  —  had  not  the  Greek  lan- 
guage (as  a  lingua  Hellenistica)  become  steeped  in  Hebrew 
ideas,  —  no  door  of  communication  could  have  been  opened  be- 
tween the  new  world  of  Christian  feeling,  and  the  old  world  so 
\leaf  to  its  music.  Here,  therefore,  we  may  observe  two  prepa- 
rations made  secretly  by  Providence  for  receiving  Christianity 
and  clearing  the  road  before  it  —  first,  the  diffusion  of  the  Greek 
language  through  the  whole  civilized  world  (//  oixovusvij)  some- 
time before  Christ,  by  which  means  the  Evangelists  found  wings, 
as  it  were,  for  flying  abroad  through  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth; 
"secondly,  the  Hebraizing  of  this  language,  by  which  means  the 


6 


ON   CHRISTIANITY  AS  AN  OBGAN 


languages ;  and,  ^,  A  system  of  mysteries ;  as,  for 
instance,  the  mystery  of  the  Trinity,  of  the  Divine 
Incarnation,  of  the  Atonement,  of  the  Resurrection, 
and  others. 

Here  are  great  elements  ;  and  now  let  me  ask,  how 
many  of  these  are  found  in  the  Heathen  religion  of 
Greece  and  Rome  ?  This  is  an  important  question  ; 
it  being  my  object  to  show  that  no  religion  hut  the 
Christian,  and  precisely  through  some  one  or  two  of 
Its  differential  elements,  could  have  been  an  organ  of 
political  movement. 

Most  divines  who  anywhere  glance  at  this  question, 
are  here  found  in,  what  seems  -to  me,  the  deepest  of 
errors.  Great  theologians  are  they,  and  eminent  phi- 
losophers, who  have  presumed  that  (as  a  matter  of 
course)  all  religions,  however  false,  are  introductory  to 
some  scheme  of  morality,  however  imperfect.  They 
grant  you  that  the  morality  is  oftentimes  unsound ; 
but  still,  they  think  that  some  morality  there  must  have 
been,  or  else  for  what  purpose  was  the  religion  ?  This 
I  pronounce  error. 

All  the  moral  theories  of  antiquity  were  utterly  dis- 
joined from  religion.  But  this  fallacy  of  a  dogmatic 
or  doctrinal  part  in  Paganism  is  born  out  of  Anachron- 
ism. It  is  the  anachronism  of  unconsciously  reflecting 
back  upon  the  ancient  religions  of  darkness,  and  as  if 
essential  to  all  religions,  features  that  never  were 
suspected  as  possible,  until  they  had  been  revealed  in 

fivangehsts  found  a  new  material  made  plastic  and  obedient  to 
*hese  new  ideas,  which  they  had  to  build  with,  and  which  they 
had  to  build  upon. 


OF   POLITICAL  MOVEMENT. 


9 


Christianity.^'  Religion,  in  tlie  eye  of  a  Pagan,  nad  no 
more  relation  to  morals,  than  it  had  to  ship-building  or 
trigonometry.  But,  then,  why  was  religion  honored 
amongst  Pagans  ?  How  did  it  ever  arise  ?  What  was 
its  object?  Object!  it  had  no  object  ;  if  by  this  you 
mean  ulterior  object.  Pagan  religion  arose  in  no 
motive,  but  in  an  impulse.  Pagan  religion  aimed  at 
no  distant  prize  ahead  :  it  fled  from  a  danger  immedi- 
ately behind.  The  gods  of  the  Pagans  were  wicked 
natures  ;  but  they  were  natures  to  be  feared,  and  to  be 
propitiated  ;  for  they  were  fierce,  and  they  were 
moody,  and  (as  regarded  man  who  had  no  wings)  they 
were  powerful.  Once  accredited  as  facts,  the  Pagan 
gods  could  not  be  regarded  as  other  than  terrific  facts  ; 
and  thus  it  was,  that  in  terror,  blind  terror,  as  against 
power  in  the  hands  of  divine  wickedness,  arose  the 
ancient  religions  of  Paganism.  Because  the  gods  were 
wicked,  man  was  religious ;  because  Olympus  was 
cruel,  earth  trembled ;  because  the  divine  beings  were 
the  most  lawless  of  Thugs,  the  human  being  became 
the  most  abject  of  sycophants. 

Had  the  religions  of  Paganism  arisen  teleologically  — 
that  is,  with  a  view  to  certain  purposes,  to  certain  final 
causes  ahead  ;  had  they  grown  out  oi  for  ward  Aooking 
views,  contemplating,  for  instance,  the  furthering  of 
civilization,  or  contemplating  some  interests  in  a  world 
beyond  the  present,  there  would  probably  have  arisen, 

*  *'  /7^  Christianity.^'^  —  Once  for  all,  to  save  the  trouble  of 
continual  repetitions,  understand  Judaism  to  be  commemorated 
jointly  with  Christianity;  the  dark  root  together  with  the  golden 
fruitage;  whenever  the  nature  of  the  case  does  not  presume  a 
lontradistinction  of  the  one  to  the  other. 


10 


ON  CHUISTIANITY  AS  AN  0E,QA^5 


concurrently,  a  section  in  all  such  religions,  dedicated 
to  positive  instruction.  There  would  have  been  a 
doctrinal  part.  There  might  have  been  interwoven 
with  the  ritual  or  worship,  a  system  of  economics,  or  a 
code  of  civil  prudence,  or  a  code  of  health,  or  a  theory 
of  morals,  or  even  a  secret  revelation  of  mysterious 
relations  between  man  and  the  Deity  :  all  which 
existed  in  Judaism.  But,  as  the  case  stood,  this  was 
impossible.  The  gods  were  mere  odious  facts,  like 
scorpions  or  rattlesnakes,  having  no  moral  aspects 
whatever  ;  public  nuisances ;  and  bearing  no  relation 
to  man  but  that  of  capricious  tyrants.  First  arising 
upon  a  basis  of  terror,  these  gods  never  subsequently 
enlarged  that  basis  ;  nor  sought  to  enlarge  it.  All 
antiquity  contains  no  hint  of  a  possibility  that  love 
could  arise,  as  by  any  ray  mingling  with  the  senti- 
ments in  a  human  creature  towards  a  Divine  one ; 
not  even  sycophants  ever  pretended  to  love  the  gods. 

Under  this  original  peculiarity  of  Paganism,  there 
arose  two  consequences,  which  I  will  mark  by  the 
Greek  letters  a  and  ^.  The  latter  I  will  notice  in  its 
order,  first  calling  the  reader's  attention  to  the  conse- 
quence marked  a,  which  is  this  :  —  in  the  full  and 
profoundest  sense  of  the  word  believe^  the  Pagans 
could  not  be  said  to  believe  in  any  gods  :  but,  in  the 
ordinary  sense,  they  did,  and  do,  and  must  believe,  in 
all  gods.  As  thi^  proposition  will  startle  some  readers, 
and  is  yet  closely  involved  in  the  main  truth  which  1 
am  now  pressing,  viz.  the  meaning  and  effect  of  a 
simple  cultiis,  as  distinguished  from  a  high  doctrinal 
religion,  let  us  seek  an  illustration  from  our  Indian 
empire.    The  Christian  missionaries  from  home,  when 


or  POLITICAL  MOYEMENT. 


11 


first  opening  their  views  to  Hindoos,  describe  them- 
selves as  laboring  to  prove  that  Christianity  is  a  ti^ue 
religion,  and  as  either  asserting,  or  leaving  it  to  be 
inferred,  that,  on  that  assumption,  the  Hindoo  religion 
is  a  false  one.  But  the  poor  Hindoo  never  dreamed 
of  doubting  that  the  Christian  was  a  true  religion  ;  nor 
will  he  at  all  infer,  from  your  religion  being  true,  that 
his  own  must  be  false.  Both  are  true,  he  thinks  :  all 
religions  are  true  ;  all  gods  are  true  gods  ;  and  all  are 
equally  true.  Neither  can  he  understand  what  you 
mean  by  a  false  religion,  or  how  a  religion  could  be 
false  ;  and  he  is  perfectly  right.  Wherever  religions 
consist  only  of  a  worship,  as  the  Hindoo  religion  does, 
there  can  be  no  competition  amongst  them  as  to  truth. 
Tliat  would  be  an  absurdity,  not  less  nor  other  than  it 
would  be  for  a  Prussian  to  denounce  the  Austrian 
emperor,  or  an  Austrian  to  denounce  the  Prussian 
king,  as  a  false  sovereign.  False !  How  false  ?  In 
what  sense  false  ?  Surely  not  as  non-existing.  B.ut 
at  least  (the  reader  will  reply),  if  the  religions  con- 
tradict each  other,  one  of  them  must  be  false.  Yes ; 
but  that  is  impossible.  Two  religions  cannot  contradict 
each  other,  where  both  contain  only  a  cultus  :  they 
could  come  into  collision  only  by  means  of  a  doctrinal, 
or  directly  affirmative  part,  like  those  of  Christianity 
and  Mahometanism.  But  this  part  is  what  no  idolatrous 
religion  ever  had,  or  will  have.  The  reader  must  not 
understand  me  to  mean  that,  merely  as  a  compromise 
of  courtesy,  two  professors  of  different  idolatries  would 
agree  to  recognize  each  other.  Not  at  all.  The  truth 
of  one  does  not  imply  the  falsehood  of  the  other. 
Both  are  true  as  facts  :  neither  can  be  false,  in  any 


12 


ON   CHRISTIANITY  AS  AN  OKGAN 


higher  sense,  because  neither  makes  any  pretence  to 
truth  doctrinal. 

This  distinction  between  a  religion  having  merely  a 
worship,  and  a  religion  having  also  a  body  of  doctrinal 
truth,  is  familiar  to  the  Mahometans  ;  and  they  convey 
the  distinction  by  a  very  appropriate  expression.  Those 
majestic  religions  (as  they  esteem  them),  which  rise 
above  the  mere  pomps  and  tympanies  of  ceremonial 
worship,  they  denominate  "  religions  of  the  look.''' 
There  are,  of  such  religions,  three,  viz.,  Judaism, 
Christianity,  and  Islamism.  The  first  builds  upon  the 
Law  and  the  Prophets,  or  perhaps  sufficiently  upon 
the  Pentateuch  ;  the  second  upon  the  Gospel  ;  the  last 
upon  the  Koran.  No  other  religion  can  be  said  to  rest 
upon  a  book  ;  or  to  need  a  book  ;  or  even  to  admit  of 
a  book.  For  we  must  not  be  duped  by  the  case  where 
a  lawgiver  attempts  to  connect  his  own  human  institutes 
with  the  venerable  sanctions  of  a  national  religion,  or 
th^  case  where  a  learned  antiquary  unfolds  historically 
the  record  of  a  vast  mythology.  Heaps  of  such  cases 
(both  law  and  mythological  records)  survive  in  the 
Sanscrit,  and  in  other  Pagan  languages.  But  these  are 
books  which  build  upon  the  religion,  not  books  upon 
which  the  religion  is  built.  If  a  religion  consists  only 
\)f  a  ceremonial  worship,  in  that  case  there  can  be  no 
k  pening  for  a  book  ;  because  the  forms  and  details 
publish  themselves  daily,  in  the  celebration  of  the 
worship,  and  are  traditionally  preserved,  from  age  to 
age,  without  dependence  on  a  book.  But,  if  a  religion 
has  a  doctrine,  this  implies  a  revelation  or  message 
from  Heaven,  which  cannot,  in  any  other  way,  secure 
the  transmission  of  this  message  to  future  generations, 


OF   PO  .IIICAL  MOYEMENT. 


VS 


than  by  causing  it  to  be  registered  in  a  book.  A 
book,  therefore,  will  be  convertible  with  a  doctrinal 
religion:  —  no  book,  no  doctrine  ;  and,  again,  no  doc- 
trine, no  book. 

Upon  these  principles,  we  may'  understand  that 
second  consequence  (marked  ^)  which  has  perplexed 
many  men — viz.,  why  it  is  that  the  Hindoos,  in  our 
own  times,  but,  equally,  why  it  is  that  the  Greek  and 
Roman  idolaters  of  antiquity,  never  proselytized  ;  no, 
nor  could  have  viewed  such  an  attempt  as  rational. 
Naturally,  if  a  religion  is  doctrinal,  any  truth  which  it 
possesses,  as  a  secret  deposit  consigned  to  its  keeping 
by  a  revelation,  must  be  equally  valid  for  one  man  as 
for  another,  without  regard  to  race  or  nation.  For  a 
doctrinal  religion,  therefore,  to  proselytize,  is  no  more 
than  a  duty  of  consistent  humanity.  You,  the  profes- 
sors of  that  religion,  possess  the  medicinal  fountains. 
You  will  not  diminish  your  own  share  by  imparting  to 
others.  What  churlishness,  if  you  should  grudge  to 
others  a  health  which  does  not  interfere  with  your  own  ! 
Christians,  therefore,  Mahometans,  and  Jews  originally, 
in  proportion  as  they  were  sincere  and  conscientious, 
have  always  invited,  or  even  forced,  the  unbelieving  to 
their  own  faith  :  nothing  but  accidents  of  situation, 
local  or  political,  have  disturbed  this  effort.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  for  a  mere  "  cultus  "  to  attempt  conver- 
sions, is  nonsense.  An  ancient  Roman  could  have  had 
no  motive  for  bringing  you  over  to  the  worship  of 
Jupiter  Capitolinus ;  nor  you  any  motive  for  going. 
"  Surely,  poor  man,"  he  would  have  said,  you  have 
Bome  god  of  your  own,  who  will  be  quite  as  good  for 
your  countrymen  as  Jupiter  for  mine.    But,  if  you 


14 


ON   CHRISTIANITY  AS   AN  ORGAN 


aave  not,  really  I  am  sorry  for  your  case  ;  and  a 
very  odd  case  it  is  ;  but  I  don't  see  how  it  could  be 
improved  by  talking  nonsense.  You  cannot  bene- 
ficially, you  cannot  rationally,  worship  a  tutelary 
Roman  deity,  unless  in  the  character  of  a  Roman  ; 
and  a  Roman  you  may  become,  legally  and  politically. 
Being  such,  you  will  participate  in  all  advantages,  if 
any  there  are,  of  our  national  religion  ;  and,  without 
needing  a  process  of  conversion,  either  in  substance  or 
in  form.  Ipso  f ado,  and  without  any  separate  choice 
of  your  own,  on  becoming  a  Roman  citizen,  you  be- 
come a  party  to  the  Roman  worship."  For  an  idola- 
trous religion  to  proselytize,  w^ould,  therefore,  be  not 
only  useless,  but  unintelligible. 

Now,  having  explained  that  point,  which  is  a  great 
step  towards  the  final  object  of  my  paper,  viz.,  the 
investigation  of  the  reason  why  Christianity  is,  which 
no  Pagan  religion  ever  has  been,  an  organ  of  political 
movement,  I  will  go  on  to  review  rapidly  those  four 
constituents  of  a  religion,  as  they  are  realized  in 
Christianity,  for  the  purpose  of  contrasting  them  with 
the  false  shadows,  or  even  blank  negations,  of  these 
constituents  in  Pagan  idolatries. 

First,  then,  as  to  the  Cultus,  or  form  of  the  national 
worship  :  —  In  our  Christian  ritual  I  recognize  these 
separate  acts  ;  viz..  A,  an  act  of  Praise ;  B,  an  act  of 
Thanksgiving  ;  C,  an  act  of  Confession  ;  D,  an  act  of 
Prayer.  In  A,  we  commemorate  with  adoration  the 
general  perfections  of  the  Deity.  There,  all  of  us 
have  an  equal  interest.  In  B,  we  commemorate  with 
thankfulness  those  special  qualities  of  the  Deity,  or 
those  special  manifestations  of  them,  by  which  we,  the 


or   POLITICAL  MOYEMENT 


15 


individual  worshippers,  have  recently  benefited.  In  C, 
by  upright  confession,  we  deprecate.  In  D,  we  pray, 
or  ask  for  the  things  which  we  need.  Now,  in  the 
cultus  of  the  ancient  Pagans,  B  and  C  (the  second  act 
and  the  third)  were  wanting  altogether.  No  thanks- 
giving ever  ascended,  on  his  own  account,  from  the 
lips  of  an  individual  ;  and  the  state  thank sgi^  ing  for  a 
triumph  of  the  national  armies,  was  but  a  mode  of 
ostentatiously  publishing  the  news.  As  to  C,  it  is 
scarcely  necessary  to  say  that  this  was  wanting,  when 
I  mention  that  penitential  feelings  were  unknown 
amongst  the  ancients,  and  had  no  name ;  for  pceniten- 
tia^'  means  regret,  not  penitence ;  and  me  pcenitei  liujus 
facti,  means,  "  I  rue  this  act  in  its  consequences," 
not  "  I  repent  of  this  act  for  its  moral  nature."  A 
and  D,  the  first  act  and  the  last,  appear  to  be  present ; 
but  are  so  most  imperfectly.  When  "  God  is  praised 
aright,"  praised  by  means  of  such  deeds  or  such 
attributes  as  express  a  divine  nature,  we  recognize  one 
great  function  of  a  national  worship,  —  not  otherwise. 
This,  however,  we  must  overlook  and  pardon,  as 
being  a  fault  essential  to  the  religion  :  the  poor  crea- 
tures did  the  best  they  could  to  praise  their  god,  lying 
under  the  curse  of  gods  so  thoroughly  depraved.  But 
in  D,  the  case  is  different.  Strictly  speaking,  the 
ancients  never  prayed  ;  and  it  may  be  doubted  whether 

*  In  Greek,  there  is  a  word  for  repentance,  bat  not  until  it 
had  been  rebaptized  into  a  Christian  use.  Metanoia,  however,  is 
not  that  word:  it  is  grossly  to  defeat  the  profound  meaning  of 
the  New  Testament,  if  John  the  Baptist  is  translated  as  though 
summoning  the  world  to  repentance  ;  it  was  not  that  to  which 
Ue  summoned  them. 


16 


ON   CHRISTIANITY  AS  AN  ORGAN 


D  approaches  so  near  to  what  we  mean  by  prayer,  as 
even  by  a  mockery.  You  read  of  preces,  of  aQcu,  <kc., 
and  you  are  desirous  to  believe  that  pagan  supplica- 
tions were  not  always  corrupt.  It  is  too  shocking  to 
suppose,  in  thinking  of  nations  idolatrous  yet  noble, 
that  never  any  pure  act  of  approach  to  the  heavens 
took  place  on  the  part  of  man ;  that  always  the  inter- 
course was  corrupt  ;  a/ways  doubly  corrupt  ;  that 
eternally  the  god  was  bought,  and  the  votary  was 
sold.  Oh  weariness  of  man's  spirit  before  that  un- 
resting mercenariness  in  high  places,  which  neither, 
when  his  race  clamored  for  justice,  nor  when  it  lan- 
guished for  pity,  would  listen  without  hire  !  How 
gladly  would  man  turn  away  from  his  false  rapacious 
divinities  to  the  godlike  human  heart,  that  so  often 
would  yield  pardon  before  it  was  asked,  and  for  the 
thousandth  time  that  would  give  without  a  bribe  !  In 
strict  propriety,  as  my  reader  knows,  the  classical 
Latin  word  *  for  a  prayer  is  iwtmn  ;  it  was  a  case  of 
contract,  of  mercantile  contract  ;  of  that  contract 
which  the  Roman  law  expressed  by  the  formula  —  Do 
ut  des.  Vainly  you  came  before  the  altars  with  empty 
hands.  "  But  my  hands  are  pure."  Pure,  indeed  ! 
would  reply  the  scoffing  god  ;  let  me  see  what  they 
contain.  It  was  exactly  what  you  daily  read  in  morn- 
ing papers,  viz.,  —  that,  in  order  to  appear  effectually 
before  that  Olympus  in  London,  which  rains  rarities 
upon  us  poor  abject  creatures  in  the  provinces,  you 
must  enclose  "  an  order  on  the  Post-office  or  a  refer- 
ence." It  is  true  that  a  man  did  not  always  register 
his  votum  (the  particular  offering  which  he  vowed  on 
the  condition  of  receiving  what  he  asked),  at  the 


OF   POLITICAL   MOVEMENT.  17 

moment  of  asking.  Ajax,  for  instance,  prays  for  light 
in  the  Iliad,  and  he  does  not  then  and  there  give 
either  an  order  or  a  reference.  But  you  are  much 
mistaken,  if  you  fancy  that  even  light  was  to  be  had 
gratis.  It  would  be  "  carried  to  account."  Ajax 
would  be  "  debited  "  with  that  "  advance." 

Yet,  when  it  occurs  to  a  man  that,  in  this  Do  ul  des^ 
the  general  Do  was  either  a  temple  or  a  sacrifice, 
naturally  it  occurs  to  ask  what  ivas  a  sacrifice  ?  I  am 
afraid  that  the  dark,  murderous  nature  of  the  Pagan 
gods  is  here  made  apparent.  Modern  readers,  who 
have  had  no  particular  reason  for  reflecting  on  the 
nature  and  management  of  a  sacrifice,  totally  miscon- 
ceive it.  They  have  a  vague  notion  that  the  slaugh- 
tered animal  was  roasted,  served  up  on  the  altars  as  a 
banquet  to  the  gods  ;  that  these  gods  by  some  repre- 
sentative ceremony  "  made  believe  "  to  eat  it  ;  and  that 
finally  (as  dishes  that  had  now  become  hallowed  to 
divine  use),  the  several  joints  were  disposed  of  in  some 
mysterious  manner  :  burned,  suppose,  or  buried  under 
the  altars,  or  committed  to  the  secret  keeping  of  rivers.  ^ 
Nothing  of  the  sort :  when  a  man  made  a  sacrifice,  the 
meaning  was,  that  he  gave  a  dinner.  And  not  only 
was  every  sacrifice  a  dinner  party,  but  every  dinner 
party  was  a  sacrifice.  This  was  strictly  so  in  the  good 
old  ferocious  times  of  Paganism,  as  may  be  seen  in  the 
Iliad  :  it  was  not  said,  "  Agamemnon  has  a  dinner 
party  to-day,"  but  "  Agamemnon  sacrifices  tc  Apollo." 
Even  in  Rome,  to  the  last  days  of  Paganism,  it  is 
probable  that  some  slight  memorial  continued  to  con- 
nect the  dinner  party  [c6B?/a]  with  a  divine  sacrifice  ; 
and  thence  partly  arose  the  sanctity  of  the  hospitable 


18 


ON   CHRISTIANITY  AS  AN  ORGAN 


board ;  but  to  the  east  of  the  Mediterranean  the  full 
ritual  of  a  sacrifice  must  have  been  preserved  in  all 
banquets,  long  after  it  had  faded  to  a  form  in  the  less 
superstitious  West.  This  we  may  learn  from  that 
point  of  casuistry  treated  by  St.  Paul,  —  whether  a 
Christian  might  lawfully  eat  of  things  offered  to  idols. 
The  question  was  most  urgent ;  because  a  Christian 
could  not  accept  an  invitation  to  dine  with  a  Grecian 
fellow-citizen  who  still  adhered  to  Paganism,  without 
eating  things  offered  to  idols  ;  —  the  whole  banquet 
was  dedicated  to  an  idol.  If  he  would  not  take  that^ 
he  must  continue  impransus.  Consequently,  the  ques- 
tion virtually  amounted  to  this  :  were  the  Christians 
to  separate  themselves  altogether  from  those  whose  in- 
terests were  in  so  many  ways  entangled  with  their 
own,  on  the  single  consideration  that  these  persons 
were  heathens  ?  To  refuse  their  hospitalities,  loas  to 
separate,  and  with  a  hostile  expression  of  feeling. 
That  would  be  to  throw  hindrances  in  the  way  of 
Christianity :  the  religion  could  not  spread  rapidly 
under  such  repulsive  prejudices  ;  and  dangers,  that  it 
became  un- Christian  to  provoke,  would  thus  multiply 
against  the  infant  faith.  This  be^ng  so,  and  as  the 
gods  were  really  the  only  parties  invited  who  got 
nothing  at  all  of  the  banquet,  it  becomes  a  question  of 
some  interest,  —  what  did  they  get?  They  were 
merely  mocked,  if  they  had  no  compensatory  interest 
in  the  dinner  !  For  surely  it  was  an  inconceivable 
mode  of  honoring  Jupiter,  that  you  and  I  should  eat  a 
piece  of  roast  beef,  leaving  to  the  god's  share  only  the 
jnockery  of  a  Barmecide  invitation,  assigning  him  a 
■^hair  which  every  body  knew  that  he  would  never  fill 


OF   POLITICAL  MOVEMENT. 


19 


and  a  plate  which  might  as  well  have  been  lilled  with 
warm  water?  Jupiter  got  somethings  be  assured;  and 
what  was  it  ?  This  it  was,  —  the  luxury  of  inhaling 
the  groans,  the  fleeting  breath,  the  palpitations,  the 
agonies,  of  the  dying  victim.  This  w-as  the  dark 
interest  which  the  wretches  of  Olympus  had  in  human 
invitations  to  dinner  :  and  it  is  too  certain,  upon  com- 
parmg  facts  and  dates,  that,  when  left  to  their  own 
choice,  the  gods  had  a  preference  for  man  as  the 
victim.  All  things  concur  to  show%  that  precisely  as 
you  ascend  above  civilization,  which  continually  in- 
creased the  limitations  upon  the  gods  of  Olympus, 
precisely  as  you  go  back  to  that  gloomy  state  in  which 
their  true  propensities  had  power  to  reveal  themselves, 
was  man  the  genuine  victim  for  them,  and  the  dying 
anguish  of  man  the  best  "  nidor  "  that  ascended  from 
earthly  banquets  to  their  nostrils.  Their  stern  eyes 
smiled  darkly  upon  the  throbbings  of  tortured  flesh,  as 
in  Moloch's  ears  dwelt  like  music  the  sound  of  infants' 
wailings. 

Secondly,  as  to  the  birth  of  a  new  idea  respecting 
the  nature  of  God  :  —  It  may  not  have  occurred  to 
every  reader,  but  none  will  perhaps  object  to  it,  when 
once  suggested  to  his  consideration,  that,  as  is  the 
god  of  any  nation,  such  will  be  that  nation.  God, 
however  falsely  conceived  of  by  man,  even  though 
splintered  into  fragments  by  Polytheism,  or  disfigured 
by  the  darkest  mythologies,  is  still  the  greatest  of  all 
obj3cts  offered  to  human  contemplation.  Man,  when 
thrown  upon  his  own  delusions,  may  have  raised  him- 
self, or  may  have  adopted  from  others,  the  very  falsest 
of  ideals,  as  the  true  image  and  reflection  of  what  he 


20 


ON   CHRISTIANITY  AS  AN  ORGAN 


calls  god.  In  his  lowest  condition  of  darkness,  terror 
may  be  the  moulding  principle  for  spiritual  conceptions  ; 
power,  the  engrossing  attribute  which  he  ascribes  to 
his  deity  ;  and  this  power  may  be  hideously  capricious, 
or  associated  with  vindictive  cruelty.  It  may  even 
happen,  that  his  standard  of  what  is  highest  in  the 
divinity  should  be  capable  of  falling  greatly  below 
what  an  enlightened  mind  would  figure  to  itself  as 
lowest  in  man.  A  more  shocking  monument,  indeed, 
there  cannot  be  than  this,  of  the  infinity  by  which  man 
may  descend  below  his  own  capacities  of  grandeur  : 
the  gods,  in  some  systems  of  religion,  have  been  such 
and  so  monstrous  by  excess  of  wickedness,  as  to 
insure,  if  annually  one  hour  of  periodical  eclipse 
should  have  left  them  at  the  mercy  of  man,  a  general 
rush  from  their  own  worshippers  for  strangling  them 
as  mad  dogs.  Hypocrisy,  the  cringing  of  sycophants, 
md  the  credulities  of  fear,  united  to  conceal  this 
misotheism ;  but  we  may  be  sure  that  was  widely 
diffused  through  the  sincerities  of  the  human  heart. 
An  intense  desire  for  kicking  Jupiter,  or  for  hanging 
him,  if  found  convenient,  must  have  lurked  in  the 
honorable  Roman  heart,  before  the  sincerity  of  human 
nature  could  have  extorted  upon  the  Roman  stage  a 
public  declaration,  —  that  their  supreme  gods  were 
capable  of  enormities  which  a  poor,  unpretending 
human  creature  [homuncio]  would  have  disdained. 
Many  times  the  ideal  of  the  divine  nature,  as  adopted 
by  Pagan  races,  fell  under  the  contempt,  not  only  ol 
men  superior  to  the  national  superstition,  but  of  men 
partaking  in  that  superstition.  Yet,  with  all  those 
drawbacks,  an  ideal  was  an  ideal.    This  being  set  up 


OF  POLITICAL  MOYEMENT. 


21 


for  adoration  as  god,  ivas  such  upon  the  whole  to  the 
worshipper  ;  since,  if  there  had  been  any  higher  mode 
of  excellence  conceivable  for  him^  that  higher  mode 
would  have  virtually  become  his  deity.  It  cannot  be 
doubted,  therefore,  that  the  nature  of  the  national 
divinities  indicated  the  qualities  which  ranked  highest 
in  the  national  estimation  ;  and  that  being  contemplated 
continually  in  the  spirit  of  veneration,  these  qualities 
must  have  worked  an  extensive  conformity  to  their 
own  standard.  The  mythology  sanctioned  by  the 
ritual  of  public  worship,  the  features  of  moral  nature 
in  the  gods  distributed  through  that  mythology,  and 
sometimes  commemorated  by  gleams  in  that  ritual, 
domineered  over  the  popular  heart,  even  in  those  cases 
where  the  religion  had  been  a  derivative  religion,  and 
not  originally  moulded  by  impulses  breathing  from 
the  native  disposition.  So  that,  upon  the  whole,  such 
as  were  the  gods  of  a  nation,  such  was  the  nation : 
given  the  particular  idolatry,  it  became  possible  to 
decipher  the  character  of  the  idolaters.  Where  Moloch 
was  worshipped,  the  people  would  naturally  be  found 
cruel  ;  where  the  Paphian  Venus,  it  could  not  be  ex- 
pected that  they  should  escape  the  taint  of  a  voluptu- 
ous effeminacy. 

Against  this  principle,  there  could  have  been  no 
room  for  demur,  were  it  not  through  that  inveterate 
prejudice  besieging  the  modern  mind,  —  as  though  all 
religion,  however  false,  implied  some  scheme  ol  morals 
connected  with  it.  However  imperfectly  discharged, 
one  function  even  of  the  Pagan  priest  (it  is  supposed) 
must  have  been,  —  to  guide,  to  counsel,  to  exhort,  as  a 
teacher  of  morals.    And,  had  that  been  so,  the  prac- 


22  ox   CHRISTIANITY  AS  AN  ORGAN 

tical  precepts,  and  the  moral  commentary  coming  after 
even  the  grossest  forms  of  worship,  or  the  most  revolt- 
ing mythological  legends,  might  have  operated  to 
neutralize  their  horrors,  or  even  to  allegorize  them 
into  better  meanings.  Lord  Bacon,  as  a  trial  of  skill, 
has  attempted  something  of  that  sort  in  his  Wisdom 
of  the  Ancients.  But  all  this  is  modern  refinement, 
either  in  the  spirit  of  playful  ingenuity  or  of  ignorance. 
I  have  said  sufficiently  that  there  was  no  doctrinal  part 
in  the  religion  of  the  Pagans.  There  was  a  cuUus,  or 
ceremonial  worship :  that  constituted  the  sum  total  of 
religion,  in  the  idea  of  a  Pagan.  There  was  a  neces- 
sity, for  the  sake  of  guarding  its  traditional  usages, 
and  upholding  and  supporting  its  pomp,  that  official 
persons  preside  in  this  cultus  :  that-  constituted  the 
duty  of  the  priest.  •  Beyond  this  ritual  of  public 
worship,  there  was  nothing  at  all ;  nothing  to  believe, 
nothing  to  understand.  A  set  of  legendary  tales  un- 
doubtedly there  was,  connected  with  the  mythologic 
history  of  each  separate  deity.  But  in  what  sense  you 
understood  these,  or  whether  you  were  at  all  acquaint- 
ed with  them,  was  a  matter  of  indifference  to  the 
priests ;  since  many  of  these  legends  were  variously 
related,  and  some  had  apparently  been  propagated  in 
ridicule  of  the  gods,  rather  than  in  their  honor. 

With  Christianity  a  new  scene  was  opened.  In  this 
religion  the  cultus,  or  form  of  worship,  was  not  even 
the  primary  business,  far  less  was  it  the  exclusive 
business.  The  worship  flowed  as  a  direct  consequence 
from  the  new  idea  exposed  of  the  divine  nature,  and 
from  the  new  idea  of  man's  relations  to  this  nature. 
Here  were  suddenly  unmasked  great  doctrines,  truths 


OE   POLITICAL  MOVEMENT. 


23 


positive  and  directly  avowed  :  whereas,  in  Pagan  forms 
of  religion,  any  notices  which  then  were,  or  seemed  to 
be,  of  circumstances  surrounding  the  gods,  related  only 
to  matters  of  fact  or  accident,  such  as  that  a  particular 
god  was  the  son  or  the  nephew  of  some  other  god  ;  a 
truth,  if  it  were  a  truth,  wholly  impertinent  to  any 
interest  of  man. 

As  there  are  some  important  truths,  dimly  perceived 
or  not  at  all,  lurking  in  the  idea  of  God,  —  an  idea  too 
vast  to  be  navigable  as  yet  by  the  human  understanding, 
yet  here  and  there  to  be  coasted,  —  I  wish  at  this  point 
to  direct  the  reader's  attention  upon  a  passage  which 
he  may  happen  to  remember  in  Sir  Isaac  Newton :  the 
passage  occurs  at  the  end  of  the  Optics ;  and  the 
exact  expressions  I  do  not  remember  ;  but  the  sense 
is  what  I  am  going  to  state  :  Sir  Isaac  is  speaking  of 
God ;  and  he  takes  occasion  to  say,  that  God  is  not 
good,  but  goodness  ;  is  not  holy,  but  holiness  ;  is  not 
infinite,  but  infinity.  This,  I  apprehend,  will  have 
struck  many  readers  as  merely  a  rhetorical  bravura ; 
sublime,  perhaps,  and  fitted  to  exalt  the  feeling  of 
awe  connected  with  so  unapproachable  a  mystery,  but 
otherwise  not  throwing  any  new  light  upon  the  dark- 
ness of  the  idea  as  a  problem  before  the  intellect.  Yet 
indirectly  perhaps  it  does,  when  brought  out  into  its 
latent  sense  by  placing  it  in  juxtaposition  with  Pagan- 
ism. If  a  philosophic  theist,  who  is  also  a  Christian, 
or  who  [not  being  a  Christian),  has  yet  by  Lis  birth 
and  breeding  become  saturated  with  Christian  ideas 
and  feelings,^'  attempts  to  realize  the  idea  of  supreme 

*  **  JVbi  being  a  Christian,  has  yet  become  saturated  with 
Chi  istian  ideas  ; '  *  —  This  case  is  far  from  uncommon  ;  and 


24 


ON   CHRISTIANITY  AS  AN  OEGAN 


Deity,  he  becomes  aware  of  a  double  and  contradictory 
movement  in  his  own  mind  whilst  striving  towards 
that  result.  He  demands,  in  the  first  place,  something 
in  the  highest  degree  generic ;  and  yet  again  in  the 
opposite  direction,  something  in  the  highest  degree 
individual ;  he  demands  on  the  one  path,  a  vast  ideal- 
ity, and  yet  on  the  other,  in  union  with  a  determinate 
personality.  He  must  not  surrender  himself  to  the 
first  impulse,  else  he  is  betrayed  into  a  mere  anima 
niundi ;  he  must  not  surrender  himself  to  the  second, 
else  he  is  betrayed  into  something  merely  human. 
This  difficult  antagonism,  of  what  is  most  and  what  is 
least  generic,  must  be  maintained,  otherwise  the  idea, 
the  possible  idea,  of  that  august  unveiling  which  takes 
place  in  the  Judaico-Christian  God,  is  absolutely  in 
clouds.  Now,  this  antagonism  utterly  collapses  in 
Paganism.  And  to  a  philosophic  apprehension,  this 
peculiarity  of  the  heathen  gods  is  more  shocking  and 
fearful  than  what  at  first  sight  had  seemed  most  so. 
When  a  man  pauses  for  the  purpose  of  attentively 
reviewing  the  Pantheon  of  Greece  and  Rome,  what 

undoubtedly,  from  having  too  much  escaped  observation,  it  has 
been  the  cause  of  much  error.  Poets  I  could  mention,  if  it 
were  not  invidious  to  do  so,  who,  whilst  composing  in  a  spirit  of 
burning  enmity  to  the  Christian  faith,  yet  rested  for  the  very 
sting  of  their  pathos  upon  ideas  that  but  for  Christianity  could 
never  have  existed.  Translators  there  have  been,  English, 
French,  German,  of  Mahometan  books,  who  have  so  colored  the 
whole  vein  of  thinking  with  sentiments  peculiar  to  Christianity, 
as  to  draw  from  a  reflecting  reader  the  exclamation,  **  If  this 
can  be  indeed  the  product  of  Islamism,  wherefore  should  Chris- 
tianity exist  ?  "  If  thoughts  so  divine  can,  indeed,  belong  to  a 
false  religion,  what  more  can  we  gather  from  a  true  one  ? 


OF   POLITICAL  MOVEMENT. 


25 


strikes  him  at  the  first  with  most  depth  of  impression 
and  with  most  horror  is,  the  wickedness  of  this  Pan- 
theon. And  he  observes  with  surprise,  that  this  wick- 
edness, which  is  at  a  furnace-heat  in  the  superior  gods, 
becomes  fainter  and  paler  as  you  descend.  Amongst 
the  semi-deities,  such  as  the  Oreads  or  Dryads,  the 
Nereids  or  Naiads,  he  feels  not  at  all  offended.  The 
odor  of  corruption,  the  scBva  mephitis,  has  by  this  time 
exhaled.  The  uproar  of  eternal  outrage  has  ceased. 
And  these  gentle  divinities,  if  too  human  and  too  beset 
with  infirmities,  are  not  impure,  and  not  vexed  with 
ugly  appetites,  nor  instinct  of  quarrel :  they  are  tranquil 
as  are  the  hills  and  the  forests ;  passionless  as  are  the 
seas  and  the  fountains  which  they  tenant.  But,  when 
he  ascends  to  the  dii  majorum  gentium,  to  those  twelve 
gods  of  the  supreme  house,  who  may  be  called  in  re- 
spect of  rank,  the  Paladins  of  the  classical  Pantheon, 
secret  horror  comes  over  him  at  the  thought  that  de- 
mons, reflecting  the  worst  aspects  of  brutal  races,  ever 
could  have  levied  worship  from  his  own.  It  is  true 
they  do  so  no  longer  as  regards  our  planet.  But  what 
has  been  apparently  may  be.  God  made  the  Greeks 
and  Romans  of  one  blood  with  himself;  he  cannot 
deny  that  intellectually  the  Greeks  —  he  cannot  deny 
that  morally  the  Romans  —  were  amongst  the  foremost 
of  human  races ;  and  he  trembles  in  thinking  that 
abominations,  whose  smoke  ascended  through  so  many 
ages  to  the  supreme  heavens,  may,  or  might,  so  far  as 
human  resistance  is  concerned,  again  become  the  law 
for  the  noblest  of  his  species.  A  deep  feeling,  it  is 
true,  exists  latently  in  human  beings  of  something 
perishable  in  evil.    Whatsoever  is  founded  in  wicked- 


26  ON   CHRISTIANITY  AS  AN  ORGAN 

ness,  according  to  a  deep  misgiving  dispersed  amongst 
men,  must  be  tainted  with  corruption.  There  might 
seem  consolation ;  but  a  man  who  reflects  is  not  quite 
so  sure  of  that.  As  a  commonplace  resounding  in 
schools,  it  may  be  justly  current  amongst  us,  that  what 
is  evil  by  nature  or  by  origin  must  be  transient.  But 
that  may  be  because  evil  in  all  human  things  is  partial, 
is  heterogeneous  ;  evil  mixed  with  good ;  and  the  two 
natures,  b)  their  mutual  enmity,  must  enter  into  a 
collision,  which  may  possibly  guarantee  the  final  de- 
struction of  the  whole  compound.  Such  a  result  may 
not  threaten  a  nature  that  is  purely  and  totally  evil, 
that  is  homogeneously  evil.  Dark  natures  there  may 
be,  whose  essence  is  evil,  that  may  have  an  abiding 
root  in  the  system  of  the  universe  not  less  awfully 
exempt  from  change  than  the  mysterious  foundations 
of  God. 

This  is  dreadful.  Wickedness  that  is  immeasurable, 
in  connection  with  power  that  is  superhuman,  appals 
the  imagination.  Yet  this  is  a  combination  that  might 
easily  have  been  conceived ;  and  a  wicked  god  still 
commands  a  mode  of  reverence.  But  that  feature  of 
the  Pagan  Pantheon,  which  I  am  contrasting  with  this, 
viz.,  that  no  Pagan  deity  is  an  abstraction,  but  a  vile 
concrete,  impresses  myself  with  a  subtler  sense  of 
horror ;  because  it  blends  the  hateful  with  a  mode  of 
the  ludicrous.  For  the  sake  of  explaining  myself  to 
vhe  non-philosophic  reader,  I  beg  him  to  consider  what 
is  the  sort  of  feeling  with  which  he  regards  an  ancient 
river-god,  or  the  presiding  nymph  of  a  fountain.  The 
Impression  which  he  receives  is  pretty  much  like  that 
from  the  monumental  figure  of  some  allegoric  being 


OF  POLITICAL  MOVEMENT. 


27 


Buch  as  Faith  or  Hope,  Fame  or  Truth.  He  hardly 
believes  that  the  most  superstitious  Grecian  seriously 
believed  in  such  a  being  as  a  distinct  personality.  He 
feels  convinced  that  the  sort  of  personal  existence 
ascribed  to  such  an  abstraction,  as  well  as  the  human 
shape,  are  merely  modes  of  representing  and  drawing 
into  unity  a  variety  of  phenomena  and  agencies  that 
seem  one,  by  means  of  their  unintermitting  continuity, 
and  because  they  tend  to  one  common  purpose.  Now, 
from  such  a  symbolic  god  as  this,  let  him  pass  to  Jupi- 
ter or  Mercury,  and  instantly  he  becomes  aware  of  a 
revolting  individuality.  He  sees  before  him  the  op- 
posite pole  of  deity.  The  river-god  had  too  little  of 
a  concrete  character.  Jupiter  has  nothing  else.  In 
J upiter  you  read  no  incarnation  of  any  abstract  quality 
whatever :  he  represents  nothing  whatever  in  the  meta- 
physics of  the  universe.  Except  for  the  accident  of 
his  power,  he  is  merely  a  man.  He  has  a  character^ 
that  is,  a  tendency  or  determination  to  this  quality  or 
that,  in  excess ;  whereas  a  nature  truly  divine  must  be 
in  equilibrio  as  to  all  qualities,  and  comprehend  them 
all,  in  the  way  that  a  genus  comprehends  the  subordi- 
nate species.  He  has  even  a  personal  history ;  he 
has  passed  through  certain  adventures,  faced  certain 
dangers,  and  survived  hostilities  that,  at  one  time, 
were  doubtful  in  their  issue.  No  trace,  in  short,  ap- 
pears, in  any  Grecian  god,  of  the  generic.  Whereas 
we,  in  our  Christian  ideas  of  God,  unconsciously,  and 
without  thinking  of  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  realize  Sir 
Isaac's  conceptions.  We  think  of  him  as  having  a 
sort  of  allegoric  generality,  liberated  from  the  bonds 
^f  the  individual ;  and  yet,  also,  as  the  most  awful 


28 


ON   CHRISTIANITY  AS  AN  OEGAN 


among  natures,  having  a  conscious  personality.  He  is 
diffused  through  all  things,  present  everywhere,  and 
yet  not  the  less  present  locally.  He  is  at  a  distance, 
unapproachable  by  finite  creatures  ;  and  yet,  without 
any  contradiction  (as  the  profound  St.  Paul  observes) 
"  not  very  far from  every  one  of  us.  And  I  wil 
venture  to  say,  that  many  a  poor  old  woman  has,  by 
virtue  of  her  Christian  inoculation,  Sir  Isaac's  great 
idea  lurking  in  her  mind  ;  as  for  instance,  in  relation 
to  any  of  God's  attributes  ;  suppose  holiness  or  happi- 
ness, she  feels  (though  analytically  she  could  not  ex- 
plain) that  God  is  not  holy,  or  is  not  happy  by  way  of 
participation,  after  the  manner  of  other  beings  —  that 
is.  He  does  not  draw  happiness  from  a  fountain  separate 
and  external  to  Himself,  and  common  to  other  creatures. 
He  drawing  more  and  they  drawing  less ;  but  that  He 
Himself  is  the  Fountain  ;  that  no  other  being  can  have 
the  least  proportion  of  either  one  or  the  other,  but  by 
drawing  from  that  Fountain  ;  that  as  to  all  other  good 
gifts,  that  as  to  life  itself,  they  are,  in  man,  not  on  any 
separate  tenure,  not  primarily,  but  derivatively,  and 
only  in  so  far  as  God  enters  into  the  nature  of  man  ; 
that  "  we  live  and  move  "  only  so  far  and  so  long  as 
the  incomprehensible  union  takes  place  between  the 
auman  spirit  and  the  fontal  abyss  of  the  Divine.  In 
short,  here,  and  here  only,  is  found  the  outermost  ex- 
pansion, the  centrifugal,  of  the  ro  catholic,  united 
with  the  innermost  centripetal  of  the  personal  con- 
sciousness. Had,  therefore,  the  Pagan  gods  been  less 
detestable,  neither  impure  nor  malignant,  they  could 
not  have  won  a  salutary  veneration  —  being  so  merely 
concrete  individuals. 


OF  POLITICAL  MOVEMENT. 


29 


Next,  it  must  have  degraded  the  gods  (and  have 
rnade  them  instruments  of  degradation  for  man),  that 
they  were,  one  and  all,  incarnations  ;  not,  as  even  the 
Christian  God  is,  for  a  transitory  moment  and  for  an 
eternal  purpose  ;  but  essentially  and  by  overruling  ne- 
cessity. The  Greeks  could  not  conceive  of  spirituality. 
Neither  can  we^  metaphysically,  assign  the  conditions 
of  the  spiritual ;  but  practically,  we  all  feel  and  repre- 
sent to  our  own  minds  the  agencies  of  God,  as  liberated 
from  bonds  of  space  and  time,  of  flesh  and  of  resist- 
ance. This  the  Greeks  could  not  feel,  could  not  repre- 
sent. And  the  only  advantage  which  the  gods  enjoyed 
over  the  worm  and  the  grub  was,  that  they  (or  at 
least  the  Paladins  amongst  them  —  the  twelve  supreme 
gods)  could  pass,  fluently,  from  one  incarnation  to 
another. 

Thirdly.  Out  of  that  essential  bondage  to  flesh  arose 
a  dreadful  suspicion  of  something  worse  :  in  what  re- 
lation did  the  Pagan  gods  stand  to  the  abominable 
phenomenon  of  death  ?  It  is  not  by  uttering  pompous 
flatteries  of  ever-living  and  afi^QOtog  aei^  &c.,  that  a 
poet  could  intercept  the  searching  jealousies  of  human 
penetration.  These  are  merely  oriental  forms  of  com- 
pliment. And  here,  by  the  way,  as  elsewhere,  we  find 
Plato  vehemently  confuted  ;  for  it  was  the  undue  ex- 
altation of  the  gods,  and  not  their  degradation,  which 
must  be  ascribed  to  the  frauds  of  poets.  Tradition, 
and  no  poetic  tradition,  absolutely  pointed  to  the  grave 
:)f  more  gods  than  one.  But  waiving  all  that  as  liable 
to  dispute,  one  thing  we  know,  from  the  ancients  them- 
selves, as  open  to  no  question,  that  all  the  gods  were 
born  J  were  born  infants;  passed  through  the  stages 


I 


30 


ON  CHRISTIANITY  AS  AN  ORGAN 


cf  helplessness  and  growth ;  from  all  which  the  infer- 
ence was  but  too  fatally  obvious.  Besides,  there  were 
grandfathers,  and  even  great-grandfathers  in  the  Pan- 
theon :  some  of  these  were  confessedly  superannuated  ; 
nay,  some  had  disappeared.  Even  men,  who  knew  but 
little  of  Olympian  records,  knew  this,  at  least,  for  cer- 
tain, that  more  than  one  dynasty  of  gods  had  passed 
over  the  golden  stage  of  Olympus,  had  made  their  exit, 
and  were  hurrying  onward  to  oblivion.  It  was  matter 
of  notoriety,  also,  that  all  these  gods  were  and  had 
been  liable  to  the  taint  of  sorrow  for  the  death  of  their 
earthly  children  (as  the  Homeric  Jupiter  for  Sarpedon, 
Thetis  for  Achilles,  Calliope,  in  Euripides,  for  her 
blooming  Rhesus) ;  all  were  liable  to  fear  ;  all  to  phys- 
ical pain ;  all  to  anxiety ;  all  to  the  indefinite  menaces 
of  a  danger^'  not  measurable.  Looking  backwards  or 
looking  forwards,  the  gods  beheld  enemies  that  attacked 
their  existence,  or  modes  of  decay  (known  and  un- 
known), which  gnawed  at  their  roots.  All  this  I  take 
the  trouble  to  insist  upon :  not  as  though  it  could  be 
worth  any  man's  trouble,  at  this  day,  to  expose  (on  its 
own  account)  the  frailty  of  the  Pantheon,  but  with  a 
view  to  the  closer  estimate  of  the  Divine  idea  amongst 
men ;  and  by  way  of  contrast  to  the  power  of  that 
idea  under  Christianity  :  since  I  contend  that,  such  as 
is  the  God  of  every  people,  such,  in  the  corresponding 

*  Danger  not  measurable  :  " — It  must  not  be  forgotten,  that 
all  the  superior  gods  passed  through  an  infancy  (as  Jove,  &c.), 
or  even  an  adolescence  (as  Bacchus),  or  even  a  maturity  (as 
the  majority  of  Olympus  during  the  insurrection  of  the  Titans), 
surrounded  by  perils  that  required  not  strength  only,  but  arti 
fice,  and  even  abject  self-concealment  to  evade. 


OF  POLITICAL  MOYEMENT. 


31 


features  of  character,  will  be  that  people.  If  the  god 
(like  Moloch)  is  fierce,  the  people  will  be  cruel ;  if 
(like  Typhon)  a  destroying  energy,  the  people  will  be 
gloomy  ;  if  (like  the  Paphian  Venus)  libidinous,  the 
people  will  be  voluptuously  effeminate.  When  the 
gods  are  perishable,  man  cannot  have  the  grandeurs  o* 
his  nature  developed  ;  when  the  shadow  of  death  sits 
upon  the  highest  of  what  man  represents  to  himself  as 
celestial,  essential  blight  will  sit  forever  upon  human 
aspirations.  One  thing  only  remains  to  be  added  on 
this  subject :  Why  were  not  the  ancients  more  pro- 
foundly afilicted  by  the  treacherous  gleams  of  mortality 
in  their  gods  ?  How  was  it  that  they  could  forget,  for 
a  moment,  a  revelation  so  full  of  misery  Since  not 
only  the  character  of  man  partly  depended  upon  the 
quality  of  his  god,  but  also,  and  a  fortiori^  his  destiny 
upon  the  destiny  of  his  god.  But  the  reason  of  his 
indifference  to  the  divine  mortality  was  —  because,  at 
any  rate^  the  Pagan  man's  connection  with  the  gods 
terminated  at  his  ovvn  death.  Even  selfish  men  would 
reconcile  themselves  to  an  earthquake,  which  should 
swallow  up  all  the  world  ;  and  the  most  unreasonable 
man  has  professed  his  readiness,  at  all  times,  to  die 
with  a  dying  universe  —  mundo  secmn  peremite,  mori. 

But,  thirdly,  the  gods  being  such,  in  what  relation 
to  them  did  man  stand  ?  It  is  a  fact  hidden  from  th 
mass  of  the  ancients  themselves,  but  sufficiently  at 
tested,  that  there  was  an  ancient  and  secret  enmity 
between  the  whole  family  of  the  gods  and  the  human 
race.  This  is  confessed  by  Herodotus  as  a  persuasion 
spread  through  some  of  the  nations  amongst  which  he 
travelled :  there  was  a  sort  of  truce,  indeed,  between 


82  ON  CHKTSTIANTTY  AS  AN  ORGAN" 


the  parties ;  temples,  with  their  religious  services,  and 
their  votive  offerings,  recorded  this  truce.  But  below 
all  these  appearances  lay  deadly  enmity,  to  be  explained 
only  by  one  who  should  know  the  mysterious  his- 
tory of  both  parties  from  the  eldest  times.  It  is  ex- 
traordinary, however,  that  Herodotus  should  rely,  for 
his  account,  upon  the  belief  of  distant  nations,  when 
the  same  belief  was  so  deeply  recorded  amongst  his 
own  countrymen  in  the  sublime  story  of  Prometheus. 
Much*  of  the  sufferings  endured  by  Prometheus  was 
on  account  of  man,  whom  he  had  befriended  ;  and,  ly 
befriending,  had  defeated  the  malignity  of  Jove.  Ac- 
cording to  some,  man  was  even  created  by  Prometheus  : 
but  no  accounts,  until  lying  Platonic  philosophers 
arose,  in  far  later  times,  represent  man  as- created  by 
Jupiter. 

Now  let  us  turn  to  Christianity ;  pursuing  it  through 
the  functions  which  it  exercises  in  common  with  Pa- 
ganism, and  also  through  those  which  it  exercises 
separately  and  incommunicably. 

I.  As  to  the  Idea  of  God.  How  great  was  the 
chasm  dividing  the  Hebrew  God  from  all  gods  of 
idolatrous  birth,  and  with  what  starry  grandeur  this 
revelation  of  Supreme  deity  must  have  wheeled  up- 
wards into  the  field  of  human  contemplation,  when 
first  surmounting  the  steams  of  earth-born  heathenism, 
I  need  not  impress  upon  any  Christian  audience.  To 
their  knowledge  little  could  be  added.  Yet  to  know  is 
not  always  to  feel ;  and  without  a  correspondent  depth 

*  **  Much^\  —  not  all:  for  part  was  due  to  the  obstinate  con- 
cealment from  Jupiter,  by  Prometheus,  of  the  danger  which 
threatened  his  throne  in  a  coming  generation. 


OE  POLITICAL  MOVEMENT. 


33 


of  feeling,  there  is  in  moral  cases  no  effectual  knowl- 
edge. Not  the  understanding  is  sufficient  upon  such 
ground,  but  that  which  the  Scriptures  in  their  pro 
found  philosophy  entitle  the  "  understanding  heart." 
And  perhaps  few  readers  will  have  adequately  appre- . 
ciated  the  prodigious  change  effected  in  the  theatre  of 
the  human  spirit,  by  the  transition,  sudden  as  the 
explosion  of  light,  in  the  Hebrew  cosmogony,  when, 
from  the  caprice  of  a  deshly  god,  in  one  hour  man 
mounted  to  a  justice  that  knew  no  shadow  of  change; 
from  cruelty,  mounted  to  a  love  which  was  inexhaus- 
tible ;  from  gleams  of  essential  evil,  to  a  holiness  that 
could  not  be  fathomed  ;  from  a  power  and  a  knowledge, 
under  limitations  so  merely  and  obviously^''  human,  to 
the  same  agencies  lying  underneath  creation,  as  a  root 
below  a  plant.  Not  less  awful  in  power  was  the 
transition  from  the  limitations  of  space  and  time  to 
ubiquity  and  eternity,  from  the  familiar  to  the  myste- 
rious, from  the  incarnat3  to  the  spiritual.  These 
enormous  transitions  were  fitted  to  work  changes  of 
answering  magnitude  in  the  human  spirit.  The  reader 
can  hardly  make  any  mistake  as  to  this.  He  must 
concede  the  changes.  What  he  will  be  likely  to 
misconceive,  unless  he  has  reflected,  is  —  the  immen- 
sity of  these  changes.    And  another  mistake,  which 

*  "  S^o  merely  and  obviously  human:'''' — It  is  a  natural 
thought,  to  any  person  who  has  not  explored  these  recesses  of 
human  degradation,  that  surely  the  Pagans  must  have  had  it  in 
Iheir  power  to  invest  their  gods  with  all  conceivable  perfections, 
^uite  as  much  as  we  that  are  not  Pagans.  The  thing  wanting  to 
ihe  Pagans,  he  will  think,  was  the  right:  otherwise  as  regarded 
*jie  power, 

3 


34 


ON   CHRISTIANITY  AS  AN  ORGAN 


he  is  even  more  likely  to  make,  is  this :  he  will 
imagine  that  a  new  idea,  even  though  the  idea  of  an 
object  so  vast  as  God,  cannot  become  the  ground  of 
any  revolution  more  than  intellectual  —  cannot  revo- 
lutionize the  moral  and  active  principles  in  man, 
consequently  cannot  lay  the  ground  of  any  political 
movement.  We  shall  see.  But  next,  that  is,  — 
II.  Secondly,  as  to  the  idea  of  man's  relation  to 
God.  This,  were  it  capable  of  disjunction,  would  be 
even  more  of  a  revolutionary  idea  than  the  idea  of 
God.  But  the  one  idea  is  enlinked  with  the  other. 
In  Paganism,  as  I  have  said,  the  higher  you  ascend 
towards  the  original  fountains  of  the  religion,  the 
more  you  leave  behind  the  frauds,  forgeries,  and 
treacheries  of  philosophy  ;  so  much  the  more  clearly 
you  descry  the  odious  truth  —  that  man  stood  in  the 
relation  of  a  superior  to  his  gods,  as  respected  all 
moral  qualities  of  any  value,  but  in  the  relation  of  an 
inferior  as  respected  physical  power.  This  was  a 
position  of  the  two  parties  fatal,  by  itself,  to  all  gran- 
deur of  moral  aspirations.  Whatever  was  good  or 
corrigibly  bad,  man  saw  associated  with  weakness ; 
and  power  was  sealed  and  guaranteed  to  absolute 
wickedness.  The  evil  disposition  in  man  to  worship 
success,  was  strengthened  by  this  mode  of  superiority 
in  the  gods.  Merit  was  disjoined  from  prosperity. 
Even  merit  of  a  lower  class,  merit  in  things  morally 
indifferent,  was  not  so  decidedly  on  the  side  of  the 
gods  as  to  reconcile  man  to  the  reasonableness  of  their 
yoke.  They  were  compelled  to  acquiesce  in  a  gov- 
ernment which  they  did  not  regard  as  just.  The  gods 
vere  stronger,  but  not  much ;  they  had  the  unfair 


OF  POLITICAL  MOVEMENT. 


35 


ftdTantage  of  standing  over  the  heads  of  men,  and  of 
wings  for  flight  or  for  manoeuvring.  Yet  even  so,  it 
was  clearly  the  opinion  of  Homer's  age,  that,  in  a  fair 
fight,  the  gods  might  have  been  found  liable  to  defeat. 
The  gods,  again,  were  generally  beautiful  :  but  not 
more  Bo  than  the  elite  of  mankind  ;  else  why  did 
these  gods,  both  male  and  female,  continually  per- 
secute our  race  with  their  odious  love  ?  which  love, 
be  it  observed,  uniformly  brought  ruin  upon  its  ob- 
jects. Intellectually  the  gods  were  undoubtedly  be- 
low men.  They  pretended  to  no  great  works  in 
philosophy,  in  legislation,  or  in  the  fine  arts,  except 
only  that,  as  to  one  of  these  arts,  viz.,  poetry,  a  single 
god  vaunted  himself  greatly  in  simple  ages.  But  he 
attempted  neither  a  tragedy  nor  an  epic  poem.  Even 
in  what  he  did  attempt,  it  is  worth  while  to  follow 
his  career.  His  literary  fate  was  what  might  have 
been  expected.  After  the  Persian  war,  the  reputation 
of  his  verses  rapidly  decayed.  Wits  arose  in  Athens, 
who  laughed  so  furiously  at  his  style  and  his  metre, 
in  the  Delphic  oracles,  that  at  length  some  echoes  of 
their  scoffing  began  to  reach  Delphi ;  upon  which  the 
god  and  his  inspired  ministers  became  sulky,  and 
finally  took  refuge  in  prose,  as  the  only  shelter  they 
could  think  of  from  the  caustic  venom  of  Athenian 
malice. 

These  were  the  miserable  relations  of  man  to  the 
Pagan  gods.  Everything,  which  it  is  worth  doing  at 
all,  man  could  do  better.  Now  it  is  some  feature  of 
alleviation  in  a  servile  condition,  if  the  lord  appears 
by  natural  endowments  superior  to  his  slave  ;  or  at 
'east  it  embitters  the  degradation  of  slavery,  if  he 


36 


ON  CHRISTIANITY  AS  AN  OEGAN 


does  not.  Greatly,  therefore,  must  human  interests 
have  suffered,  had  this  jealous  approximation  of  the 
two  parties  been  the  sole  feature  noticeable  in  the 
relations  between  them.  But  there  was  a  worse. 
There  was  an  original  enmity  between  man  and  the 
Pantheon  ;  not  the  sort  of  enmity  which  we  Christians 
ascribe  to  our  God  ;  that  is  but  a  figure  of  speech  : 
and  even  there  is  a  derivative  enmity ;  an  enmity 
founded  on  something  in  man  subsequent  to  his  crea- 
tion, and  having  a  ransom  annexed  to  it.  But  the 
enmity  of  the  heathen  gods  was  original  —  that  is,  to 
the  very  nature  of  man,  and  as  though  man  had  in 
some  stage  of  his  career  been  their  rival ;  which  in- 
deed he  was,  if  we  adopt  Milton's  hypothesis  of  the 
gods  as  ruined  angels,  and  of  man  as  created  to  supply 
the  vacancy  thus  arising  in  heaven. 

Now,  from  this  dreadful  scheme  of  relations,  be- 
tween the  human  and  divine,  under  Paganism,  turn 
to  the  relations  under  Christianity.  It  is  remarkable 
that  even  here,  according  to  a  doctrine  current  amongst 
many  of  the  elder  divines,  man  was  naturally  superior 
to  the  race  of  beings  immediately  ranking  above  him. 
Jeremy  Taylor  notices  the  obscure  tradition,  that  the 
fingelic  order  was,  by  original  constitution,  inferior  to 
man  ;  but  this  original  precedency  had  been  reversed 
for  the  present,  by  the  fact  that  man,  in  his  higher 
nature,  was  morally  ruined,  whereas  the  angelic  race 
had  not  forfeited  the  perfection  of  their  nature,  though 
otherwise  an  inferior  nature.  Waiving  a  question  so 
inscrutable  as  this,  we  know,  at  least,  that  no  alle- 
giance or  homage  is  required  from  man  towards  this 
doubtfully  superior  race.    And  when  man  first  finda 


OF  POLITICAL  MOVEMENT. 


37 


himself  called  upon  to  pay  tributes  of  his  nature  as  to 
a  being  illimitably  bis  superior,  he  is  at  the  same 
moment  taught  by  a  revelation  that  this  awful  superior 
is  the  same  who  created  him,  and  that  in  a  sense 
more  than  figurative,  he  himself  is  the  child  of  God. 
There  stand  the  two  relations,  as  declared  in  Pagan- 
ism and  in  Christianity,  —  both  probably  true.  In 
the  former,  man  is  the  essential  enemy  of  the  gods, 
though  sheltered  by  some  conventional  arrangement ; 
in  the  latter,  he  is  the  son  of  God.  In  his  own  image 
God  made  him  ;  and  the  very  central  principle  of  his 
religion  is,  that  God  for  a  great  purpose  assumed  his 
own  human  nature  ;  a  mode  of  incarnation  which 
could  not  be  conceivable,  unless  through  some  divine 
principle  common  to  the  two  natures,  and  forming  the 
nexus  between  them. 

With  these  materials  it  is,  and  others  resembling 
these,  that  Christianity  has  carried  forward  the  work 
of  human  progression.  The  ethics  of  Christianity  it 
was,  —  new  ethics  and  unintelligible,  in  a  degree  as 
yet  but  little  understood,  to  the  old  Pagan  nations,  — 
which  furnished  the  rudder,  or  guidance,  for  a  human 
revolution ;  but  the  mysteries  of  Christianity  it  was,  — 
new  Eleusinian  shows,  presenting  God  under  a  new 
form  and  aspect,  presenting  man  under  a  new  relation 
to  God,  —  which  furnished  the  oars  and  sails,  the  mov- 
ing forces,  for  the  advance  of  this  revolution. 

It  ^vas  my  intention  to  have  .shown  how  this  great 
idea  of  man's  relation  to  God,  connected  with  the  pre- 
vious idea  of  God,  had  first  caused  the  state  of  slavery 
:o  be  regarded  as  an  evil.  Next,  I  proposed  to  show 
LOW  charitable  institutions,  not  one  of  which  existed 


38 


ON   CHRISTIANITY  AS  AN  ORGAN 


in  Pagan  ages,  hospitals,  and  asylums  of  all  classes, 
had  arisen  under  the  same  idea  brooding  over  man 
from  age  to  age.  Thirdly,  I  should  have  attempted  to 
show,  that  from  the  same  mighty  influence  had  growr 
up  a  social  influence  of  woman,  which  did  not  exist  in 
Pagan  ages,  and  will  hereafter  be  applied  to  greater 
purposes.  Bat,  for  want  of  room,  I  confine  myself  to 
Baying  a  few  words  on  war,  and  the  mode  in  which  it 
will  be  extinguished  by  Christianity. 

War.  —  This  is  amongst  the  foremost  of  questions 
that  concern  human  progress,  and  it  is  one  which,  of 
all  great  questions  (the  question  of  slavery  not  ex- 
cepted, nor  even  the  question  of  the  slave-Zrac^e),  has 
travelled  forward  the  most  rapidly  into  public  favor. 
Thirty  years  ago,  there  was  hardly  a  breath  stirring 
against  war,  as  the  sole  natural  resource  of  national 
anger  or  national  competition.  Hardly  did  a  wish 
rise,  at  intervals,  in  that  direction,  or  even  a  protesting 
sigh,  over  the  calamities  of  war.  And  if  here  and 
there  a  contemplative  author  uttered  such  a  sigh,  it 
was  in  the  spirit  of  mere  hopeless  sorrow,  that 
mourned  over  an  evil  apparently  as  inalienable  from 
man  as  hunger,  as  death,  as  the  frailty  of  human 
expectations.  Cowper,  about  sixty  years  ago,  had 
said, 

**  War  is  a  game  which,  were  their  subjects  wise. 
Kings  would  not  play  at." 

But  Cowper  would  not  have  said  this,  had  he  not 
been  nearly  related  to  the  Whig  house  of  Panshanger. 
Every  Whig  thought  it  a  duty  occasionally  to  look 
fiercely  at  kings  saying  —  "  D  ,  who's  afraid  ? 


OF  POLITICAL  MOVEMENT. 


pretty  much  as  a  regular  John  Bull,  in  the  lower 
classes,  expresses  his  independence  by  defying  the 
peerage.  —  A  lord  !  do  you  say  ?  what  care  I  for  a 
lord  ?  I  value  a  lord  no  more  than  a  button  top  ;  " 
whilst,  in  fact,  he  secretly  reveres  a  lord  as  being 
usually  amongst  the  most  ancient  of  landed  proprie- 
tors, and,  secondly,  amongst  the  richest.  The  scourge 
of  kingship  was  what  Cowper  glanced  at,  rather 
than  the  scourge  of  war ;  and  in  any  case  the  condi- 
tion which  he  annexed  to  his  suggestion  of  relief, 
is  too  remote  to  furnish  much  consolation  for  cynics 
like  myself,  or  the  reader.  If  war  is  to  cease  only 
when  subjects  become  wise,  we  need  not  contract  the 
sale  of  our  cannon-foundries  until  the  millennium. 
Sixty  years  ago,  therefore,  the  abolition  of  war  looked 
as  unprosperous  a  speculation  as  Dr.  Darwin's  scheme 
for  improving  our  British  climate  by  hauling  out  all 
the  icebergs  from  the  polar  basin  in  seasons  when  the 
wind  sate  fair  for  the  tropics  ;  by  which  means  these 
wretched  annoyers  of  our  peace  would  soon  find  them- 
selves in  quarters  too  hot  to  hold  them,  and  would 
disappear  as  rapidly  as  sugar-candy  in  children's 
mouths.  Others,  however,  inclined  rather  to  the 
Ancient  Mariner's  scheme,  by  shooting  an  albatross  :  — 

'Twas  right,  said  they,  such  birds  to  shoot, 
That  bring  the  frost  and  snow. ' ' 

Scarcely  more  hopeless  than  these  crusades  against 
frost,  were  any  of  the  serious  plans  which  had  then 
Veen  proposed  for  the  extirpation  of  war.  St.  Pierre 
contributed  ''son  petit  possihle^^  to  this  desirable  end, 
In  the  shape  of  an  essay  towards  the  idea  of  a  perpet- 


40 


ON   CHRISTIANITY  AS  AN  ORGAN 


ual  peace  ;  Kant,  the  great  professor  of  Koenigsberg, 
subscribed  to  the  same  benevolent  scheme  his  little 
essay  under  the  same  title  ;  and  others  in  England  sub- 
scribed a  guinea  each  to  the  fund  for  the  suppression 
of  war.  These  efforts,  one  and  all,  spent  their  fire  as 
vainly  as  Darwin  spent  his  wrath  against  the  icebergs : 
the  icebergs  are  as  big  and  as  cold  as  ever ;  and  wai 
is  still,  like  a  basking  snake,  ready  to  rear  his  horrid 
crest  on  the  least  rustling  in  the  forests. 

But  in  quarters  more  powerful  than  either  purses  of 
gold  or  scholastic  reveries,  there  has,  since  the  days  of 
Kant  and  Cowper,  begun  to  gather  a  menacing  thun- 
der-cloud against  Avar.  The  nations,  or  at  least  the 
great  leading  nations,  are  beginning  to  set  their  faces 
against  it.  War,  it  is  felt,  comes  under  the  denuncia- 
tion of  Christianity,  by  the  havoc  which  it  causes 
amongst  those  who  bear  God's  image  ;  of  political 
economy,  by  its  destruction  of  property  and  human 
labor  ;  of  rational  logic,  by  the  frequent  absurdity  of 
its  pretexts.  The  wrong,  which  is  put  forth  as  the 
ostensible  ground  of  the  particular  war,  is  oftentimes 
not  of  a  nature  to  be  redressed  by  war,  or  is  even  for- 
gotten in  the  course  of  the  war ;  and,  secondly,  the 
war  prevents  another  course  which  might  have  re- 
dressed the  wrong  —  viz.,  temperate  negotiation,  or 
neutral  arbitration.  These  things  were  always  true, 
and,  indeed,  heretofore  more  flagrantly  true  :  but  the 
difference,  in  favor  of  our  own  times,  is,  that  they 
are  now  felt  to  be  true.  Formerly,  the  truths  were 
seen,  but  not  felt :  they  were  inoperative  truths,  life- 
less, and  unvalued.  Now,  on  the  other  hand,  in  Eng- 
land, America,  France,  societies  are  rising  for  making 


OF  POLITICAL  MOVEMENT. 


41 


war  upon  war  ;  and  it  is  a  striking  proof  of  the  pro- 
gress made  "by  such  societies,  that,  some  two  years  ago, 
a  deputation  from  one  of  them  being  presented  to 
King  Louis  Philippe,  received  from  him  —  not  the  sort 
of  vague  answer  which  might  have  been  expected,  but 
a  sincere  one,  expressed  in  very  encouraging  words. ^* 
Ominous  to  himself  this  might  have  been  thought  by 
the  superstitious,  who  should  happen  to  recollect  the 
sequel  to  a  French  king,  of  the  very  earliest  movement 
in  this  directiou  :  the  great  (but  to  this  hour  mysteri- 
ous) design  of  Henry  IV.,  in  1610,  was  supposed  by 
many  to  be  a  plan  of  this  very  nature,  for  enforcing  a 
general  and  permanent  peace  on  Christendom,  by 
means  of  an  armed  intervention  ;  and  no  sooner  had 
it  partially  transpired  through  traitorous  evidence,  oi 
through  angry  suspicion,  than  his  own  assassination 
followed. 

Shall  I  offend  the  reader  by  doubting,  after  all, 
whether  war  is  not  an  evil  still  destined  to  survive 
through  several  centuries?  Great  progress  has  already 
been  made.  In  the  two  leading  nations  of  the  earth, 
war  can  no  longer  be  made  with  the  levity  which  pro- 
voked Cowper's  words  two  generations  back.  France 
IS  too  ready  to  fight  for  mere  bubbles  of  what  she  calls 
glory.    But  neither  in  France  nor  England  could  a 

*  *'  Encouraging  words  :  "  and  rather  presumptuous  words,  if 
the  newspapers  reported  them  correctly  :  for  they  went  the 
length  of  promising,  that  he  separately,  as  King  of  the  French, 
would  coerce  Europe  into  peace.  But,  from  the  known  good 
lense  of  the  king,  it  is  more  probable  that  he  promised  his  ueg- 
itive  aid,  —  the  aid  of  not  personally  concurring  to  any  war 
l^rhich  might  otherwise  be  attractive  to  the  French  government 


42  ON  CHRISTIANITY  AS  AN  ORGAN 

war  now  be  undertaken  without  a  warrant  from  the 
popular  voice.  This  is  a  great  step  in  advance ;  but 
the  final  step  for  its  extinction  will  be  taken  by  a  new 
and  Christian  code  of  international  law.  This  cannot 
be  consummated  until  Christian  philosophy  shall  have 
traversed  the  earth,  and  reorganized  the  structure  of 
society. 

But,  finally,  and  (as  regards  extent,  though  not  as 
regards  intensity  of  effect)  far  beyond  all  other  politi- 
cal powers  of  Christianity,  is  the  power,  the  demiurgic 
power  of  this  religion  over  the  kingdoms  of  human 
opinion.  Did  it  ever  strike  the  reader,  that  the  Greeks 
and  Romans,  although  so  frantically  republican,  and, 
in  some  of  their  institutions,  so  democratic,  yet,  on  the 
other  hand,  never  developed  the  idea  of  representative 
government,  either  as  applied  to  legislation  or  to  ad- 
ministration ?  The  elective  principle  was  widely  used 
amongst  them.  Nay,  the  nicer  casuistries  of  this  prin- 
ciple had  been  latterly  discussed.  The  separate  ad- 
vantages of  open  or  of  secret  voting,  had  been  the 
subject  of  keen  dispute  in  the  political  circles  of 
Rome  ;  and  the  art  was  well  understood  of  disturbing 
the  natural  course  of  the  public  suffrage,  by  varying 
the  modes  of  combining  the  voters  under  the  different 
forms  of  the  Comitia.  Public  authority  and  jurisdiction 
were  created  and  modified  by  the  elective  principle  ; 
but  never  was  this  principle  applied  to  the  creation  or 
-lirection  of  public  opinion.  The  senate  of  Rome,  for 
instance,  like  our  own  sovereign,  represented  the 
national  majesty,  and,  to  a  certain  degree,  continued 
to  do  so  for  centuries  after  this  majesty  had  received 
a  more  immediate  representative  in  the  person  of  the 


or  POLITICAL  MOVEMENT. 


43 


reigning  Csesar.  The  senate,  like  our  own  sovereign, 
represented  the  grandeur  of  the  nation,  the  hospitality 
of  the  nation  to  illustrious  strangers,  and  the  gratitude 
of  the  nation  in  the  distribution  of  honors.  For  the 
senate  continued  to  be  the  fountain  of  honors,  even  to 
Csesar  himself :  the  titles  of  Germanicus,  Britannicus, 
Dalmaticus,  &c.  (which  may  be  viewed  as  peerages), 
the  privilege  of  precedency,  the  privilege  of  wearing  a 
laurel  diadem,  &c.  (which  may  be  viewed  as  the  Gar- 
ter, Bath,  Thistle),  all  were  honors  conferred  by  the 
senate.  But  the  senate,  no  more  than  our  own  sove- 
reign, ever  represented,  by  any  one  act  or  function,  the 
public  opinion.  How  was  this?  Strange,  indeed,  that 
so  mighty  a  secret  as  that  of  delegating  public  opinions 
to  the  custody  of  elect  representatives,  a  secret  which 
has  changed  the  face  of  the  world,  should  have  been 
missed  by  nations  applying  so  vast  an  energy  to  the 
whole  theory  of  public  administration.  But  the  truth, 
however  paradoxical,  is,  that  in  Greece  and  Rome  no 
body  of  public  opinions  existed  that  could  have  fur- 
nished a  standing  ground  for  adverse  parties,  or  that 
consequently  could  have  required  to  be  represented. 
In  all  the  dissensions  of  Rome,  from  the  secessions  of 
the  Plebs  to  the  factions  of  the  Gracchi,  of  Marius  and 
Sylla,  of  Csesar  and  Pompey ,  in  all  the  caan^  of  the 
Grecian  republics,  —  the  contest  could  no  more  be  de- 
scribed as  a  contest  of  opinion,  than  could  the  feuds 
of  our  buccaneers  in  the  seventeenth  century,  when 
parting  company,  or  fighting  for  opposite  principles  of 
dividing  the  general  booty.  One  faction  has,  another 
sought  to  have,  a  preponderant  share  of  power :  but 
these  struggles  never  took  the  shape,  even  in  pretence, 


44  ON   CHRISTIANITY  AS  AN  OROAN 


of  differences  that  moved  through  the  conflict  of  prin- 
ciples. The  case  was  always  the  simple  one  of  power 
matched  against  power,  faction  against  faction,  usage 
against  innovation.  It  was  not  that  the  patricians 
deluded  themselves  by  any  speculative  views  into  the 
efusal  of  intermarriages  with  the  plebeians  :  it  was  not 
as  upon  any  opinion  that  they  maintained  the  contest 
(such  as  at  this  day  divides  ourselves  from  the  French 
upon  the  question  of  opinion  with  regard  to  the  social 
rank  of  literary  men),  but  simply  as  upon  a  fact :  they 
appealed  to  evidences,  not  to  speculations  ;  to  usage, 
not  to  argument.  They  were  in  possession,  and  fought 
against  change,  not  as  inconsistent  with  a  theory,  but 
as  hostility  to  an  interest.  In  the  contest  of  Csesar 
with  the  oligarchic  knavery  of  Cicero,  Cato,  and  Pom- 
pey,  no  possible  exercise  of  representative  functions 
(had  the  people  possessed  them)  could  have  been  ap- 
lied  beneficially  to  the  settlement  of  the  question  at 
issue.  Law,  and  the  abuses  of  law,  good  statutes  and 
evil  customs,  had  equally  thrown  the  public  power 
into  a  settlement  fatal  to  the  public  welfare.  Not  any 
decay  of  public  virtue,  but  increase  of  poverty  amongst 
the  inferior  citizens,  had  thrown  the  suffrages,  and 
consequently  the  honors  and  powers  of  the  state,  into 
the  hands  of  some  forty  or  fifty  houses,  rich  pnough  to 
bribe,  and  bribing  systematically.  Csesar,  undertaking 
to  correct  a  state  of  disease  which  would  else  have 
convulsed  the  republic  every  third  year  by  civil  war, 
knew  that  no  arguments  could  be  available  against  a 
v'^ompetition  of  mere  interests.  The  remedy  lay,  not 
through  opposition  speeches  in  the  senate,  or  from  the 
rostra,  —  not  through  pamphlets  or  journals,  —  but 


OF  POLITICAL  MOVEMENT. 


45 


through  a  course  of  intense  cudgelling.  This  he  hap- 
pily accomplished ;  and  by  that  means  restored  Rome 
for  centuries,  —  not  to  the  aspiring  condition  which 
she  once  held,  but  to  an  immunity  from  annual  car- 
nage,  and  in  other  respects  to  a  condition  of  prosperity 
which,  if  less  than  during  her  popular  state,  was  greater 
than  any  else  attainable  after  that  popular  state  had 
become  impossible,  from  changes  in  the  composition 
of  society. 

Here,  and  in  all  other  critical  periods  of  ancient 
republics,  we  shall  find  that  opinions  did  not  exist  as 
the  grounds  of  feud,  nor  could  by  any  dexterity  have 
been  applied  to  the  settlement  of  feuds.  Whereas,  on 
the  other  hand,  with  ourselves  for  centuries,  and 
latterly  with  the  French,  no  public  contest  has  arisen, 
or  does  now  exist,  without  fighting  its  way  through 
every  stage  of  advance  by  appeals  to  public  opinion. 
If,  for  instance,  an  improved  tone  of  public  feeling 
calls  for  a  gradual  mitigation  of  army  punishments, 
the  quarrel  becomes  instantly  an  intellectual  one  :  and 
much  information  is  brought  forward,  which  throws 
light  upon  human  nature  generally.  But  in  Rome, 
such  a  discussion  would  have  been  stopped  summarily, 
as  interfering  with  the  discretional  power  of  the 
Prsetorium.  To  take  the  vitis,  or  cane,  from  the 
hands  of  the  centurion,  was  a  perilous  change ;  but, 
perilous  or  not,  must  be  committed  to  the  judgment 
of  the  particular  imperator,  or  of  his  legatus.  The 
executive  business  of  the  Roman  exchequer,  again, 
jould  not  have  been  made  the  subject  of  public  dis- 
cussion ;  not  only  because  no  sufficient  material  for 
udgment  could,  under  the  want  of  a  public  press, 


46  ON   CHUISTIANITY  AS  AN  ORGAN 

have  been  gathered,  except  from  the  parties  interested 
in  all  its  abuses,  but  also  because  these  parties  (a 
faction  amongst  the  equestrian  order)  could  have 
effectually  overthrown  any  counter-faction  formed 
amongst  parties  not  personally  affected  by  the  ques- 
tion. The  Roman  institution  of  clientela  —  which  had 
outlived  its  early  uses,  —  does  any  body  imagine  that 
this  was  open  to  investigation?  The  influence  of 
murderous  riots  would  easily  have  been  brought  to 
bear  upon  it,  but  not  the  light  of  public  opinion. 
Even  if  public  opinion  could  have  been  evoked  in 
those  days,  or  trained  to  combined  action,  insuperable 
difficulties  would  have  arisen  in  adjusting  its  force  to 
the  necessities  of  the  Roman  provinces  and  allies. 
Any  arrangement  that  was  practicable,  would  have  ob- 
tained an  influence  for  these  parties,  either  dangerous 
to  the  supreme  section  of  the  empire,  or  else  nugatory 
for  each  of  themselves.  It  is  a  separate  consideration, 
that  through  total  defect  of  cheap  instruments  for 
communication,  whether  personally  or  in  the  way  of 
thought,  public  opinion  must  always  have  moved  in 
the  dark :  what  I  chiefly  assert  is,  that  the  feuds 
bearing  at  all  upon  public  interests,  never  did  turn,  or 
could  have  turned,  upon  any  collation  of  opinions. 
And  two  things  must  strengthen  the  reader's  convic- 
tion upon  this  point,  viz.,  first,  that  no  public  meetings 
(such  as  with  us  carry  on  the  weight  of  public  business 
throughout  the  empire)  were  ever  called  in  Rome  ; 
secondly,  that  in  the  regular  and  "  official  "  meetings 
of  the  people,  no  social  interest  was  ever  discussed, 
but  only  some  political  interest. 
Now,  on  the  other  hand,  amongst  ourselves,  every 


OF  POLITICAL  MOVEMENT. 


47 


question,  that  is  large  enough  to  engage  public  inter- 
est, though  it  should  begin  as  a  mere  comparison  of 
strength  with  strength,  almost  immediately  travels 
forward  into  a  comparison  of  right  with  rights,  or  of 
duty  with  duty.  A  mere  fiscal  question  of  restraint 
upon  importation  from  this  or  that  particular  quarter, 
passes  .into  a  question  of  colonial  rights.  Arrange- 
ments of  convenience  for  the  management  of  the 
pauper,  or  the  debtor,  or  the  criminal,  or  the  war- 
captive,  become  the  occasions  of  profound  investiga- 
tions into  the  rights  of  persons  occupying  those 
relations.  Sanatory  ordinances  for  the  protection  of 
public  health,  —  such  as  quarantine,  fever  hospitals, 
draining,  vaccination,  &c.,  —  connect  themselves,  in  the 
earliest  stages  of  their  discussion,  with  the  general 
consideration  of  the  duties  which  the  state  owes  to  its 
subjects.  If  education  is  to  be  promoted  by  public 
counsels,  every  step  of  the  inquiry  applies  itself  to 
the  consideration  of  the  knowledge  to  be  commu- 
nicated, and  of  the  limits  within  which  any  section 
of  religious  partisanship  can  be  safely  authorized  to 
interfere.  If  coercion,  beyond  the  warrant  of  the 
ordinary  law,  is  to.  be  applied  as  a  remedy  for  local 
outrages,  a  tumult  of  opinions  arises  instantly,  as  to 
the  original  causes  of  the  evil,  as  to  the  sufficiency  of 
the  subsisting  laws  to  meet  its  pressure,  and  as  to  the 
modes  of  connecting  enlarged  powers  in  the  magistrate 
with  the  minimum  of  offence  to  the  general  rights  of 
the  subject. 

Everywhere,  in  short,  some  question  of  duty  and 
responsibility  arises  to  face  us  in  any  the  smallest 
public  interest  that  can  become  the  subject  of  public 


48 


ON  CHRISTIANITY  AS  AN  ORGAN 


opinion.  Questions,  in  fact,  that  fall  short  of  this 
dignity  ;  questions  that  concern  public  convenience 
only,  and  do  not  wear  any  moral  aspect,  such  as  the 
bullion  question,  never  do  become  subjects  of  public 
opinion.  It  cannot  be  said  in  which  direction  lies 
the  bias  of  public  opinion.  In  the  very  possibility  of 
interesting  the  public  judgment,  is  involved  the  cer- 
tainty of  wearing  some  relation  to  moral  principles. 
Hence  the  ardor  of  our  public  disputes  ;  for  no  man 
views  without  concern  a  great  moral  principle  dark- 
ened by  party  motives,  or  placed  in  risk  by  accident : 
hence  the  dignity  and  benefit  of  our  public  disputes  ; 
hence,  also,  theh  ultimate  relation  to  the  Christian 
faith.  We  do  not,  indeed,  in  these  days,  as  did  our 
homely  ancestors  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries,  cite  texts  of  Scripture  as  themes  for  sena- 
torial commentary  or  exegesis;  but  the  virtual  refer- 
ence to  Scriptural  principles  is  now  a  thousand  times 
more  frequent.  The  great  principles  of  Christian 
morality  are  now  so  interwoven  with  our  habits  of 
thinking,  that  we  appeal  to  them  no  longer  as  Scrip- 
tural authorities,  but  as  the  natural  suggestions  of  a 
sound  judgment.  For  instance,  in  the  case  of  any 
wrong  ofi'ered  to  the  Hindoo  races,  now  so  enthely 
dependent  upon  our  wisdom  and  justice,  we  British 

*  ^^We  British:^'  — It  may  be  thought  that,  in  the  prosecu- 
tion of  Verres,  the  people  of  Rome  acknowledged  something  of 
the  same  high  responsibility.  Not  at  all.  The  case  came  before 
Rome,  not  as  a  case  of  injury  to  a  colonial  child,  whom  the  gen- 
eral mother  was  bound  to  protect  and  avenge;  but  as  an  appeal, 
by  way  of  special  petition,  from  Sicilian  clients.  It  was  no 
Ijraad  political  movement,  but  simply  judicial.    Verres  was  an 


OF   POLITICAL  MOVEMENT. 


49 


immediately,  by  our  solemnity  of  investigation,  testify 
our  sense  of  the  deep  responsibility  to  India  with 
which  our  Indian  supremacy  has  invested  us.  We 
make  no  mention  of  the  Christian  oracles.  Yet  where, 
then,  have  we  learned  this  doctrine  of  far-stretching 
responsibility  ?  In  all  Pagan  systems  of  morality, 
there  is  the  vaguest  and  slightest  appreciation  of  such 
relations  as  connect  us  with  our  colonies.  But,  from 
the  profound  philosophy  of  Scripture,  we  have  learned 
that  no  relations  whatever,  not  even  those  of  property, 
can  connect  us  with  even  a  brute  animal,  but  that  we 
contract  concurrent  obligations  of  justice  and  mercy. 

In  this  age,  then,  public  interests  move  and  prosper 
through  conflicts  of  opinion.  Secondly,  as  I  have 
endeavored  to  show,  public  opinion  cannot  settle, 
powerfully,  upon  any  question  that  is  not  essentially  a 
moral  question.  And,  thirdly,  in  all  moral  questions, 
we,  of  Christian  nations,  are  compelled,  by  habit  and 
training, -as  well  as  other  causes,  to  derive  our  first 
principles,  consciously  or  not,  from  the  Scriptures.  It 
is,  therefore,  through  the  doctrinality  of  our  religion 
that  we  derive  arms  for  all  moral  questions  ;  and  it  is 
as  moral  questions  that  any  political  disputes  much 
affect  us.  The  daily  conduct,  therefore,  of  all  great 
political  interests,  throws  us  unconsciously  upon  the 
first  principles  which  we  all  derive  from  Christianity. 
And,  in  this  respect,  we  are  more  advantageously 

ill-used  man,  and  the  victim  of  private  intrigues.  Or,  whatever 
he  might  be,  Rome  certainly  sate  upon  the  cause,  not  in  any 
character  of  maternal  protectress,  taking  up  voluntarily  the 
support  of  the  weak ,  but  as  a  sheriff  assessing  damages  in  a  case 
forced  upon  his  court  by  the  plaintiff. 

4 


50 


ON  CHRISTIANITY  AS  AN  ORGAN 


placed,  by  a  very  noticeable  distinction,  than  the 
professors  of  the  two  other  doctrinal  religions.  The 
Koran  having  pirated  many  sentiments  from  the  Jew- 
ish and  the  Christian  systems,  could  not  but  offer 
some  rudiments  of  moral  judgment ;  yet,  because  so 
much  of  these  rudiments  is  stolen,  the  whole  is  inco- 
herent, and  does  not  form  a  system  of  ethics.  In 
Judaism,  again,  the  special  and  insulated  situation  of 
the  Jews  has  unavoidably  impressed  an  exclusive  bias 
upon  its  principles.  In  both  codes  the  rules  are  often 
of  restricted  and  narrow  application.  But,  in  the 
Christian  Scriptures,  the  rules  are  so  comprehensive 
and  large  as  uniformly  to  furnish  the  major  proposi- 
tion of  a  syllogism  ;  whilst  the  particular  act  under 
discussion,  wearing  perhaps  some  modern  name, 
naturally  is  not  directly  mentioned :  and  to  bring 
this,  in  the  minor  proposition,  under  the  principle 
contained  in  the  major,  is  a  task  left  to  the  judgment 
of  the  inquirer  in  each  particular  case.  Something  is 
here  intrusted  to  individual  understanding  ;  whereas 
in  the  Koran,  from  the  circumstantiality  of  the  rule, 
you  are  obliged  mechanically  to  rest  in  the  letter  of 
the  precept.  The  Christian  Scriptures,  therefore,  not 
only  teach,  but  train  the  mind  to  habits  of  5e/f-teaching 
in  all  moral  questions,  by  enforcing  more  or  less  of 
activity  in  applying  the  rule  ;  that  is,  in  subsuming  the 
given  case  proposed  under  the  scriptural  principle. 

Hence  it  is  certain,  and  has  been  repeatedly  illus- 
trated, that  whilst  the  Christian  faith,  in  collision  with 
others,  would  inevitably  rouse  to  the  most  active  fer- 
mentation of  minds,  the  Mahometaa  (as  also  doctrinal 
but  unsystematical)  would  have  the  same  effect  in 


OF  POLITICAL  MOVEMEI^T. 


51 


kind,  but  far  feebler  in  degree  ;  and  an  idolatrous  re- 
ligion would  have  no  such  effect  at  all.  Agreeably  to 
this  scale,  some  years  ago,  a  sect  of  reforming  or 
fanatical  Mahometans,  in  Bengal,^'  commenced  a  per- 
secution of  the  surrounding  Hindoos.  At  length,  a 
reaction  took  place  on  the  part  of  the  idolaters  ;  but 
in  what  temper  ?  Bitter  enough,  and  so  far  alarming 
as  to  call  down  a  government  interference  with  troops 
and  artillery,  but  yet  with  no  signs  of  religious  retali- 
ation. That  was  a  principle  of  movement  which  the 
Hindoos  could  not  understand :  their  retaliation  was 
simply  to  the  personal  violence  they  had  suffered. 
Such  is  the  inertia  of  a  mere  cultus.  And,  in  the  other 
extreme,  if  we  Christians,  in  our  intercourse  with  both 
Hindoos  and  Mahometans,  were  not  sternly  reined  up 
by  the  vigilance  of  the  local  governments,  no  long 
time  would  pass  before  all  India  would  be  incurably 
convulsed  by  disorganizing  feuds. 


•  At  Baraset,  if  I  remember  rightly. 


THE  ESSENES. 


Some  time  ago,  we  published  a  little  essay,  that 
might  easily  be  expanded  into  a  very  large  volume  ; 
and  ultimately  into  a  perfectly  new  philosophy  of  Ro- 
man history,  in  proof  that  Rome  was  self-barbarized  — 
barbarized  ah  intra,  and  not  by  foreign  enemies.  The 
evidences  of  this,  1st,  in  the  death  of  her  literature, 
and,  2d,  in  the  instant  oblivion  which  swallowed  up 
all  public  transactions,  are  so  obvious  as  to  challenge 
notice  from  the  most  inattentive  reader.  For  instance, 
as  respects  this  latter  tendency,  what  case  can  be  more 
striking,  than  the  fact  that  Trebellius  Pollio,  expressly 
dedicating  himself  to  such  researches,  and  having  the 
state  documents  at  his  service,  cannot  trace,  by  so 
much  as  the  merest  outline,  the  biography  of  some 
great  officers  who  had  worn  the  purple  as  rebels, 
though  actually  personal  friends  of  his  own  grand- 
father ?  So  nearly  connected  as  they  were  with  his 
own  age  and  his  own  family,  yet  had  they  utterly 
perished  for  want  of  literary  memorials !  A  third 
indication  of  barbarism,  in  the  growing  brutality  of  the 
urmy  and  the  Emperor,  is  of  a  nature  to  impress  many 
readers  even  more  powerfully,  and  especially  by  con- 
trast with  the  spirit  of  Roman  warfare  in  its  republican 


THE  ESSENES. 


53 


period.  Always  it  had  been  an  insolent  and  haughty 
warfare  ;  but,  upon  strong  motives  of  policy,  sparing 
in  bloodshed.  Whereas,  latterly,  the  ideal  of  a  Ro- 
man general  was  approaching  continually  nearer  to 
the  odious  standard,  of  a  caboceer  amongst  the  Ashan- 
tees.  Listen  to  the  father  of  his  people  (Galiienus) 
issuing  his  paternal  commands  for  the  massacre,  in 
cold  blood,  of  a  whole  district  —  not  foreign  but  do- 
mestic —  after  the  offence  had  become  almost  obsolete  : 
'  Non  satisfacies  mihi,  si  tantum  arniatos  occideris  — 
quos  et  fors  belli  interimere  potuisset.  Perimendua 
est  omnis  sexus  virilis  :  '  and,  lest  even  this  sweeping 
warrant  should  seem  liable  to  any  merciful  distinctions, 
he  adds  circumstantially  —  '  Si  est  senes  atque  impu- 
beres  sine  mea  reprehensione  occidi  possent'  And 
thus  the  bloody  mandate  winds  up :  '  Occidendus  est 
quicunque  male  voluit,  occidendus  est  quicunque  male 
dixit  contra  me  :  Lacera,  occide,  concide.'  Was  ever 
such  a  rabid  tiger  found,  except  amongst  the  Hyder 
Alls  or  Nadir  Shahs  of  half-civilized  or  decivilized 
tribes  ?  Yet  another  and  a  very  favorite  emperor  out- 
herods  even  this  butcher,  by  boasting  of  the  sabring 
which  he  had  let  loose  amongst  crowds  of  helpless 
women. 

The  fourth  feature  of  the  Roman  barbarism  upon 
\Nhich  we  insisted,  viz.,  the  growing  passion  for  trivial 
anecdotage  in  slight  of  all  nobler  delineations,  may  be 
traced,  in  common  with  all  the  other  features,  to  the  de- 
cay of  a  public  mind  and  a  common  connecting  interest^ 
amongst  the  different  members  of  that  vast  imperial 
body.  This  was  a  necessity,  arising  out  of  the  merely 
personal  tenure  by  which  the  throne  was  held.  Com- 
petition for  dignities,  ambition  under  any  form,  could 


54 


TPIE  ESSENES. 


aot  exist  with  safety  under  circumstances  whicli  imme 
diately  attracted  a  blighting  jealousy  from  the  highest 
quarter.  Where  hereditary  succession  was  no  fixed 
principle  of  state  —  no  principle  which  all  men  were 
leagued  to  maintain  —  every  man,  in  his  own  defence, 
might  be  made  an  object  of  anxiety  in  proportion  to 
his  public  merit.  Not  conspiring,  he  might  still  be 
placed  at  the  head  of  a  conspiracy.  There  was  no 
oath  of  allegiance  taken  to  the  emperor's  family,  but 
only  to  the  emperor  personally.  But  if  it  was  thus 
dangerous  for  a  man  to  offer  himself  as  a  participator 
in  state  honors ;  on  the  other  hand,  it  was  impossible 
for  a  people  to  feel  any  living  sympathy  with  a  public 
grandeur  in  which  they  could  not  safely  attempt  to 
participate.  Simply  to  be  a  member  of  this  vast  body 
was  no  distinction  at  all :  honor  could  not  attach  to 
what  was  universal.  One  path  only  lay  open  to  per- 
sonal distinction  ;  and  that  being  haunted  along  its 
whole  extent  by  increasing  danger,  naturally  bred  the 
murderous  spirit  of  retaliation  or  pre-occupation.  II 
is  besides  certain,  that  the  very  change  wrought  in  the 
nature  of  warlike  rewards  and  honors,  contributed  to 
cherish  a  spirit  of  atrocity  amongst  the  officers.  Tri- 
um^Dhs  had  been  granted  of  old  for  conquests  ;  and 
these  were  generally  obtained  much  more  by  intellec- 
tual qualities  than  by  any  display  of  qualities  merely 
or  rudely  martial.  Triumphs  were  now  forbidden  fruit 
to  any  officer  less  than  Augustan.  And  this  one 
change,  l  ad  there  been  no  other,  sufficed  to  throw  the 
ifTorts  of  military  men  into  a  direction  more  humble, 
more  directly  personal  and  more  brutal.  It  became 
dangerous  to  be  too  conspicuously  victorious.  There 
yet  remains  a  letter,  amongst  the  few  surviving  from 


THE  ESSENES. 


55 


that  unlettered  period,  which  whispers  a  thrilling  cau- 
tion to  a  great  officer,  not  to  be  too  meritorious :  '  Dig- 
nus  eras  triumpho,'  says  the  letter,  '  si  antiqua  tempora 
extarent.'  But  what  of  that  ?  What  signified  merit 
that  was  to  cost  a  man  his  head  ?  And  the  letter  goes 
on  to  add  this  gloomy  warning  — '  Memor  cujusdam 
ominis,  cautius  veliin  vincasJ  The  warning  was  thrown 
away ;  the  man  (Regillianus)  persisted  in  these  im- 
prudent victories ;  he  was  too  meritorious ;  he  grew 
dangerous  ;  and  he  perished.  Such  examples  forced 
upon  the  officers  a  less  suspicious  and  a  more  brutal 
ambition  ;  the  laurels  of  a  conqueror  marked  a  man 
out  for  a  possible  competitor,  no  matter  through  whose 
ambition  —  his  own  in  assuming  the  purple,  or  that 
of  others  in  throwing  it  by  force  around  him.  The 
differences  of  guilt  could  not  be  allowed  for  where  they 
made  no  difference  in  the  result.  But  the  laurels  of  a 
butcher  created  no  jealousy,  whilst  they  sufficed  for 
establishing  a  camp  reputation.  And  thus  the  danger 
of  a  higher  ambition  threw  a  weight  of  encouragement 
into  the  lower  and  more  brutal. 

So  powerful,  indeed,  was  this  tendency — so  head- 
long this  gravitation  to  the  brutal  —  that  unless  a  new 
force,  moving  in  an  opposite  direction,  had  begun  to 
rise  in  the  political  heavens,  the  Roman  empire  would 
have  become  an  organized  engine  of  barbarism  —  bar- 
barous and  making  barbarous.  This  fact  gives  one 
additional -motive  to  the  study  of  Christian  antiquities, 
which  on  so  many  other  motives  interest  and  perplex 
r-)ur  curiosity.  About  the  time  of  Dioclesian,  the  weight 
of  Christianity  was  making  itself  felt  in  high  places. 
There  is  a  memorable  scene  between  that  empeioi 
and  a  Pagan  priest  representing  an  oracle,  (tliat  is^ 


56 


THE  ESSENES. 


Bpeaking  on  belialf  of  the  Pagan  interests,)  full  forty 
years  before  the  legal  establishment  of  Christianity, 
which  shows  how  insensibly  the  Christian  faith  had 
crept  onwards  within  the  fifty  or  sixty  years  previous. 
Such  hints,  such  '  momenta,'  such  stages  in  the  subtle 
progress  of  Christianity,  should  be  carefully  noted, 
searched,  probed,  improved.  And  it  is  partly  because 
too  little  anxiety  of  research  has  been  applied  in  this 
direction,  that  every  student  of  ecclesiastical  history 
mourns  over  the  dire  sterility  of  its  primitive  fields. 
For  the  first  three  or  four  centuries  we  know  next  to 
nothing  of  the  course  by  which  Christianity  moved, 
and  the  events  through  which  its  agency  was  developed. 
That  it  prospered,  we  know  ;  but  how  it  prospered, 
(meaning  not  through  what  transcendent  cause,  but 
by  what  circumstantial  steps  and  gradations,)  is  pain- 
fully mysterious.  And  for  much  of  this  darkness,  we 
must  confess  that  it  is  now  past  all  human  power  of 
illumination.  Nay,  perhaps  it  belongs  to  the  very 
sanctity  of  a  struggle,  in  which  powers  more  than  hu- 
man were  working  concurrently  with  man,  that  it  should 
be  lost,  (like  much  of  our  earliest  antediluvian  history,) 
in  a  mysterious  gloom  ;  and  for  the  same  reason  —  viz., 
that  when  man  stands  too  near  the  super-sensual  world, 
and  is  too  palpably  co-agent  with  schemes  of  Provi- 
dence, there  would  arise,  upon  the  total  review  of  the 
whole  plan  and  execution,  were  it  all  circumstantially 
laid  below  our  eyes,  too  compulsory  an  evidence  of  a 
supernatural  agency.  It  is  not  meant  that  men  should 
be  forced  into  believing  :  free  agencies  must  be  left 
fcO  the  human  belief,  both  in  adopting  and  rejecting, 
else  it  would  cease  to  be  a  moral  thing,  or  to  possess  a 
moral  value.    Those  wlio  were  contemporary  to  these 


THE  ESSEXES. 


57 


great  agencies,  saw  only  in  part ;  the  fractionary  mode 
of  their  perceptions  intercej.  ted  this  compulsion  from 
them.  But  as  to  us  who  look  back  upon  the  whole, 
it  would  perhaps  have  been  impossible  to  secure  the 
Bame  immunity  from  compulsion,  the  same  integrity 
of  the  free,  unbiased  choice,  unless  by  darkening  the 
miracidous  agencies,  obliterating  many  facts,  and  dis- 
turbing their  relations.  In  such  a  way  the  equality 
is  maintained  between  generation  and  generation  ;  no 
age  is  unduly  favored,  none  penuriously  depressed. 
Each  has  its  separate  advantages,  each  its  peculiar 
difficulties.  The  worst  has  not  so  little  light  as  to  have 
a  pita  for  infidelity.  The  best  has  not  so  much  as  to 
overpower  the  freedom  of  election  —  a  freedom  which 
is  indispensable  to  all  moral  value,  whether  in  doing  or 
in  suffering,  in  believing  or  denying. 

Meantime,  though  this  obscurity  of  primitive  Chris- 
tianity is  past  denying,  and  possibly,  for  the  reason 
just  given,  not  without  an  d  priori  purpose  and  mean- 
ing, we  nevertheless  maintain  that  something  may  yet 
be  done  to  relieve  it.  We  need  not  fear  to  press  into 
the  farthest  recesses  of  Christian  antiquity,  under  any 
notion  that  we  are  prying  into  forbidden  secrets,  or 
carrying  a  torch  into  shades  consecrated  to  mystery. 
For  wherever  it  is  not  meant  that  we  should  raise  the 
veil,  there  we  shall  carry  our  torch  in  vain.  Precisely 
as  our  researches  are  fortunate,  they  authenticate  them- 
selves as  privileged :  and  in  such  a  chase  all  success 
justifies  itself. 

No  scholar  —  not  even  the  wariest  —  has  ever  read 
with  adequate  care  those  records  which  we  still  pos- 
sess, Greek  or  Latin,  of  primitive  Christianity.  He 
should  approach  this  subject  with* a  vexatious  scrutiny 


58 


THE  ESSENES. 


He  should  lie  in  ambush  for  discoverief ,  as  we  did  in 
reading  Josephus. 

Let  us  examine  his  chapter  on  the  Essenes,  and 
open  the  very  logic  of  the  case,  its  very  outermost 
outline,  in  these  two  sentences  :  —  A  thing  there  ^5  m 
Josephus,  which  ought  not  to  be  there ;  this  thing  we 
will  call  Epsilon,  (E.)  A  thing  there  is  which  ought 
to  be  in  Josephus,  but  which  is  not ;  this  thing  we  call 
Chi,  (X.) 

The  Epsilon,  wnich  ought  not  to  be  there,  but  is  — 
what  is  that  ?  It  is  the  pretended  philosophical  sect 
amongst  the  Jews,  to  which  Josephus  gives  the  name 
of  Essenes ;  this  ought  not  to  be  in  Josephus,  nor  any 
where  else,  for  certain  we  are  that  no  such  sect  ever 
existed. 

The  Chi,  which  ought  by  every  obligation  —  obliga- 
tions of  reason,  passion,  interest,  common  sense  —  to 
have  been  more  broadly  and  emphatically  present  in 
the  Judsean  history  of  Josephus'  period  than  in  any 
other  period  whatever,  but  unaccountably  is  omitted  — 
what  is  that  ?  It  is,  reader,  neither  more  nor  less  than 
the  new-born  brotherhood  of  Christians.  The  whole 
monstrosity  of  this  omission  will  not  be  apparent  to 
the  reader,  until  his  attention  be  pointed  closely  to 
the  chronological  position  of  Joseph  —  his  longitude  as 
respects  the  great  meridian  of  the  Christian  era. 

The  period  of  Josephus'  connection  with  Palestine, 
running  abreast,  (as  it  were,)  with  that  very  genera- 
tion succeeding  to  Christ  —  with  that  very  Epichristian 
age  which  dated  from  the  crucifixion,  and  terminated 
in  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  —  hov/,  by  what  possi- 
bility, did  he  escape  all  knowledge  of  the  Christians 
»s  a  body  of  men '  that  should  naturally  have  chai- 


THE  ESSENES. 


59 


lenged  notice  irom  the  very  stocks  and  stones  of  their 
birthplace ;  the  very  echo  of  whose  footsteps  ought  to 
have  sunk  upon  the  ear  with  the  awe  that  belongs  to 
spiritual  phenomena?  There  were  circumstances  of 
distinction  in  the  very  closeness  of  the  confederation 
'  that  connected  the  early  CKrlstians,  which  ought  to 
have  made  them  interesting.  But,  waiving  all  that, 
what  a  supernatural  awe  must  naturally  have  attended 
the  persons  of  those  who  laid  the  corner-stone  of  their 
faith  in  an  event  so  affecting  and  so  appalling  as  the 
Resurrection !  The  Chi,  therefore,  that  should  be  in 
Josephus,  but  is  not,  how  can  we  suggest  any  ap- 
proximation to  a  solution  of  this  mystery  —  any  clue 
towards  it  —  any  hint  of  a  clue  ? 

True  it  is,  that  an  interpolated  passage,  found  in  all 
the  printed  editions  of  Josephus,  makes  him  take  a 
special  and  respectful  notice  of  our  Saviour.  But  this 
passage  has  long  been  given  up  as  a  forgery  by  all 
scholars.  And  in  another  essay  on  the  Epi christian 
era,  which  we  shall  have  occasion  to  write,  some  facts 
will  be  laid  before  the  reader  exposing  a  deeper  folly 
in  this  forgery  than  is  apparent  at  first  sight. 

True  it  is,  that  Whiston  makes  the  astounding  dis- 
covery that  Josephus  was  himself  an  Ebionite  Chris- 
tian. Josephus  a  Christian  !  In  the  instance  before 
us,  were  it  possible  that  he  had  been  a  Christian,  in 
that  case  the  wonder  is  many  times  greater,  that  he 
should  have  omitted  all  notice  of  the  whole  body  as  a 
fraternity  acting  together  with  a  harmony  unprece- 
dented amongst  their  distracted  countrymen  of  that 
age ;  and,  secondly,  as  a  fraternity  to  whom  was 
assigned  a  certain  political  aspect  by  their  enemies. 
The  civU  and  external  relations  of  this  new  party  he 


80 


THE  ESSENES. 


could  not  but  liave  noticed,  had  he  even  omitted  the 
religious  doctrines  which  bound  them  together  inter- 
nally, as  doctrines  too  remote  from  Roman  compre- 
hension. In  reality,  so  far  from  being  a  Christian,  we 
shall  show  that  Josephus  was  not  even  a  Jew,  in  any 
conscientious  or  religious  sense.  He  had  never  taken 
the  first  step  in  the  direction  of  Christianity ;  but  was, 
as  many  other  Jews  were  in  that  age,  essentially  a 
Pagan  ;  as  little  impressed  with  the  true  nature  of  the 
God  whom  his  country  worshipped,  with  His  ineffable 
purity  and  holiness,  as  any  idolatrous  Athenian  what- 
soever. 

The  wonder,  therefore,  subsists,  and  revolves  upon 
us  with  the  more  violence,  after  Whiston's  efforts  to 
extinguish  it  —  how  it  could  have  happened  that  a 
writer,  who  passed  his  infancy,  youth,  manhood,  in 
the  midst  of  a  growing  sect  so  transcendently  inter- 
esting to  every  philosophic  mind,  and  pre-eminently  so 
interesting  to  a  Jew,  should  have  left  behind  him,  in  a 
compass  of  eight  hundred  and  fifty-four  pages,  double 
columns,  each  column  having  sixty-five  lines,  (or  a 
double  ordinary  octavo  page,)  much  of  it  relating  to 
his  own  times,  not  one  paragraph,  line,  or  fragment 
of  a  line,  by  which  it  can  be  known  that  he  ever 
heard  of  such  a  body  as  the  Christians. 

And  to  our  mind,  for  reasons  which  we  shall  pres- 
ently show,  it  is  equally  wonderful  that  he  shiuld 
talk  of  the  Essenes,  under  the  idea  of  a  known, 
BtatiouEry,  original  sect  amongst  the  Jews,  as  that  he 
.should  not  talk  of  the  Christians ;  equally  wonderful 
that  he  should  remember  the  imaginary  as  that  he 
should  forget  the  real.  There  is  not  one  difficulty, 
but  two  difficulties;  and  what  we  need  is,  not  ono 
Bolution  but  two  solutions. 


THE  ESSENES, 


61 


If,  in  an  ancient  palace,  re-opened  after  it  had  been 
sliut  up  for  centuries,  you  were  to  find  a  hundred 
golden  shafts  or  pillars,  for  which  nobody  could  sug- 
gest a  place  or  a  use ;  and  if,  in  some  other  quarter 
of  the  palace,  far  remote,  you  were  afterwards  to  find 
a  hundred  golden  sockets  fixed  in  the  floor  —  first  of 
all,  pillars  which  nobody  could  apply  to  any  purpose, 
or  refer  to  any  place  ;  secondly,  sockets  which  nobody 
could  fill ;  —  probably  even  '  wicked  Will  Whiston  ' 
might  be  capable  of  a  glimmering  suspicion  that  the 
hundred  golden  shafts  belonged  to  the  hundred  golden 
sockets.  And  if,  upon  applying  the  shafts  to  the 
sockets,  it  should  turn  out  that  each  several  shaft 
screwed  into  its  own  peculiar  socket,  why,  in  such  a 
case,  not  '  Whiston,  Ditton,  dz;  Co.'  could  resist  the 
evidence,  that  each  enigma  had  brought  a  key  to  the 
other  ;  and  that  by  means  of  two  mysteries  there  had 
ceased  even  to  be  one  mystery. 

Now,  then,  first  of  all,  before  stating  our  objections 
to  the  Essenes  as  any  permanent  or  known  sect 
amongst  the  Jews,  let  us  review  as  rapidly  as  possible 
the  main  features  by  which  Joseph  characterizes  these 
supposed  Essenes  ;  and  in  a  brief  comment  point  out 
their  conformity  to  what  we  know  of  the  primitive 
Christians.  That  done,  let  us  endeavor  to  explain  all 
the  remaining  difiiculties  of  the  case.  The  words  of 
Tosephus  we  take  from  Whiston' s  translation ;  having 
in  fact,  at  this  moment,  no  other  copy  within  reach. 
But  we  do  this  unwillingly  :  for  Whiston  was  a  poor 
Grecian ;  and,  what  is  worse,  he  knew  very  little 
about  English. 

 '  The  third  sect '  (i.  e.  third  in  relation  to  the 

Pharisees,  who  are  ranked  as  the  Jirst,  and  the  Sad- 


62 


THE  ESSENES. 


ducees,  who  are  ranked  as  the  second)  '  are  called 
Essenes.  These  last  are  Jews  by  birth,  and  seem  to 
have  a  greater  affection  for  one  another  than  the  other 
sects  have.' 

We  need  not  point  out  the  strong  conformity  in  this 
point  to  the  distinguishing  features  of  the  new-born 
Christians,  as  they  would  be  likely  to  impress  the  eye 
of  a  stranger.  There  was  obviously  a  double  reason 
for  a  stricter  cohesion  amongst  the  Christians  inter- 
nally, than  could  by  possibility  belong  to  any  other 
sect — 1st,  in  the  essential  tendency  of  the  whole 
Christian  faith  to  a  far  more  intense  love  than  the 
world  could  comprehend,  as  well  as  in  the  express 
charge  to  love  one  another ;  2dly,  in  the  strong  com- 
pressing power  of  external  affliction,  and  of  persecu- 
tion too  certainly  anticipated.  The  little  flock,  turned 
out  to  face  a  wide  world  of  storms,  naturally  drew 
close  together.  Over  and  above  the  indefeasible  hos- 
tility of  the  world  to  a  spiritual  morality,  there  was 
the  bigotry  of  Judaicial  superstition  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  bigotry  of  Paganism  on  the  other.  All  this 
would  move  in  mass  against  nascent  Christianity,  so 
soon  as  that  moved ;  and  well,  therefore,  might  the 
instincts  of  the  early  Christians  instruct  them  to  act  ic 
the  very  closest  concert  and  communion. 

*  These  men  are  despisers  of  riches,  and  so  very 
communicative,  as  raises  our  admiration.  Nor  is 
there  any  one  to  be  found  among  them  who  hath 
more  than  another;  every  one's  possessions  are  inter- 
mingled with  every  other's  possessions,  and  so  there 
?s,  as  it  were,  one  patrimony  among  all  the  brethren.' 

In  this  account  of  the  '  communicativeness,'  as  to 
temporal  wealth,  of  the  third  sect,  it  is  hardly  neces* 


THE  ESSENES. 


63 


Bary  that  we  should  point  out  the  mirror  which  it  holds 
up  to  the  habits  of  the  very  first  Christians  in  Jerusa- 
lem, as  we  see  them  recorded  in  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles.  This,  the  primary  record  of  Christian  his- 
tory, (for  even  the  disciples  were  not  in  any  full  sense 
Christians  until  after  the  resurrection  and  the  Divine 
afflatus,)  is  echoed  afterwards  in  various  stages  of 
primitive  Christianity.  But  all  these  subsequent  acts 
and  monuments  of  early  Christian  faith  were  derivetl 
by  imitation  and  by  sympathy  from  the  Apostolic 
precedent  in  Jerusalem ;  as  that  again  was  derived 
from  the  '  common  purse '  carried  by  the  Twelve 
Disciples. 

'  They  have  no  certain  city,  but  many  of  them 
dwell  in  every  city ;  and  if  any  of  their  sect  come 
from  other  places,  what  they  find  lies  open  for  them 
just  as  if  it  were  their  own :  and  they  go  in  to  such 
as  they  never  knew  before,  as  if  they  had  been  ever 
so  long  acquainted  with  them.' 

All  Christian  antiquity  illustrates  and  bears  witness 
to  this,  as  a  regular  and  avowed  Christian  habit.  To 
this  habit  points  St.  Paul's  expression  of  '  given  to 
hospitality ;  '  and  many  passages  in  all  the  apostoli- 
cal writings.  Like  other  practices,  however,  that  had 
been  firmly  established  from  the  beginning,  it  is  rathei 
alluded  to,  and  indirectly  taken  for  granted  and  as- 
sumed, than  prescribed  ;  expressly  to  teach  or  enjoin 
it  was  as  little  necessary,  or  indeed  open  to  a  teacher, 
as  with  us  it  would  be  open  to  recommend  marriage. 
What  Christian  could  be  imagined  capable  of  neglect- 
ing such  an  institution  ? 

'  For  which  reason  they  carry  nothing  with  them 
when  they  travel  into  remote  parts.' 


64 


THE  ESSENES. 


TIlis  dates  itself  from  Christ's  own  directions 
(St.  Luke,  X.  3,  4,)  '  Go  your  way.  Carry  neither 
purse,  nor  scrip,  nor  shoes.'  And,  doubtless,  many 
other  of  the  primitive  practices  amongst  the  Christian? 
were  not  adopted  without  a  special  command  from 
Christ,  traditionally  retained  by  the  Church  whilst 
standing  in  the  same  civil  circumstances,  though  net 
committed  to  writing  amongst  the  great  press  of  mat- 
ter circumscribing  the  choice  of  the  Evangelists. 

'  As  for  their  piety  towards  God,  it  is  very  extraor- 
dinary :  for  before  sun-rising  they  speak  not  a  word 
about  profane  matters,  but  put  up  certain  prayers 
which  they  have  received  from  their  forefathers.' 

This  practice  of  antelucan  worship,  possibly  having 
reference  to  the  ineffable  mystery  of  the  resurrection, 
(all  the  Evangelists  agreeing  in  the  awful  circum- 
stance that  it  was  very  early  in  the  morning,  and  one 
even  saying,  '  whilst  it  was  yet  dark,')  a  symbolic 
pathos  which  appeals  to  the  very  depths  of  human 
passion  —  as  if  the  world  of  sleep  and  the  anarchy  of 
dreams  figured  to  our  apprehension  the  dark  worlds 
of  sin  and  death  —  it  happens  remarkably  enough  that 
we  find  confirmed  and  countersigned  by  the  testimony 
of  the  first  open  antagonist  to  our  Christian  faith. 
Pliny,  in  that  report  to  Trajan  so  universally  known  to 
tvery  class  of  readers,  and  so  rank  with  everlasting 
dishonor  to  his  own  sense  and  equity,  notices  this  point 
in  the  ritual  of  primitive  Christianity.  '  However,* 
says  he,  'they  assured  me  that  the  amount  of  their 
fault,  or  of  their  error,  was  this,  —  that  they  w^ere 
wont,  on  a  stated  day,  to  meet  together  lefore  it  was 
ight,  and  to  sing  a  hymn  to  Christ,'  &c.  The  date  of 
Pliny's  letter  is  about  forty  years  after  the  siege  of 


THE  ESSENES. 


65 


Jerusalem ;  about  seventy- seven,  therefore,  after  the 
crucifixion,  when  Joseph  would  be  just  seventy-two 
years  old.  But  we  may  be  sure,  from  collateral 
records,  and  from  the  entire  uniformity  of  early 
Christianity,  that  a  much  longer  lapse  of  time  would 
have  made  no  change  in  this  respect. 

'  They  neglect  wedlock  ;  but  they  do  not  absolutely 
deny  the  fitness  of  marriage.' 

This  is  a  very  noticeable  article  in  his  account  of 
the  Essenes,  and  powerfully  illustrates  the  sort  of 
acquaintance  which  Josephus  had  gained  with  their 
faith  and  usages.  In  the  first  place,  as  to  the  doctrine 
itself,  it  tallies  remarkably  with  the  leanings  of  St. 
Paul.  He  allows  of  marriage,  overruled  by  his  own 
moral  prudence.  But  evidently  his  bias  was  the  other 
way.  And  the  allowance  is  notoriously  a  concession 
to  the  necessities  which  experience  had  taught  him, 
and  by  way  of  preventing  greater  evils :  but  an  evil, 
on  the  whole,  it  is  clear  that  he  regarded  it.  And 
naturally  it  was  so  in  relation  to  that  highest  mode  of 
spiritual  life  which  the  apostles  contemplated  as  a 
fixed  ideal.  Moreover,  we  know  that  the  apostles  fell 
into  some  errors  which  must  have  aff'ected  their  views 
in  these  respects.  For  a  time  at  least  they  thought 
the  end  of  the  world  close  at  hand  :  who  could  think 
otherwise  that  had  witnessed  the  awful  thing  which 
they  had  witnessed,  or  had  drunk  out  of  the  same 
spiritual  cup  ?  Under  such  impressions,  they  reasona- 
bly pitched  the  key  of  Christian  practice  higher  than 
else  they  would  have  done.  So  far  as  to  the  doctrine 
Qere  ascribed  to  the  Essenes.  But  it  is  observable, 
that  in  this  place  Josephus  admits  that  these  Essenes 
did  tolerate  marriage.  Now,  in  his  earlier  notice  of 
5 


66 


THE  ESSENES. 


the  same  people,  lie  had  denied  this.  What  do  wa 
infer  from  that?  Why,  that  he  came  to  his  knowl- 
edge of  the  Essenes  by  degrees  ;  and  as  would  be 
likely  to  happen  with  legard  to  a  sect  sequestrating 
themselves,  and  locking  up  their  doctrines  as  secrets  : 
which  description  exactly  applies  to  the  earliest  Chris- 
tians. The  instinct  of  self-preservation  obliged  them 
to  retreat  from  notoriety.  Their  tenets  could  not  be 
learned  easily ;  they  were  gathered  slowly,  indirectly, 
by  fragments.  This  accounts  for  the  fact  that  people 
standing  outside,  like  Josephus  or  Philo  Judseus,  got 
only  casual  glimpses  of  the  truth,  and  such  as  were 
continually  shifting.  Hence  at  different  periods  Jose- 
phus contradicts  himself.  But  if  he  had  been  speaking 
of  a  sect  as  notorious  as  the  Pharisees  or  Sadducees, 
no  such  error,  and  no  such  alteration  of  views,  could 
have  happened. 

'  They  are  eminent  for  fidelity,  and  are  the  minis- 
ters of  peace.' 

We  suppose  that  it  cannot  be  necessary  to  reminc. 
any  reader  of  such  characteristic  Christian  doctrines 
as  — '  Blessed  are  the  peace-makers,'  &c.  ;  still  less 
of  the  transcendent  demand  made  by  Christianity  for 
singleness  of  heart,  uprightness,  and  entire  conscien- 
tiousness ;  without  which  all  pretences  to  Christian 
truth  are  regarded  as  mere  hollow  mockeries.  Here, 
therefore,  again  we  read  the  features,  too  plainly  fol 
any  mistake,  of  pure  Christianity.  But  let  the  readei 
observe  keenly,  had  there  been  this  pretended  sect  of 
Essenes  teaching  all  this  lofty  and  spiritual  morality, 
it  would  have  been  a  fair  inference  to  ask  what  more 
or  better  had  been  taught  by  Christ  ?  in  which  case 
there  might  still  have  remained  the  great  redemptional 


THE  ESSENES. 


67 


and  mediatorial  functions  for  Christ ;  but,  as  to  Ms 
divine  morality,  it  would  have  been  forestalled.  Such 
would  have  been  the  inference  ;  and  it  is  an  inference 
which  really  lias  leen  drawn  from  this  romance  of  thp 
Essenes  adopted  as  true  history. 

*  Whatsoever  they  say  is  firmer  than  an  oath  ;  but 
swearing  is  avoided  by  them ;  and  they  esteem  it 
worse  than  perjury.' 

We  presume  that  nobody  can  fail  to  recognize  in 
this  great  scrupulosity  the  memorable  command  of 
Christ,  delivered  in  such  unexampled  majesty  of  lan- 
guage, '  Swear  not  at  all :  neither  by  heaven,  for  it 
is  God's  throne ;  nor  by  the  earth,  for  it  is  His  foot- 
stool,' &c.  This  was  said  in  condemnation  of  a 
practice  universal  amongst  the  Jews  ;  and  if  any  man 
can  believe  that  a  visionary  sect,  of  whom  no  man 
ever  heard  except  through  two  writers,  both  lying 
under  the  same  very  natural  mistake,  could  have  come 
by  blind  accidents  into  such  an  inheritance  of  spiritual 
truth  as  is  here  described  by  Josephus,  that  man  will 
find  nothing  beyond  his  credulity.  For  he  presumes 
a  revelation  far  beyond  all  the  wisdom  of  the  Pagan 
world  to  have  been  attained  by  some  unknown  Jewish 
philosopher,  so  little  regarded  by  his  followers  that 
they  have  not,  even  preserved  his  name  from  oblivion. 

Amongst  the  initiatory  and  probationary  vows  which 
these  sectarians  are  required  to  take,  is  this  ~ '  That 
he  will  ever  show  fidelity  to  all  men,  and  especially  to 
ihosp  in  authority^  because  no  one  ohtains  the  govern- 
ment  ici'hout  God^s  assistance.^  Here,  again,  wc  see 
a  memoiable  precept  of  St.  Paul  and  the  apostles  gen- 
erally —  the  same  precept,  and  built  on  the  very  same 
reason,  viz.  that  rulers  are  of  God's  appointment* 


68 


THE  ESSENES. 


'  They  are  long-lived  also :  insomucli,  that  many  of 
them  live  above  a  hundred  years,  by  means  of  the 
simplicity  of  their  :liet.' 

Here  we  are  reminded  of  St.  John  the  Evangelist: 
whilst  others,  no  doubt,  would  have  attained  the  same 
age,  had  they  not  been  cut  off  by  martyrdom. 

In  many  other  points  of  their  interior  discipline, 
their  white  robes,  their  meals,  their  silence  and  grav- 
ity, we  see  in  this  account  of  the  Essenes  a  mere  echo 
of  the  primitive  economy  established  among  the  first 
Christians,-  as  we  find  it  noticed  up  and  down  the  apos- 
tolical constitutions. 

It  is  remarkable  that  Josephus  notices,  as  belonging 
to  the  sect  of  the  Essenes,  the  order  of  '  angels '  or 
messengers.  Now,  everybody  must  remember  this 
order  of  officers  as  a  Christian  institution  noticed  in 
the  Apocalypse. 

Finally,  in  all  that  is  said  of  the  contempt  which  the 
Essenes  showed  for  pain  and  death  ;  and  that  '  al- 
though tortured  and  distorted,  burnt  and  torn  to  pieces, 
yet  could  they  not  be  made  to  flatter  their  tormentors, 
or  to  shed  a  tear,  but  that  they  smiled  in  their  very 
torments,'  &c.,  we  see  the  regular  habit  of  Christian 
martyrs  through  the  first  three  centuries.  We  see  that 
principle  established  amongst  them  so  early  as  that 
first  examination  of  Pliny's  ;  for  he  is  so  well  aware 
^ow  useless  it  would  be  to  seek  for  any  discoveries  by 
torture  applied  to  the  Christian  men^  that  he  resorts 
instantly  to  the  torture  of  female  servants.  The 
secrecy,  again,  as  to  their  opinions,  is  another  point 
common  to  the  supposed  Essenes  and  the  Christians. 
Why  the  Essenes,  as  an  orthodox  Jewish  sect,  should 
tave  practised  any  secrecy,  Josephus  would  have  found 


THE  ESSENES. 


69 


1   it  hard  to  say  ;  out  the  Christian  reasons  will  appear 
decisive  to  any  man  who  reflects. 

But  first  of  all,  let  us  recur  to  the  argument  we 

I  have  just  employed,  and  summon  you  to  a  review  of 
the  New  Testament.  Christ,  during  his  ministry  in 
Palestine,  is  brought  as  if  by  special  arrangement  into 
contact  with  all  known  orders  of  men, ' —  Scribes  and 
Doctors,  Pharisees  and  Sadducees,  Herodians  and  fol- 
lowers of  the  Baptist,  Roman  officers,  insolent  with 
authority,  tax-gatherers,  the  Pariahs  of  the  land,  Gali- 
leans, the  most  undervalued  of  the  Jews,  Samaritans, 
hostile  to  the  very  name  of  Jew,  rich  men  clothed  in 
purple,  and  poor  men  fishing  for  their  daily  bread,  the 
happy  and  those  that  sate  in  darkness,  wedding  parties 
and  funeral  parties,  solitudes  amongst  hills  or  sea- 
shores, and  multitudes  that  could  not  be  counted, 
mighty  cities  and  hamlets  the  most  obscure,  golden 
sanhedrims,  and  the  glorious  temple,  where  he  spoke 
to  myriads  of  the  worshippers,  and  solitary  corners, 
where  he  stood  in  conference  with  a  single  contrite 
heart.  Were  the  subject  or  the  person  different,  one 
might  ascribe  a  dramatic  purpose  and  a  scenical  art 
to  the  vast  variety  of  the  circumstances  and  situations 
in  which  Christ  is  introduced.  And  yet,  whilst  all 
other  sorts  and  orders  of  men  converse  with  him, 
never  do  we  hear  of  any  interview  between  him  and 
the  Essenes.  Suppose  one  Evangelist  to  have  over- 
looked such  a  scene,  another  would  not.  In  part,  the 
very  source  of  the  dramatic  variety  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament scenes,  must  be  looked  for  in  the  total  want  of 
collusion  amongst  the  Evangelists.  Each  throwing 
himself  back  upon  overmastering  remembrances^  all- 
glorified  to  his  heart,  had  no  more  need  to  consult  a 


70 


THE  ESSENES. 


fellow-witness,  than  a  man  needs,  in  rehearsing  the 
circumstances  of  a  final  parting  with  a  wife  or  a  child, 
to  seek  collateral  vouchers  for  his  facts.  Thence  it 
was  in  part  left  to  themselves,  unmodified  by  each 
other,  that  they  attained  so  much  variety  in  the  midst 
of  so  much  inevitable  sameness.  One  man  was  im- 
pressed by  one  case,  a  second  by  another.  And  thus, 
it  must  have  happened  amongst  four,  that  at  least  one 
would  have  noticed  the  Essenes.  But  no  one  of  the 
four  gospels  alludes  to  them.  The  Acts  of  the  Apos- 
tles, again,  whether  by  a  fifth  author  or  not,  is  a  fifth 
body  of  remembrances,  a  fifth  act  of  the  memory 
applied  to  the  followers  of  Christ.  Yet  neither  does 
this  notice  them.  The  Apocalypse  of  St.  John,  re- 
viewing the  new  church  for  a  still  longer  period,  and 
noticing  all  the  great  outstanding  features  of  the  state 
militant,  then  unrolling  for  Christianity,  says  not  one 
word  about  them.  St.  Peter,  St.  James,  utterly  over- 
look them.  Lastly,  which  weighs  more  than  all  the 
rest,  St.  Paul,  the  learned  and  philosophic  apostle, 
bred  up  in  all  the  learning  of  the  most  orthodox 
amongst  the  Jews,  gives  no  sign  that  he  had  ever 
heard  of  such  people.  In  short,  to  sum  up  all  in  one 
sentence,  the  very  word  Essene  and  Essenes  is  not 
found  in  the  New  Testament. 

Now,  is  it  for  one  moment  to  be  credited  —  that  a 
body  of  men  so  truly  spiritual  in  the  eternals  of  their 
creed,  whatever  might  be  the  temporals  of  their  prac- 
tice, should  have  won  no  word  of  praise  from  Christ 
for  that  by  which  they  so  far  exceeded  other  sects  — 
no  :vord  of  reproach  for  that  by  which  they  might 
happen  to  fall  short  of  their  own  profession  —  no  word 
^f  admonition,  founded  on  the  comparison  between 


THE  ESSENES. 


71 


their  good  and  their  bad  —  their  heavenly  and  earthly? 
Or,  if  that  had  been  supposable,  can  we  believe  that 
Christ's  enemies,  so  eager  as  they  showed  themselves 
to  turn  even  the  Baptist  into  a  handle  of  reproach 
against  the  new  teacher,  would  have  lost  the  over- 
whelming argument  derived  from  the  Essenes  ?  '  A 
new  command  I  give  unto  you/  '  Not  at  all,'  they 
^\  ould  have  retorted  —  '  Not  at  all  new.  Everything 
spiritual  in  your  ethics  has  been  anticipated  by  the 
Essenes.'  It  would  have  been  alleged,  that  the  func- 
tion of  Redeemer  for  Israel  was  to  be  judged  and  tried 
by  the  event.  The  only  instant  touchstone  for  the 
pretensions  of  Christ  lay  in  the  divine  character  of  his 
morality,  and  the  spirituality  of  that  worship  which  he 
taught.  Miracles  were  or  were  not  from  God,  accord- 
ing to  purposes  to  which  they  ministered.  That  moral 
doctrine  and  that  worship  were  those  purposes.  By 
these  only  they  could  try  the  soundness  of  all  beside  ; 
and  if  these  had  been  forestalled  by  the  Essenes,  what 
remained  for  any  new  teacher  or  new  founder  of  a 
religion  ?  In  fact,  v/ere  the  palpable  lies  of  this  Jew- 
traitor  built  on  anything  but  delusions  misinterpreted 
by  his  own  ignorant  heart,  there  would  be  more  in  that 
one  tale  of  his  about  the  Essenes  to  undermine  Chris- 
tianity, than  in  all  the  batteries  of  all  the  infidels  to 
overthrow  it.  No  infidel  can  argue  away  the  spirit- 
uality of  the  Christian  religion  :  attacks  upon  miracles 
leave  that  unaff'ected.  But  he,  who  (confessing  the 
spirituality)  derives  it  from  some  elder  and  unknown 
source,  at  one  step  evades  what  he  could  not  master. 
He  overthrows  without  opposition,  and  enters  the  cit- 
adel through  ruins  caused  by  internal  explosion. 

What  then  is  to  be  thought  ?     If  this  deathlike 


72 


THE  ESSENES. 


silence  of  all  the  evangelists,  and  all  the  apostles, 
makes  it  a  mere  impossibility  to  suppose  the  existence 
of  such  a  sect  as  the  Essenes  in  the  time  of  Christ, 
did  such  a  sect  arise  afterwards,  viz.  in  the  Epichris- 
tian  generation  ?  Or,  if  not,  how  and  by  what  steps 
came  up  the  romance  we  have  been  considering? 
Was  there  any  substance  in  the  tale  ?  Or,  if  positively 
none,  how  came  the  fiction  ?  Was  it  a  conscious  lie  ? 
Was  it  a  mistake  ?    Was  it  an  exaggeration  ? 

Now,  our  idea  is  as  follows  :  —  What  do  we  suppose 
the  early  Christians  to  have  been  called  ?  By  what 
name  were  they  known  amongst  themselves  and 
amongst  others  ?  Christians  ?  Not  at  all.  When  it 
is  said  — '  The  disciples  were  first  called  Christians  at 
Antioch,'  we  are  satisfied  that  the  meaning  is  not  — 
this  name,  now  general,  was  first  used  at  Antioch  ;  but 
that,  whereas  w^e  followers  of  Christ  generally  call  one 
another,  and  are  called  by  a  particular  name  X,  in 
Antioch,  that  name  was  not  used  ;  but  from  the  very 
beginning  they  were  called  by  another  name,  viz., 
Christians.  At  all  events,  since  this  name  Christian 
was  confessedly  used  at  Antioch  before  it  was  used 
anywhere  else,  there  must  have  been  another  name 
elsewhere  for  the  same  people.  What  was  that  name  ? 
It  was  '  The  Brethren,'  [of  aSeXcpoi ;]  and  at  times,  by 
way  of  variety,  to  prevent  the  awkwardness  of  too 
monotonously  repeating  the  same  word,  perhaps  it  was 
'  The  Faithful,'  [of  mgoi.']  The  name  Christians  trav- 
elled, we  are  convinced,  not  immediately  amongst 
themselves,  br  t  slowly  amongst  their  enemies.  It  was 
a  name  of  reproach  ;  and  the  meaning  was  —  '  We 
Pagans  are  all  worshippers  of  gods,  such  as  they  are ; 
but  this  sect  worships  a  man,  and  that  man  a  male- 


THE  ESSENES. 


73 


factor.'  For,  though  Christ  should  properly  have  been 
known  by  his  name,  which  was  Jesus,  yet,  because  his 
crime,  in  the  opinion  of  the  Jews,  lay  in  the  office  he 
had  assumed  —  in  having  made  himself  the  Christos, 
the  anointed  of  God,  therefore  it  happened  that  he  was 
published  amongst  the  Roman  world  by  that  namq : 
his  offence,  his  '  titulus '  on  the  cross,  (the  king,  or  the 
anointed,)  was  made  his  Roman  name.  Accordingly 
Tacitus,  speaking  of  some  insurgents  in  Judea,  says 
— - '  that  they  mutinied  under  the  excitement  of  Christ, 
(not  Jesus,)  their  original  ringleader,'  (ijiipuhore 
Chresto.)  And  no  doubt  it  had  become  a  scoffing 
name,  until  the  Christians  disarmed  the  scoff  of  its 
sting  by  assuming  it  themselves  ;  as  was  done  in  the 
case  of  '  the  Beggars '  in  the  Netherlands,  and  '  the- 
Methodists '  in  England. 

Well :  meantime,  what  name  did  the  Christians  bear 
in  their  very  birthplace  ?  Were  they  called  '  The 
Brethren  '  there  ?  No.  And  why  not  ?  Simply  be- 
cause it  had  become  too  dangerous  a  name.  To  be 
bold,  to  affront  all  reasonable  danger,  was  their  instinct 
and  their  duty  ;  but  not  to  tempt  utter  extinction  or 
utter  reduction  to  imbecility.  We  read  amiss,  if  we 
imagine  that  the  fiery  persecution,  which  raged  against 
Christ,  had  burned  itself  out  in  the  act  of  the  cruci- 
fixion. It  slept,  indeed,  for  a  brief  interval :  but  that 
was  from  necessity ;  for  the  small  flock  of  scattered 
sheep  easily  secreted  themselves.  No  sooner  did  they 
multiply  a  little,  no  sooner  did  their  meetings  again 
proclaim  their  '  whereabouts,'  than  the  snake  found 
them  out,  again  raised  its  spiry  crest  amongst  them, 
and  again  crushed  them  for  a  time.  The  martyrdom 
of  St.  Stephen  showed  that  no  jesting  was  intended 


74 


THE  ESSENES. 


It  was  determined  that  examples  should  be  made.  It 
was  resolved  that  this  revolt  against  the  Temple  (the 
Law  and  the  Prophets)  must  be  put  down.  The  next 
event  quickened  this  agency  sevenfold.  A  great  ser- 
vant of  the  persecution,  in  the  very  agony  of  the 
storm  which  he  was  himself  guiding  and  pointing, 
working  the  very  artillery  of  Jerusalem  upon  some 
scent  which  his  bloodhounds  had  found  in  Syria,  sud- 
denly, in  one  hour  passed  over  to  the  enemy.  What 
of  that  ?  Did  that  startle  the  persecution  ?  Probably 
it  did  :  failure  from  within  was  what  they  had  not 
looked  for.  But  the  fear  which  it  bred  was  sister  to 
the. wrath  of  hell.  The  snake  turned  round  ;  but  not 
for  flight.  It  turned  to  fasten  upon  the  revolter.  St. 
Paul's  authority  as  a  leader  in  the  Jewish  councils 
availed  him  nothing  after  this.  Orders  were  undoubt- 
edly expedited  from  Jerusalem  to  Damascus,  as  soon 
as.  messengers  could  be  interchanged,  for  his  assassina- 
tion. And  assassinated  he  would  have  been,  had  he 
been  twenty  St.  Pauls,  but  for  his  secret  evasion,  and 
his  flight  to  Arabia.  Idumea,  probably  a  sort  of  Ire- 
land to  Judea,  was  the  country  to  which  he  fled ; 
where  again  he  might  have  been  found  out,  but  his 
capture  would  have  cost  a  negotiation  ;  and  in  all  like- 
lihood he  lay  unknown  amongst  crowds.  Nor  did  he 
venture  to  show  his  face  again  in  Jerusalem  for  some 
years ;  and  then  again  not  till  a  term  of  fourteen  years, 
half  a  generation,  during  which  many  of  the  burning 
zealots,  and  of  those  who  could  have  challenged  him 
personally  as  the  great  apostate,  must  have  gone  to 
their  last  sleep. 

During  the  whole  of  this  novitiate  for  Christianity, 
ttnd  in  fact  throughout  the  whole  Epichristian  era,  there 


THE  ESSENES, 


75 


was  a  brooding  danger  over  the  name  and  prospects  of 
Christianity.  To  hold  up  a  hand,  to  put  forth  a  head, 
in  the  blinding  storm,  was  to  perish.  It  was  to  solicit 
and  tempt  destruction.  That  could  not  be  right.  Those 
who  were  answerable  for  the  great  interest  confided  to 
them,  if  in  their  own  persons  they  might  have  braved 
the  anger  of  the  times,  were  not  at  liberty  to  do  so  on 
this  account  —  that  it  would  have  stopped  effectually 
the  expansion  of  the  Church.  Martyrdom  and  perse- 
cution formed  the  atmosphere  in  which  it  throve  ;  but 
not  the  frost  of  death.  What,  then,  did  the  fathers  of 
the  Church  do  ?  You  read  that,  during  a  part  of  this 
Epichristian  age,  '  the  churches  had  peace.'  True,  they 
had  so.  But  do  you  know  how  they  had  it  ?  Do  you 
guess  what  they  did  ? 

It  was  thus;  They  said  to  each  other  —  If  we  are  to 
stand  such  consuming  fires  as  we  have  seen,  one  year 
will  finish  us  all.  And  then  what  will  become  of  the 
succession  that  we  are  to  leave  behind  us  ?  We  must 
hide  ourselves  effectually.  And  this  can  be  done  only 
by  symbolizing.  Any  lesser  disguise  our  persecutors 
will  penetrate.  But  this,  by  its  very  nature,  will  bafile 
them,  and  yet  provide  fully  for  the  nursing  of  an  infant 
Church.  They  proceeded,  therefore,  thus  :  '  Let  there 
be  darkness  '  —  was  the  first  word  of  command  :  '  let 
us  muffle  ourselves  in  thick  clouds,  which  no  human 
eye  can  penetrate.  And  towards  this  purpose  let  us 
immediately  take  a  symbolic  name.  And,  because 
any  name  that  expresses  or  implies  a  secret  fraternity 
'  —  a  fraternity  bound  together  by  any  hidden  tie  or 
purpose  —  will  instantly  be  challenged  for  the  Christian 
brotherhood  under  a  new  masque,  instantly  the  bloody 
Sanhedrim  will  get  to  their  old  practices  —  torturi  ng 


76 


IHE  ESSENES. 


our  weaker  members,  (as  afterwards  the  cruel  Pliny 
selected  for  torture  the  poor  frail  women-servants  of 
the  brethren,)  and  the  wolf  will  be  raging  amongst 
our  folds  in  three  months,  —  therefore  two  things 
are  requisite  ;  one,  that  this  name  which  we  assume 
should  be  such  as  to  disarm  suspicion,  [in  this  they 
acted  upon  the  instinct  of  those  birds,  which  art- 
fully construct  signs  and  appearances  to  draw  away 
th«)  fowler  from  their  young  ones  ;]  the  other,  that 
in  case,  after  all,  some  suspicion  should  arise,  and 
the  enemy  again  break  in,  there  must  be  three  or  four 
barriers  to  storm  before  he  can  get  to  the  stronghold  in 
the  centre.' 

Upon  this  principle  all  was  arranged.  First,  for  the 
name  that  was  to  disarm  suspicion  —  what  name 
could  do  that  ?  Why,  what  was  the  suspicion  ?  A 
suspicion  that  Christian  embers  were  sleeping  under 
the  ashes.  True  :  but  why  was  that  suspicious  ?  Why 
had  it  ever  been  suspicious  ?  For  two  reasons  :  be- 
cause the  Christian  faith  was  supposed  to  carry  a  secret 
hostility  to  the  Temple  and  its  whole  ritual  economy  ; 
secondly,  for  an  earnest  political  reason,  because  it 
was  believed  to  tend,  by  mere  necessity,  to  such  tu- 
mults or  revolutions  as  would  furnish  the  Roman,  on 
tiptoe  for  this  excuse,  with  a  plea  for  taking  away  the 
Jewish  name  and  nation  ;  that  is,  for  taking  away  their 
Jewish  autojiomy,  (or  administration  by  their  own  Mo- 
saic code,)  which  they  still  had,  though  otherwise  in  a 
state  of  dependency.  Well  now,  for  this  sort  of  sus- 
picion, no  name  could  be  so  admirably  fitted  as  one 
drawn  from  the  very  ritual  service  of  that  very  Tem- 
ple which  was  supposed  to  be  in  danger.  That  Tem- 
ple was  in  danger  :  the  rocks  on  which  it  stood  were 


THE  ESSENES. 


77 


already  quaking  beneath  it.  All  was  acomplished. 
Its  doom  had  gone  forth.  Shadows  of  the  coming  fate 
were  spreading  thick  before  it.  Its  defenders  had  a 
dim  misgiving  of  the  storm  that  was  gathering.  But 
they  mistook  utterly  the  quarter  from  which  it  was  to 
come.  And  they  closed  the  great  gates  against  an 
enemy  that  entered  by  the  postern.  However,  they 
could  not  apprehend  a  foe  in  a  society  that  professed 
a  special  interest  in  Israel.  The  name  chosen,  there- 
fore, was  derived  from  the  very  costume  of  the  Jewish 
High  Priest,  the  pontifical  ruler  of  the  Temple.  This 
great  officer  wore  upon  his  breast  a  splendid  piece  of 
jewelry  ;  twelve  precious  stones  were  inserted  in  the 
breast-plate,  representing  the  twelve  sons  of  Jacob, 
or  twelve  tribes  ^  of  Israel :  and  this  was  called  the 
Essen.  Consequently  to  announce  themselves  as  the 
Society  of  the  Essen,  was  to  express  a  peculiar  solici- 
tude for  the  children  of  Israel.  Under  this  masque 
nobody  could  suspect  any  hostility  to  Jerusalem  or 
its  temple  ;  nobody,  therefore,  under  the  existing  mis- 
conception of  Christian  objects  and  the  Christian  char- 
acter, could  suspect  a  Christian  society. 

But  was  not  this  hypocritical  disguise  ?  Not  at  all. 
A  profession  was  thus  made  of  paramount  regard  to 
Judea  and  her  children.  Why  not  ?  Christians  every- 
where turned  with  love,  and  yearning,  and  thankful- 
1  ess,  the  profoundest,  to  that '  Holy  City,'  (so  called  by 
Christ  himself,)  which  had  kept  alive  for  a  thousand 
years  the  sole  vestiges  of  pure  faith,  and  which,  for  a  far 
longer  term  mystically  represented  that  people  which 
had  known  the  true  God,  '  when  all  our  fathers  worship- 
ped stoclis  and  stones.'  Christians,  or  they  would  have 
been  no  Christians,  everywhere  prayed  for  her  peace. 


78  THE  ESSEXES. 

And  if  the  downfall  of  Jerusalem  was  connected  with 
the  rise  of  Christianity,  that  was  not  through  any 
enmity  borne  to  Jerusalem  by  Christians,  (as  the  Jews 
falsely  imagine  ;)  but  because  it  was  not  suitable  for 
the  majesty  of  God,  as  the  father  of  truth,  to  keep  up 
a  separation  amongst  the  nations  when  the  fulness  of 
time  in  His  counsels  required  that  all  separation  should 
be  at  an  end.  At  His  bidding  the  Temple  had  been 
raised.  At  His  bidding  the  Temple  must  be  destroyed. 
Nothing  could  have  saved  it  but  becoming  Christian. 
The  end  was  accomplished  for  which  it  had  existed ; 
a  great  river  had  been  kept  pure ;  that  was  now  to 
expand  into  an  ocean. 

But,  as  to  any  hypocrisy  in  the  fathers  of  this  indis- 
pensable scheme  for  keeping  alive  the  fire  that  burned 
on  the  altar  of  Christianity,  that  was  impossible.  So 
far  from  needing  to  assume  more  love  for  Judaism  than 
they  had,  we  know  that  their  very  infirmity  was  to 
have  by  much  too  sectarian  and  exclusive  a  regard  for 
those  who  were  represented  by  the  Temple.  The 
Bible,  which  conceals  nothing  of  any  men's  errors, 
does  not  conceal  that.  And  we  know  that  all  the 
weight  of  the  great  intellectual  apostle  was  necessary 
to  overrule  the  errors,  in  this  point,  of  St.  Peter.  The 
fervid  apostle  erred ;  and  St.  Paul  '  withstood  him  to 
his  face.'  But  his  very  error  proves  the  more  certainly 
his  sincerity  and  singleness  of  heart  in  setting  up  a 
society  that  should  profess  in  its  name  the  service  of 
Jerusalem  and  her  children  as  its  primary  function. 
The  name  Essen  and  Essenes  was  sent  before  to  disarm 
suspicion,  and  as  a  pledge  of  loyal  fidelity. 

Next,  however,  this  society  was  to  be  a  secret  so- 
liety  —  an  Eleusinian  society  —  a  Freemason  society 


THE  ESSENE? 


79 


For,  if  it  were  not,  how  was  it  to  provide  for  the  cul- 
tme  of  Christianity  ?  Now,  if  the  reader  pauses  a 
moment  to  review  the  condition  of  Palestine  and  the 
neighboring  countries  at  that  time,  he  will  begin  to  see 
the  opening  there  was  for  such  a  society.  The  condi- 
tion of  the  times  was  agitated  and  tumultuous  beyond 
anything  witnessed  amongst  men,  except  at  the  Re- 
formation and  the  French  Revolution.  The  flame  on 
the  Pagan  altars  was  growing  pale,  the  oracles  over 
the  earth  were  muttering  their  alarm,  panic  terrors 
were  falling  upon  nations,  murmurs  were  arising,  whis- 
pers circulating  from  nobody  knew  whence  —  that  out 
of  the  East,  about  this  time,  should  arise  some  great 
and  mysterious  deliverer.  This  whisper  had  spread  to 
Rome  —  was  current  everywhere.  It  was  one  of  those 
awful  whispers  that  have  no  author.  Nobody  could 
ever  trace  it.  Nobody  could  ever  guess  by  what  path 
it  had  travelled.  But  observe,  in  that  generation,  at 
Rome  and  all  parts  of  the  Mediterranean  to  the  west 
of  Palestine,  the  word  '  Oriens  '  had  a  technical  and 
limited  meaning  ;  it  was  restricted  to  Syria,  of  which 
Palestine  formed  a  section.  This  use  of  the  word  will 
explain  itself  to  anybody  who  looks  at  a  map  of  the 
Mediterranean  as  seen  from  Italy.  But  some  years 
after  the  Epichristian  generation,  the  word  began  to 
extend ;  and  very  naturally,  as  the  Roman  armies 
began  to  make  permanent  conquests  nearer  to  the 
Euphrates.  Under  these  remarkable  circumstances, 
and  agitated  beyond  measure  between  the  oppression 
of  the  Roman  armies  on  the  one  hand  and  the  con- 
sciousness of  a  peculiar  dependence  on  God  on  the 
other,  all  thoughtful  Jews  were  dist'xrbed  in  mind. 
The   more  conscientious,  the  more  they  ^^ere  agi- 


80 


THE  ESSENES. 


tated.  Was  it  their  duty  to  resist  the  Komaus  ?  God 
could  deliver  them,  doubtless ;  but  God  worked  often- 
times by  human  means.  Was  it  His  pleasure  that  they 
should  resist  by  arms  ?  Others  again  replied  —  if 
you  do,  then  you  prepare  an  excuse  for  the  Komans 
to  extirpate  your  nation.  Many,  again,  turned  more 
to  religious  hopes  :  these  were  they  who,  in  scriptural 
language,  '  waited  for  the  consolation  of  Israel :  '  that , 
is,  th^y  trusted  in  that  Messiah  who  had  been  prom-, 
ised,  and  they  yearned  for  his  manifestation.  They 
mourned  over  Judea ;  they  felt  that  she  had  rebelled; 
but  she  had  been  afflicted,  and  perhaps  her  trangres- 
sions  might  now  be  blotted  out,  and  her  glory  mighty 
now  be  approaching.  Of  this  class  was  he  who  took' 
Christ  in  his  arms  when  an  infant  in  the  temple.  Of, 
this  class  were  the  two  rich  men,  Joseph  and  Nicode- 
mus,  who  united  to  bury  him.  But  even  of  this  class 
many  there  were  who  took  different  views  of  the 
functions  properly  belonging  to  the  Messiah ;  and^ 
many  that,  either  through  this  difference  of  original* 
views,  or  from  imperfect  acquaintance  with  the  life  of' 
Jesus,  doubted  whether  he  were  indeed  the  promised 
Messiah.  Even  John  the  Baptist  doubted  that,  and  hia 
question  upon  that  point,  addressed  to  Christ  himself, 
'  Art  thou  he  who  should  come,^  or  do  we  look  for 
another  ?  '  has  been  generally  fancied  singularly  at 
war  with  his  own  earlier  testimony,  '  Behold  the  Lamb 
of  God,  that  taketh  away  the  sins  of  the  world  ! '  But 
it  is  not.  The  offices  of  mysterious  change  for  Israel 
were  prophetically  announced  as  coming  through  a 
series  and  succession  of  characters  —  Elias,  '  that  pro- 
phet,' and  the  Messiah.  The  succession  might  even  be 
more  divided.    And  the  Baptist,  »vho  did  not  know 


'i 


THE  ESSENES. 


81 


himself  :o  be  Elias,  might  reasonably  be  in  doubt  ^and 
at  a  time  when  his  career  was  only  beginning)  whether 
Jesus  were  tho  Messiah. 

Now,  out  of  these  mixed  elements  —  men  in  every 
stage  and  gradation  of  belief  or  spiritual  knowledge, 
but  all  musing,  pondering,  fermenting  in  their  minds 
—  all  tempest-shaken,  sorrow-haunted,  perplexed,  hop- 
ing,  seeking,  doubting,  trusHna:  —  the  apostles  would 
see  abundant  means  for  peopling  the  low^er  or  initiatory 
ranks  of  their  new  society.  Such  a  craving  for  light 
from  above  probably  never  existed.  The  land  was  on 
the  brink  of  convulsions,  and  all  men  felt  it.  Even 
amongst  the  rulers  in  Jerusalem  had  been  some  who 
saw  the  truth  of  Christ's  mission,  though  selfish  terrors 
had  kept  back  their  testimony.  From  every  rank  and 
order  of  men,  would  press  in  the  meditative  to  a 
society  where  they  would  all  receive  sympathy,  what- 
ever might  be  their  views,  and  many  would  receive 
light. 

This  society  —  how  was  it  constituted?  In  the- 
innermost  class  were  placed,  no  doubt,  all  those,  and 
those  only,  who  were  thoroughly  Christians.  The 
danger  was  from  Christianity.  And  this  danger  was 
made  operative  only,  by  associating  with  the  mature 
und  perfect  Christian  any  false  brother,  any  half- 
Christian,  any  hypocritical  Christian,  any  wavering 
Christian.  To  meet  this  danger,  there  must  be  a  win- 
nowing and  a  sifting  of  all  candidates.  And  because 
the  danger  was  awful,  involving  not  one  but  many, 
not  a  human  interest  but  a  heavenly  interest ;  therefore 
these  winnowings  and  siftings  must  be  many,  must  be 
tepeated,  must  be  soul-searching.  Nay,  even  that  will 
not  suffice.  Oaths,  pledges  to  God  as  well  as  to  man^ 
6 


82 


THE  ESSE^^ES. 


must  be  exacted.  All  this  the  apostles  did  :  serpents 
by  experience,  in  the  midst  of  their  dove-like  faith, 
they  acted  as  wise  stewards  for  God.  They  sur- 
rounded their  own  central  consistory  with  lines  im- 
passable to  treachery.  Josephus,  the  blind  Jew - 
blind  in  heart,  we  mean,  and  understanding,  reporting 
a  matter  of  which  he  had  no  comprehension,  nor  could 
have  —  (for  we  could  show  to  demonstration  that,  for 
a  specific  reason,  he  could  not  have  belonged  to  the 
society)  —  even  this  man,  in  his  utter  darkness,  tele- 
graphs to  us  by  many  signals,  rockets  thrown  up  by 
the  apostles,  which  come  round  and  are  visible  to  us, 
but  unseen  by  him,  what  it  is  that  the  apostles  were 
about.  He  tells  us  expressly,  that  a  preparatory  or 
trial  period  of  two  years  was  exacted  of  every  candi- 
date before  his  admission  to  any  order ;  that,  after  this 
probationary  attendance  is  finished,  '  they  are  parted 
into  four  classes ;  '  and  these  classes,  he  tells  us,  are 
so  severely  separated  from  all  intercommunion,  that 
merely  to  have  touched  each  other  was  a  pollution 
that  required  a  solemn  purification.  Finally,  as  if 
all  this  were  nothing,  though  otherwise  disallowing 
of  oaths,  yet  in  this,  as  in  a  service  of  God,  oaths, 
which  Josephus  styles  'tremendous,'  are  exacted  of 
each  member,  that  he  will  reveal  nothing  of  what  he 
^earns. 

^  Who  can  fail  to  see,  in  these  multiplied  precautions 
for  guarding,  what  according  to  Josephus  is  no  secret 
at  all,  noi  anything  approaching  to  a  secret,  that  here 
we  have  a  central  Christian  society,  secfiret  from  neces- 
sity, cautious  to  excess  from  the  extremity  of  the  dan- 
ger, and  surrounding  themselves  in  their  outer  rings  by 
merely  Jewish  disciples,  but  those  whise  state  of  mind 


THE  ESSENES. 


88 


promised  a  hopeful  soil  for  the  solemn  and  affecting 
discoveries  which  awaited  them  in  ;he  higher  states  of 
their  progress  ?  Here  is  the  true  solution  of  this  mys- 
terious society,  the  Essenes,  never  mentioned  in  any 
one  record  of  the  Christian  generation,  and  that  be- 
cause it  first  took  its  rise  in  the  necessities  of  the 
Epichristian  generation.  There  is  more  by  a  good 
deal  to  say  of  these  Essenes;  but  this  is  enough  for 
the  present.  And  if  any  man  asks  how  they  came  to 
be  traced  to  so  fabuloas  an  antiquity,  the  account  now 
given  easily  explains  that.  Three  authors  only  men- 
tion them  —  Pliny,  Philo- Judseus  and  Josephus.  Pliny 
builds  upon  these  two  last,  and  other  Jewish  roman- 
cers. The  two  last  may  be  considered  as  contempo- 
raries. And  all  that  they  allege,  as  to  the  antiquity  of 
the  sect,  flows  naturally  from  the  condition  and  cir- 
cumstances of  the  outermost  circle  in  the  series  of  the 
classes.  They  were  occupied  exclusively  with  Juda- 
ism. And  Judaism  had,  in  fact,  as  we  all  know,  that 
real  antiquity  in  its  people,  and  its  rites,  and  its  sym- 
bols, which  these  then  uninitiated  authors  understand 
and  fancy  to  have  been  meant  of  the  Essenes  as  a 
philosophical  sect. 


PART  II.* 

We  have  sketched  rapidly,  in  the  first  part  of  our 
essay,  some  outline  of  a  theory  with  regard  to  the 
Essenes,  confining  ourselves  to  such  hints  as  are  sug- 
gested by  the  accounts  of  this  sect  in  Josephus.  And 
we  presume  that  most  readers  will  go  along  w^ith  us  so 
feir  as  to  acknowledge  some  shock,  some  pause  given 
[*  Part  II.  is  omitted  in  De  Quincey's  latest  revision.] 


84 


THE  ESSENES. 


to  that  blind  acquiescence  in  the  Bible  statement  which 
had  hitherto  satisfied  them.  By  the  Bible  statement 
we  mean,  of  course,  nothing  which  any  inspired  part 
of  the  Bible  tells  us  —  on  the  contrary,  one  capital 
reason  for  rejecting  the  old  notions  is,  the  total  silence 
of  the  Bible  ;  but  we  mean  that  little  explanatory  note 
on  the  Essenes,  which  our  Bible  translators  under 
James  I.  have  thought  fit  to  adopt,  and  ;n  reality  to 
adopt  from  Josephus,  with  reliance  on  his  authority 
which  closer  study  would  have  shown  to  be  unwar- 
ranted. We  do  not  wonder  that  Josephus  has  been 
misappreciated  by  Christian  readers.  It  is  painful  to 
read  any  author  in  a  spirit  of  suspicion ;  most  of  all, 
that  author  to  whom  we  must  often  look  as  our  only 
guide.  Upon  Josephus  we  are  compelled  to  rely  for 
the  most  affecting  section  of  ancient  history.  Merely 
as  a  scene  of  human  passion,  the  m.ain  portion  of  his 
Wars  transcends,  in  its  theme,  all  other  histories  But 
considered  also  as  the  agony  of  a  mother  church,  out 
of  whose  ashes  arose,  like  a  phoenix,  that  filial  faith 
'  which  passeth  all  understanding,'  the  last  conflict  of 
Jerusalem  and  her  glorious  temple  exacts  from  the 
devotional  conscience  as  much  interest  as  would  other- 
wise be  yielded  by  our  human  sympathies.  For  the 
circumstances  of  this  struggle  we  must  look  to  Jose- 
phus :  him  or  none  we  must  accept  for  witness.  And 
in  such  a  case,  how  painful  to  suppose  a  hostile  heart 
in  every  word  of  his  deposition  !  Who  could  bear  to 
take  the  account  of  a  dear  friend's  last  hours  and  fare- 
well words  from  one  who  confessedly  hated  him?  — 
one  word  melting  us  to  tears,  and  the  next  rousing  us 
to  the  duty  of  jealousy  and  distrust !  Hence  we  do  not 
vronder  at  the  pious  fraud  which  interpolated  the  well- 


THE  ESSENES. 


85 


known  passage  about  our  Saviour.  Let  us  read  any 
author  in  those  circumstances  of  time,  place,  or  imme- 
diate succession  to  the  cardinal  events  of  our  own 
religion,  and  we  shall  find  it  a  mere  postulate  of  the 
heart,  a  mere  necessity  of  human  feeling,  that  we 
should  think  of  him  as  a  Christian  ;  or,  if  not  abso- 
lutely that,  as  every  w^ay  disposed  to  be  a  Christian, 
and  falling  short  of  that  perfect  light  only  by  such 
clouds  as  his  hurried  life  or  his  personal  conflicts  might 
interpose.  We  do  not  blame,  far  from  it  —  we  admire 
those  who  find  it  necessary  (even  at  the  cost  of  a  little 
self-delusion)  to  place  themselves  in  a  state  of  charity 
with  an  author  treating  such  subjects,  and  in  whose 
company  they  were  to  travel  through  some  thousands 
of  pages.  We  also  find  it  painful  to  read  an  author 
and  to  loathe  him.  We,  too,  would  be  glad  to  suppose, 
as  a  possibility  about  Josephus,  what  many  adopt  as  a 
certainty.  But  we  know  too  much.  Unfortunately, 
we  have  read  Josephus  with  too  scrutinizing  (and, 
what  is  more,  with  too  combining)  an  eye.  We  know 
him  to  be  an  unprincipled  man,  and  an  ignoble  man  ; 
one  whose  adhesion  to  Christianity  would  have  done 
no  honor  to  our  faith  —  one  who  most  assuredly  was 
not  a  Christian  —  one  who  was  not  even  in  any  tolera- 
ble sense  a  Jew  —  one  who  was  an  enemy  to  our  faith, 
a  traitor  to  his  own  :  as  an  enemy,  vicious  and  igno- 
rant ;  as  a  traitor,  steeped  to  the  lips  in  superfluous 
baseness. 

The  vigilance  with  which  we  have  read  Josephus, 
lias  (amongst  many  other  hints)  suggested  some  with 
regard  to  the  Essenes :  and  to  these  we  shall  now 
\nake  our  own  readers  a  party;  after  stepping  to  say, 
that  thus  ^ar,  so  far  as  we  have  gone  already,  we  count 


86 


THE  ESSENES. 


on  their  assent  to  our  tlieory,  were  it  only  from  those 
considerations  :  First,  the  exceeding  improbability  that 
a  known  philosophic  sect  amongst  the  Jews,  chiefly 
distinguished  from  the  other  two  by  its  moral  aspects, 
could  have  lurked  unknown  to  the  Evangelists ;  Sec- 
ondly, the  exceeding  improbability  that  such  a  sect, 
laying  the  chief  burden  of  its  scrupulosity  in  the  matter 
of  oaths,  should  have  bound  its  members  by  '  tremen- 
dous '  oaths  of  secrecy  in  a  case  where  there  was 
nothing  to  conceal ;  Thirdly,  the  staring  contradictori- 
ness  between  such  an  avowal  on  the  part  of  Josephus, 
and  his  deliberate  revelation  of  what  he  fancied  to  be 
their  creed.  The  objection  is  too  inevitable  :  either 
you  have  taken  the  oaths  or  you  have  not.  You  have  ? 
Then  by  your  own  showing  you  are  a  perjured  traitor. 
You  have  not  7  Then  you  confess  yourself  to  speak 
from  no  personal  knowledge.  How  can  you  know 
anything  of  their  secret  doctrines  ?  The  seal  is  want- 
ing to  the  record. 

However,  it  is  possible  that  some  people  will  evade 
this  last  dilemma,  by  suggesting  —  that  Josephus  wrote 
for  Roman  readers  —  for  strangers  —  and  for  strangers 
after  any  of  his  countrymen  who  might  be  interested  in 
the  secret,  had  perished  ;  if  not  personally  perished,  at 
least  as  a  body  politic.  The  last  vestiges  of  the  theo- 
retical government  had  foundered  with  Jerusalem  ;  and 
It  might  be  thought  by  a  better  man  than  Josephus,  that 
all  obligations  of  secrecy  had  perished  in  the  general 
wreck. 

We  need  not  dispute  that  point.  There  is  enough 
in  what  remains.  The  positive  points  of  contact  be- 
tween the  supposed  Essenes  and  the  Christians  a.re  too 
many  to  be  got  over.    But  upon  these  we  will  not  at 


THE  ESSENES. 


87 


present  insist.  In  this  place  we  confine  ourselves  to 
the  two  points  :  1 .  Of  the  universal  silence  amongst 
Christian  writers,  who,  of  all  parties,  would  have  felt 
it  most  essential  to  notice  the  Essenes,  had  there  ex- 
isted such  a  sect  antecedently  to  Christ :  and,  2.  Of 
the  absurdity  involved  in  exacting  an  inexorable  con- 
cealment from  those  who  had  nothing  to  reveal. 

But  then  recollect,  reader,  precisely  the  Christian 
truths  which  stood  behind  the  exoteric  doctrines  of  the 
Essenes,  were  the  truths  hidden  from  Josephus.  Rea- 
son enough  there  was  for  concealment,  ie  the  Essenes 
were  Christians  ;  and  reason  more  than  was  ever  known 
to  Josephus.  But  then,  this  reason  for  concealment  in 
the  Essenes  could  be  known  only  to  him  who  was 
aware  that  they  had  something  to  conceal.  He  who 
saw  only  the  masque,  supposing  it  to  be  the  true  face, 
ought  to  have  regarded  the  mystifying  arrangements 
as  perfect  mummery.  He  that  saw  the  countenance 
behind  the  masque  —  a  countenance  sweet  as  Paradise, 
but  fearful  as  the  grave  at  that  particular  time  in  Jeru- 
salem, would  never  ask  again  for  the  motives  to  this 
concealment.  Those  he  would  apprehend  in  a  mo- 
ment. But  as  to  Josephus,  who  never  had  looked 
behind  the  masque,  the  order  for  concealment,  the 
adjurations  to  concealment,  the  vows  of  concealment, 
the  adamantine  walls  of  separation  between  the  difi'er- 
ent  orders  of  the  fraternity,  in  order  to  ensure  conceal- 
ment, ought  to  have  been,  must  have  been  regarded 
by  him,  as  the  very  hyperbole  of  childishness. 

Partly  because  Josephus  was  in  this  state  of  dark- 
ness,  partly  from  personal  causes,  has  he  failed  to  clear 
up  the  secret  history  of  Judea,  in  her  final,  that  is,  hei 
V]pichristian  generation.    The  evidences  of  his  having 


88 


THE  ESSENE8. 


failed  are  two, —  1st,  the  absolute  fact,  as  existing  in 
his  works  ;  which  present  us  with  a  mere  anarchy  of 
incidents,  as  regards  the  politics  of  his  own  times, 
under  no  law  of  cohesion  whatsoever,  or  of  intelligible 
derivation  ;  2dly,  the  d  priori  necessity  that  he  should 
fail ;  a  necessity  laid  in  the  very  situation  of  Josephus 
—  as  a  man  of  servile  temper  placed  amongst  elements 
that  required  a  Maccabee,  and  as  a  man  without  prin- 
ciple, who  could  not  act  so  that  his  actions  would  bear 
to  be  reported  without  disguise,  and  as  one  in  whom 
no  confidence  was  likely  to  be  lodged  by  the  managers 
of  great  interests,  or  the  depositories  of  great  secrets. 

This  view  of  things  summons  us  to  pause,  and'  to 
turn  aside  from  our  general  inquiry  into  a  special  one 
as  to  Josephus.  Hitherto  we  have  derived  our  argu- 
ments on  the  Essenes  from  Josephus,  as  a  willing  wit- 
ness —  a  volunteer  even.  But  now  we  are  going  to 
extort  our  arguments  ;  to  torture  him,  to  put  him  on 
the  rack,  to  force  him  into  confession  ;  and  upon  points 
which  he  has  done  his  best  to  darken,  by  throwing  dust 
in  the  eyes  of  us  all.  Why  ?  —  because  hand-in-hand 
with  the  truth  must  go  the  exposure  of  himself.  Jose- 
phus stands  right  in  the  very  doorway  of  the  light, 
purposely  obscuring  it.  A  glare  comes  round  by  side 
snatches  ;  oblique  rays,  stray  gleams,  from  the  truth 
which  he  so  anxiously  screens.  But  before  the  real 
state  of  things  can  be  guessed  at,  it  is  necessary  to 
destroy  this  man's  character. 

Now,  let  us  try  to  appreciate  the  exact  position  and 
reasonable  credibility  of  Josephus,  as  he  stands  at 
present,  midway  between  us  a  distant  posterity,  and 
his  own  countrymen  of  his  own  times,  sole  interpreter, 
Bole  surviving  reporter,  having  all  things  his  own  way, 


THE  ESSENES. 


89 


nobody  to  contradict  him,  nobody  to  taint  bis  evidence 
with  suspicion.  His  case  is  most  remarkable  ;  and  yet, 
though  remarkable,  is  not  so  rare  but  that  many  times 
it  must  have  occurred  in  private  (sometimes  in  public) 
life.  It  is  the  case  of  a  solitary  individual  surviving 
out  of  a  multitude  embarked  in  a  desperate  enterprise 
—  some  playing  one  part,  (a  part,  suppose,  sublime 
and  heroic,)  some  playing  another,  (base,  treacherous, 
fiendish.)  Suddenly  a  great  convulsion  involves  all  in 
one  common  ruin,  this  man  only  excepted.  He  now 
finds  himself  wath  a  carte  hlanche  before  him,  on 
which  he  may  inscribe  whatever  romance  in  behalf  of 
himself  he  thinks  proper.  The  whole  field  of  action 
is  open  to  him  — ^  the  whole  field  of  motives.  He  may 
take  what  side  he  will.  And  be  assured  that,  what- 
ever part  in  the  play  he  assumes,  he  will  give  himself 
the  best  of  characters.  For  courage  you  will  find  him 
a  Maccabee.  His  too  tender  heart  interfered,  or  he 
could  have  signalized  his  valor  even  more  emphat- 
ically. And,  descending  to  such  base  things  as 
treasures  of  money,  jewels,  land,  &c.,  the  chief  part 
"of  what  had  been  captured,  was  of  course  (strictly 
speaking)  his  own  property.  What  impudent  false- 
hood, indeed,  may  such  a  man  not  bring  forward, 
"^yhen  there  is  nobody  to  confront  him  ? 

But  was  there  nobody  ?  Reader,  absolutely  nobody. 
Prisoners  captured  with  himself  at  Jotopata  there  were 
Uone  —  not  a  man.  That  fact,  indeed  —  the  inexorable 
fact,  that  he  only  endured  to  surrender  —  that  one  fact, 
taken  with  the  commentary  which  we  could  furnish  as 
to  the  circumstances  of  the  case,  and  the  Jewish 
casuistry  under  those  circumstances,  is  one  of  the 
Viany  damning  features  of  his  tale.    But  was  thera 


90 


THE  ESSENES. 


nobody,  amongst  the  ninety  thousand  prisoners  taken 
at  Jerusalem,  who  could  have  spoken  to  parts  of  this 
man's  public  life  ^  Doubtless  there  were  ;  but  to 
what  purpose  for  people  in  their  situation  to  come 
forward  ?  One  and  all,  positively  without  a  solitary 
exception,  they  were  themselves  captives,  slaves  con- 
demned, despairing.  Ten  thousand  being  selected  for 
the  butcheries  of  the  Syrian  amphitheatres,  the  rest 
were  liable  to  some  punishment  equally  terrific  ;  mul- 
titudes were  perishing  of  hunger  ;  under  the  mildest 
award,  they  were  sure  of  being  sentenced  to  the  stone 
quarries  of  Egypt.  Wherefore,  in  this  extremity,  of 
personal  misery  and  of  desperate  prospects,  should 
any  man  find  himself  at  leisure  for  a  vengeance  on 
one  happier  countryman  which  could  bring  no  profit 
to  the  rest  ?  Still,  in  a  case  so  questionable  as  that  of 
Josephus,  it  is  possible  enough  that  Titus  would  have 
sought  some  further  light  amongst  the  prisoners  under 
any  ordinary  circumstances.  In  his  heart,  the  noble 
Roman  must  have  distrusted  Josephus  and  his  vain- 
glorious account  of  himself.  There  were  circumstances 
outstanding,  many  and  strong,  that  must  have  pointed 
his  suspicions  in  that  direction  ;  and  the  very  con- 
versation of  a  villain  is  sure  to  entangle  him  in  con- 
tradictions. But  it  was  nov/  too  late  to  move  upon 
that  inquest.  Josephus  himself  acknowledges,  that 
Vespasian  was  shrewd  enough  from  the  first  to  suspect 
him  for  the  sycophantish  knave  that  he  was.  But  that 
time  had  gone  by.  And,  in  the  interval,  Josephus  had 
used  his  opportunities  skilfully  ;  he  had  performed  that 
particular  service  for  the  Flavian  family,  which  was 
the  one  desideratum  they  sought  for  and  yearned  for 
By  his  pretended  dreams,  Josephus  had  put  that  seal 


THE  ESSENES.  91 

of  heavenly  ratification  to  the  ambitioas  pixjects  of 
Vespasian,  which  only  was  wanting  for  the  satisfaction 
of  his  soldiers.  The  service  was  critical.  What  Titus 
said  to  his  father  is  known :  —  This  man,  be  he  what 
he  may,  has  done  a  service  to  us.  It  is  not  for  men 
of  rank  like  us  to  haggle  and  chaffer  about  rewards. 
Having  received  a  favor,  we  must  make  the  reward 
princely  ;  not  what  he  deserves  to  receive,  but  what  is 
becoming  for  us  to  grant.  On  this  consideration  these 
great  men  acted.  Sensible  that,  not  having  hanged 
Josephus  at  first,  it  was  now  become  their  duty  to 
reward  him,  they  did  not  do  the  thing  by  halves.  Not 
content  with  releasing  him  from  his  chains,  they  sent 
an  officer  to  cut  his  chains  to  pieces  —  that  being  a 
symbolic  act  by  which  the  Romans  abolished  the  very 
memory  and  legal  record  that  ever  a  man  had  been  in 
confinement.  The  fact  is,  that  amongst  the  Roman 
public  virtues  in  that  age,  was  an  intense  fidelity  to 
engagements';  and  where  they  had  even  tacitly  per- 
mitted a  man  to  form  hopes,  they  fulfilled  them 
beyond  the  letter.  But  what  Titus  said  to  his  staff, 
though  naturally  not  put  on  record  by  Josephus,  was 
very  probably  this  :  —  '  Gentlemen,  I  see  you  look 
upon  this  Jew  as  a  poltroon,  and  perhaps  worse. 
Well,  possibly  we  don't  much  differ  upon  that  point. 
But  it  has  become  necessary  to  the  public  service  that 
this  man  should  be  reinstated  in  credit.  He  will 
now,  perhaps,  turn  over  a  new  leaf.  If  he  does  not, 
kick  him  to  Hades.  But,  meantime,  give  the  man  a 
trial.' 

Such,  there  can  be  little  doubt,  was  the  opinion  of 
Caesar  about  this  man.  But  now  it  remains  to  give 
our  own,  with  the  reasons  on  which  it  rests. 


92 


THE  ESSENES. 


I.  —  First  of  all  —  which  we  bring  merely  as  a  proof 
of  his  habitual  mendacity  —  in  one  of  those  tongue- 
doughty  orations,  which  he  represents  himself  as 
having  addressed  to  the  men  of  Jerusalem,  they 
standing  on  the  walls  patiently,  with  paving-stones 
in  their  hands,  to  hear  a  renegade  abuse  them  by  the 
hour,  [such  is  his  lying  legend,]  Josephus  roundly 
asserts  that  Abraham,  the  patriarch  of  their  nation, 
had  an  army  of  three  hundred  and  sixty  thousand 
troops,  that  is,  somewhere  about  seventy-five  legions 

—  an  establishment  beyond  what  the  first  Caesars  had 
found  requisite  for  mastering  the  Mediterranean  sea 
with  all  the  nations  that  belted  it  —  that  is,  a  ring- 
fence  of  five  thousand  miles  by  seven  hundred  on  an 
average.  Now,  this  is  in  the  style  of  the  Baron 
Munchausen.  But  it  is  worthy  of  a  special  notice, 
for  two  illustrations  which  it  offers  of  this  renegade's 
propensities.  One  is  the  abject  homage  with  which  he 
courted  the  Roman  notice.  Of  this  lie,' as  of  all  his 
lies,  the  primary  purpose  is,  to  fix  the  gaze  and  to 
court  the  admiration  of  the  Romans.    Judea,  Jerusalem 

—  these  were  objects  never  in  his  thoughts  ;  it  was 
Rome,  the  haven  of  his  apostasy,  on  which  his  anxieties 
settled.  Now,  it  is  a  judgment  upon  the  man  who 
carried  these  purposes  in  his  heart  —  it  is  a  judicial 
retribution  —  that  precisely  this  very  lie,  shaped  and 
pointed  to  conciliate  the  Roman  taste  for  martial 
splendor,  was  probably  the  very  ground  of  that  disgust 
which  seems  to  have  alienated  Tacitus  from  his  works. 
Apparently  Josephus  should  have  been  the  foremost 
authority  with  this  historian  for  Jewish  affairs.  But 
enough  remains  to  show  that  he  was  not ;  and  it  is 
clear  that  the  confidence  of  so  sceptical  a  writer  must 


THE  ESSENES. 


93 


have  bfcoii  sliaken  from  the  very  first  by  so  extravagant 
a  tale.  Abraham,  a  mere  stranger  and  colonist  in 
Syria,  whose  descendants  in  tlie  third  generation  mus- 
tered only  seventy  persons  in  emigrating  to  Egypt,  is 
here  placed  at  the  head  of  a  force  greater  than  great 
empires  had  commanded  or  had  needed.  And  from 
what  resources  raised  ?  From  a  little  section  of  Syria, 
which  (supposing  it  even  the  personal  domain  of 
Abraham)  could  not  be  equal  to  Wales.  And  for 
what  objects?  To  face  what  enemies?  A  handful 
of  robbers  that  might  congregate  in  the  desert.  Such 
insufferable  fairy  tales  must  have  vitiated  the  credit 
even  of  his  rational  statements ;  and  it  is  thus  pleasant 
to  see  the  apostate  missing  one  rew^ard  which  he 
courted,  purely  through  his  own  eagerness  to  buy  it 
at  the  price  of  truth.  But  a  second  feature  which  this 
story  betrays  in  the  mind  of  Josephus,  is  the  thorough 
defect  of  Hebrew  sublimity  and  scriptural  simplicity 
which  mark  his  entire  writing.  How  much  more 
impressive  is  the  picture  of  Abraham,  as  the  father  of 
the  faithful,  the  selected  servant  and  feudatory  of  God, 
sitting  in  the  wilderness,  majestically  reposing  at  the 
door  of  his  tent,  surrounded  by  a  little  camp  of 
servants  and  kinsmen,  a  few  score  of  camels  and  a 
few  herds  of  cattle,  than  in  the  melodramatic  attitude 
of  a  general,  belted  and  plumed,  with  a  glittering  staff 
of  officers  at  his  orders  ?  But  the  mind  of  Josephus,. 
always  irreligious,  was  now  violently  warped  into  a 
poor  imitation  of  Roman  models.  He  absolutely  talks 
of  'Uherty^  and  '  glory  as  the  moving  impulses  of 
Hebrew  saints  ;  and  does  his  best  to  translate  the 
Maccabees,  and  many  an  elder  soldier  of  the  Jewish 
faith,  into  poor  theatrical  mimics  of  Spartans  and 


94 


THE  ESSENES. 


Thel)ans.  This  depravity  of  taste,  and  abjaration  of 
his  national  characteristics,  must  not  be  overlooked  in 
estimating  the  value  whether  of  his  ^opinions  or  his 
statements.  We  have  evidence  superabundant  to 
these  two  features  in  the  character  of  Josephus  — 
that  he  would  distort  everything  in  order  to  meet  the 
Roman  taste,  and  that  he  had  originally  no  sympathy 
whatsoever  with  the  peculiar  grandeur  of  his  own 
country. 

II. — It  is  a  remarkable  fact,  that  J osephus  never  speaks 
of  Jerusalem  and  those  who  conducted  its  resistance, 
but  in  words  of  abhorrence  and  of  loathing  that  amounts 
to  frenzy.  Now  in  what  point  did  they  differ  from 
himself?  Change  the  name  Judea  to  Galilee,  and  the 
name  Jerusalem  to  Jotopata,  and  their  case  was  his  ; 
and  the  single  difference  was  —  that  the  men,  whom 
he  reviles  as  often  as  he  mentions  them,  had  persevered 
to  martyrdom,  whilst  he  —  he  only  —  had  snatched  at 
life  under  any  condition  of  ignominy.  But  precisely 
in  that  difference  lay  the  ground  of  his  hatred.  He 
could  not  forgive  those  whose  glorious  resistance 
(glorious,  were  it  even  in  a  mistaken  cause)  embla- 
zoned and  threw  into  relief  his  own  apostasy.  Thiij 
we  cannot  dwell  on  ;  but  we  revert  to  the  question  — 
What  had  the  people  of  Jerusalem  done,  which  Jose- 
phus had  not  attempted  to  do? 

III.  — Whiston,  another  Caliban  worshipping  another 
Trinculo,  finds  out  a  divinity  in  Josephus,  because,  on 
being  brought  prisoner  to  Vespasian,  he  pretended  to 
have  seen  in  a  dream  that  the  Roman  general  would 
be  raised  to  the  purple.  Now, 


THE  ESSENES. 


95 


1.  When  we  see  Cyrus  lurking  in  the  prophecies  of 
Isaiah,  and  Alexander  in  those  of  Daniel,  we  appre- 
hend a  reasonableness  in  thus  causing  the  spirit  of 
prophecy  to  settle  upon  those  who  were  destined  to 
move  in  the  great  cardinal  revolutions  of  this  earth. 

'  Bui  why,  amongst  all  the  Caesars,  must  Vespasian,  in 
particular,  be  the  subject  of  a  prophecy,  and  a  pro- 
phecy the  most  thrilling,  from  the  mysterious  circum- 
stances which  surrounded  it,  and  from  the  silence  with 
which  it  stole  into  the  mouths  of  all  nations  ?  The 
reigns  of  all  the  three  Flavian  Caesars,  Vespasian,  with 
his  sons  Titus  and  Domitian,  were  memorable  for 
nothing  :  with  the  sole  exception  of  the  great  revolu- 
tion in  Judea,  none  of  them  were  marked  by  any  great 
event ;  and  all  the  three  reigns  combined  filled  no  im- 
portant space  of  time. 

2.  If  Vespasian,  for  any  incomprehensible  reason, 
were  thought  worthy  of  being  heralded  by  a  prophecy, 
what  logic  was  there  in  connecting  him  with  Syria  ? 
That  which  raised  him  to  the  purple,  that  which  sug- 
gested him  to  men's  minds,  was  his  military  eminence, 
and  this  was  obtained  in  Britain. 

3.  If  the  mere  local  situations  from  which  any  unm- 
teresting  emperor  happened  to  step  on  to  the  throne, 
merited  this  special  glorification  from  prophecy,  why 
was  not  many  another  region,  town,  or  village,  illus- 
trated in  the  same  way  ?  That  Thracian  hamlet,  from 
which  the  Emperor  Maximin  arose,  had  been  pointed 
out  to  notice  before  the  event  as  a  place  likely  to  be 
distinguished  by  some  great  event.  And  yet,  because 
-this  prediction  had  merely  a  personal  reference,  and 
no  relation  at  all  to  any  great  human  interest,  it  was 
treated  with  little  respect,  and  never  crept  into  a  gen- 


96 


THE  ESSENES. 


eral  circulation.  So  of  this  prophecy  with  respect  to 
one  who  should  rise  out  of  the  East,  and  should  ulti- 
mately stretch  his  sceptre  over  the  whole  world,  {rerum 
potiretur,)  if  Josephus  is  allowed  to  ruin  it  by  his  syco- 
phancy, instantly,  from  the  rank  of  a  Hebrew  prophecy 

—  a  vision  seen  by  '  the  man  whose  eyes  God  had 
opened  *  —  it  sinks  to  the  level  of  a  vagrant  gipsy's 
gossip.    What  !  shall  Rome  combine  with  Jerusalem  ? 

—  for  we  find  this  same  mysterious  prediction  almost 
verbally  the  same  in  Suetonius  and  in  Tacitus,  no  less 
than  in  the  Jewish  prophets.  Shall  it  stretch  not  only 
from  the  east  to  the  west  in  point  of  space,  but  through 
the  best  part  of  a  thousand  years  in  point  of  time,  all 
for  the  sake  of  preparing  one  day's  adulatory  nuzzur, 
by  which  a  trembling  Jew  may  make  his  propitiation 
to  an  intriguing  lieutenant  of  Caesar  ?  And  how  came 
it  that  Whiston  (who,  to  do  him  justice,  was  too  pious 
to  have  abetted  an  infidel  trick,  had  his  silliness  suffered 
him  to  have  seen  through  it)  failed  to  perceive  this 
consequence  ?  If  the  prophecy  before  us  belong  to 
Vespasian,  then  does  it  not  belong  to  Christ.  And  in 
that  case,  the  worst  error  of  the  Herodian  Jews,  who 
made  the  Messiah  prophecies  terminate  in  Herod,  is 
ratified  by  Christians  ;  for  between  Herod  and  Vespa- 
sian the  difference  is  none  at  all,  as  regards  any  interest 
of  religion.  Can  human  patience  endure  the  spectacle 
of  a  religious  man,  for  perfect  folly,  combining  in  their 
very  worst  efforts  with  those  whom  it  was  the  object 
of  his  life  to  oppose  ? 

4.  But  finally,  once  for  all,  to  cut  sharp  off  by  the 
roots  this  corruption  of  a  sublime  prophecy,  and  to  re- 
enthrone  it  in  its  ancient  sanctity,  it  was  not  in  the 
*  Orient,^  (which  both  technically  meant  Syria  in  that 


THE  ESSENES. 


97 


particular  age,  and  is  acknowledged  to  mean  it  here  by 
all  parties,)  that  Vespasian  obtained  the  purple.  The 
oracle,  if  it  is  to  be  translated  from  a  Christian  to  a 
Pagan  oracle,  ought  at  least  to  speak  the  truth.  Now, 
it  happens  not  to  have  been  Syria  in  which  Vespasian 
was  saluted  emperor  by  the  legions,  but  Alexandria ; 
a  city  which  in  that  age,  was  in  no  sense  either  in 
Syria  or  in  Egypt.  So  that  the  great  prophecy,  if  it 
is  once  suffered  to  be  desecrated  by  Josephus,  fails 
even  of  a  literal  fulfilment. 

IV. —  Meantime,  all  this  is  a  matter  of  personal  false- 
hood in  a  case  of  trying  personal  interest.  Even 
under  such  a  temptation,  it  is  true  that  a  man  of 
generosity,  to  say  nothing  of  principle,  would  not 
have  been  capable  of  founding  his  own  defence  upon 
the  defamation  of  his  nobler  compatriots.  But  in  fact 
it  is  ever  thus  :  he,  who  has  sunk  deepest  in  treason, 
is  generally  possessed  by  a  double  measure  of  rancor 
against  the  loyal  and  the  faithful.  What  follows,  how- 
ever, has  respect  —  not  to  truth  personal,  truth  of  fact, 
truth  momentary  —  but  to  truth  absolute,  truth  doc- 
trinal, truth  eternal.  Let  us  preface  vv^hat  we  are 
going  to  .say,  by  directing  the  reader's  attention  to  this 
fact :  how  easy  it  is  to  observe  any  positive  feature  in 
a  man's  writings  or  conversation  —  how  rare  to  observe 
the  negative  features ;  the  presence  of  this  or  that  char- 
acteristic is  noticed  in  an  hour,  the  absence  shall  often 
escape  notice  for  years.  That  a  friend,  for  instance, 
talks  habitually  on  this  or  that  literature,  we  know  as 
familiarly  as  our  own  constitutional  tastes  ;  that  he 
does  not  talk  of  any  given  literature,  (the  Greek  sup- 
pose,) may  fail  to  strike  us  through  a  whole  life,  until 
7 


98 


THE  ESSEN-ES. 


somebod}^  happens  to  point  our  attention  in  that  direc- 
tion, and  then  perhaps  we  notice  it  in  every  hour  of 
our  intercourse.  This  only  can  excuse  the  various 
editors,  commentators,  and  translators  of  Josephus,  for 
having  overlooked  one  capital  omission  in  this  author  ; 
it  is  this  —  never  in  one  instance  does  Josephus  allude 
to  the  great  prophetic  dgctrine  of  a  Messiah,  To 
suppose  him  ignorant  of  this  doctrine  is  impossible  ; 
it  was  so  mixed  up  with  the  typical  part  of  the  Jewish 
religion,  so  involved  in  the  ceremonies  of  Judaism, 
even  waiving  all  the  Jewish  writers,  that  no  J ew  what- 
ever, much  less  a  master  in  Israel,  a  Pharisee,  a  doctor 
of  the  law,  a  priest,  all  which  Josephus  proclaims 
himself,  could  fail  to  know  of  such  a  doctrine,  even 
if  he  failed  to  understand  it,  or  failed  to  appreciate  its 
importance. 

Why,  then,  has  Josephus  suppressed  it  ?  For  this 
reason  :  the  doctrine  offers  a  dilemma  —  a  choice  be- 
tween two  interpretations  —  one  being  purely  spiritual, 
one  purely  political.  The  first  was  offensive  and  unin- 
telligible (as  was  everything  else  in  his  native  religion 
beyond  the  merely  ceremonial)  to  his  own  worldly 
heart ;  the  other  ivould  have  been  offensive  to  the 
Romans.  The  mysterious  idea  of  a  Redeemer,  of  a 
Deliverer,  if  it  were  taken  in  a  vast  spiritual  sense, 
was  a  music  like  the  fabled  Arabian  voices  in  the  desert 
—  utterly  inaudible  when  the  heart  is  deaf,  and  the 
sympathies  untuned.  The  fleshly  mind  of  Josephus 
everywhere  shows  its  incapacity  for  any  truths,  but 
those  of  sense.  On  the  other  hand,  the  idea  of  a 
political  deliverer  —  that  was  comprehensible  enough  ; 
but  unfortunately,  it  was  too  comprehensible.  It  was 
ihe  very  watchward  for  national  conspiracies  ;  and  the 


THE  ESSENES. 


99 


Romans  would  state  the  alternative  thus :  The  idea  of 
a  great  deliverer  is  but  another  name  for  insurrection 
against  us  ;  of  a  petty  deliverer,  is  incompatible  with  the 
grandeur  implied  by  a  vast  prophetic  machinery.  With- 
out knowing  much,  or  caring  anything  about  the  Jewish 
prophecies,  the  Romans  were  sagacious  enough  to  per- 
ceive two  things  —  1st,  that  most  nations,  and  the  Jews 
above  all  others,  were  combined  by  no  force  so  strongly 
as  by  one  which  had  the  reputation  of  a  heavenly 
descent ;  2dly,  that  a  series  of  prophecies,  stretching 
from  the  century  before  Cyrus  to  the  age  of  Pericles, 
(confining  ourselves  to  the  prophets  from  Isaiah  to 
Haggai,)  was  most  unlikely  to  find  its  adequate  result 
and  consummation  in  any  petty  change  —  any  change 
short  of  a  great  national  convulsion  or  revolution. 

Hence  it  happened,  that  no  mode  in  which  a  Roman 
writer  could  present  the  Jewish  doctrine  of  a  Messiah, 
was  free  from  one  or  other  of  the  objections  indicated 
by  the  great  Apostle :  either  it  was  too  spiritual  and 
mysterious,  in  which  case  it  was  '  foolishness  '  to  him* 
self ;  or  it  was  too  palpably  the  symbol  of  a  political 
interest,  too  real  in  a  worldly  sense,  in  which  case  it 
was  a  '  stone  of  ofi'ence '  to  his  Roman  patrons  —  gen* 
erally  to  the  Roman  people,  specially  to  the  Roman 
leaders.  Josephus  found  himself  betwora  Scylla  and 
Charybdis  if  he  approached  that  subje'v'^;.  And  there- 
fore it  was  that  he  did  not  approach  U. 

V. — Yet,  in  this  evasion  of  a  jaie  which  intereste^t^ 
every  Jew,  many  readers  will  see  only  an  evidence  of 
that  timidity  and  servile  gpiiit  which  must,  of  course^ 
be  presumed  in  one  whj  had  sold  the  cause  of  hi& 
country.    His  evasion,  they  will  say,  does  r  j'.  argue. 


100 


THE  ESSENES. 


any  peculiar  .carelessness  for  truth ;  it  is  simply  one 
instance  amongst  hundreds  of  his  mercenary  coward- 
ice. The  doctrine  of  a  Messiah  was  the  subject  of 
dispute  even  to  the  Jews  —  the  most  religious  and  the 
most  learned.  Some  restrained  it  to  an  earthly  sense ; 
some  expanded  it  into  a  glorified  hope.  And,  though 
a  double  sense  will  not  justify  a  man  in  slighting  both 
senses,  still,  the  very  existence  of  a  dispute  about  the 
proper  acceptation  of  a  doctrine,  may  be  pleaded  as 
some  palliation  for  a  timid  man,  in  seeking  to  pass  it 
sub  sihntio.  But  what  shall  we  say  to  this  coming 
count  in  the  indictment  ?  Hitherto  Josephus  is  only 
an  apostate,  only  a  traitor,  only  a  libeller,  only  a  false 
witness,  only  a  liar ;  and  as  to  his  Jewish  faith,  only 
perhaps  a  coward,  only  perhaps  a  heretic.  But  now 
he  will  reveal  himself  (in  the  literal  sense  of  that 
word)  as  a  miscreant ;  one  who  does  not  merely  go 
astray  in  his  faith,  as  all  of  us  may  do  at  times,  but 
pollutes  his  faith  by  foul  adulterations,  or  undermines 
it  by  knocking  away  its  props  —  a  misbeliever,  not  in 
the  sense  of  a  heterodox  believer,  who  errs  as  to  some 
point  in  the  superstruction,  but  as  one  who  unsettles 
the  foundations  —  the  external  substructions.  In  one 
short  sentence,  Josephus  is  not  ashamed  to  wrench  out 
the  keystone  from  the  great  arch  of  Judaism ;  so  far 
as  a  feeble  apostate's  force  will  go,  he  unlocks  the 
whole  cohesion  and  security  of  that  monumental  faith 
upon  which,  as  its  basis  and  plinth,  is  the  '  starry  • 
pointing '  column  of  our  Christianity.  He  delivers  it 
to  the  Romans,  as  sound  Pharisaic  doctrine,  that  God 
had  enjoined  upon  the  Jews  the  duty  of  respectful  hom- 
age to  all  ^pichorial  or  national  deities  —  to  all  idols, 
that  is  to  say,  provided  their  rank  were  attested  by 


THE  ESSENES. 


101 


a  suitablo  number  of  worshippers.  The  Komans  ap- 
plied this  test  to  the  subdivisions  amongst  princes ;  if 
a  prince  ruled  over  a  small  number  of  subjects,  they 
called  him  (without  reference  to  the  original  sense  of 
the  word)  a  tetrarch :  if  a  certain  larger  number,  an 
ethnarch  ;  if  a  still  larger  number,  a  king.  So  again, 
the  number  of  throats  cut  determined  the  question 
between  a  triumph  and  an  ovation.  And  upon  the 
same  principle,  if  we  will  believe  Josephus,  was  regu- 
lated the  public  honor  due  to  the  Pagan  deities.  Count 
his  worshippers  —  call  the  roll  over. 

Does  '  the  audacity  of  man  present  us  with  such 
another  instance  of  perfidious  miscreancy  7  God  the 
Jehovah,  anxious  for  the  honor  of  Jupiter  and  Mercury  ! 
God,  the  Father  of  light  and  truth,  zealous  on  behalf 
of  those  lying  deities,  whose  service  is  everywhere 
described  as  '  whoredom  and  adultery  ! '  He  who 
steadfastly  reveals  himself  as  '  a  jealous  God,'  jealous 
also  (if  we  will  believe  this  apostate '  Jew)  on  behalf 
of  that  impure  Pantheon,  who  had  counterfeited  his 
name,  and  usurped  His  glory  !  Keader,  it  would  be 
mere  mockery  and  insult  to  adduce  on  this  occasion 
the  solemn  denunciations  against  idolatrous  compli- 
ances" uttered  through  the  great  lawgiver  of  the  Jews 
—  the  unconditional  words  of  the  two  first  command- 
ments —  the  magnificent  thunderings  and  lightnings 
upon  the  primal  question,  in  the  twenty- eighth  chapter 
of  Deuteronomy,  (which  is  the  most  awful  peroration 
to  a  long  series  of  prophetic  comminations  that  exists 
even  in  the  Hebrew  literature ;)  or  to  adduce  the  end- 
less testimonies  to  the  same  effect,  so  unvarying,  so 
profound,  from  all  the  Hebrew  saints,  l)eginning  with 
A.braham  and  ending  with  the  prophets,  through  a 
Deriod  of  fifteen  hundred  years. 


102 


THE  ESSENES. 


This  is  not  wanted  :  this  would  be  superfluous.  But 
there  is  an  evasion  open  to  an  apologist  of  Josephus, 
which  might  place  the  question  upon  a  more  casuist- 
ical footing.  And  there  is  also  a  colorable  vindica- 
tion of  the  doctrine  in  its  very  worst  shape,  viz.,  in 
one  solitary  text  of  the  English  Bible,  according  to 
our  received  translation.  To  this  latter  argument,  the 
answer  is  —  first,  that  the  word  gods  is  there  a  mis- 
translation of  an  Oriental  expression  for  princes  ;  sec- 
ondly, that  an  argument  from  an  English  version  of 
the  Scriptures,  can  be  none  for  a  Jew,  writing  A.  D. 
70 ;  thirdly,  that  if  a  word,  a  phrase,  an  idiom,  could 
be  alleged  from  any  ancient  and  contemporary  Jewish 
Scripture,  what  is  one  w^ord  against  a  thousand  — 
against  the  whole  current  (letter  and  spirit)  of  the 
Hebrew  oracles  ;  what,  any  possible  verbal  argument 
against  that  which  is  involved  in  the  acts,  the  monu- 
ments, the  sacred  records  of  the  Jewish  people  ?  But 
this  mode  of  defence  for  Josephus,  will  scarcely  be 
adopted.  It  is  the  amended  form  of  his  doctrine 
which  will  be  thought  open  to  apology.  Many  will 
think  that  it  is  not  the  worship  of  false  gods  which  the 
Jew  palliates,  but  simply  a  decent  exterior  of  respect 
to  their  ceremonies,  their  ministers,  their  altars :  and 
this  view  of  his  meaning  might  raise  a  new  and  large 
question. 

This  question,  however,  in  its  modern  shape,  is 
nothing  at  all  to  us,  when  applying  ourselves  to  Jose- 
phus, The  precedents  from  Hebrew  antiquity  show 
us,  that  not  merely  no  respect,  no  lip  honor,  was  con 
ceded  to  false  forms  of  religion ;  but  no  toleration  —  not 
the  shadow  of  toleration :  '  Thine  eye  shall  not  spare 
them/    And  we  must  all  be  sure  that  toleration  is  a 


THE  ESSENES. 


103 


v^ery  different  thing  indeed  when  applied  to  varieties  of 
a  creed  essentially  the  same  —  toleration  as  existing 
amongst  us  people  of  Christendom,  or  even  when 
applied  to  African  and  Polynesian  idolatries,  so  long 
as  we  all  know  that  the  citadel  of  truth  is  safe,  from 
the  toleration  applied  in  an  age  when  the  pure  faith 
formed  a  little  island  of  light  in  a  world  of  darkness. 
Intolerance  the  most  ferocious  may  have  been  among 
che  sublimest  of  duties  when  the  truth  was  so  intensely 
concentrated,  and  so  intensely  militant ;  all  advantages 
barely  sufficing  to  pass  down  the  lamp  of  religion 
from  one  generation  to  the  next.  The  contest  was 
for  an  interest  then  riding  at  single  anchor.  This  is  a 
very  possible  case  to  the  understanding.  And  that  it 
was  in  fact  the  real  case,  so  that  no  compromise  with 
idolatry  could  be  suffered  for  a  moment ;  that  the  Jews 
were  called  upon  to  scoff  at  idolatry,  and  spit  upon  it ; 
to  trample  it  under  their  feet  as  the  spreading  pesti- 
lence which  would  taint  the  whole  race  of  man  irre- 
trievably, unless  defeated  and  strangled  by  them^  seems 
probable  in  the  highest  degree,  from  the  examples  of 
greatest  sanctity  amongst  the  Jewish  inspired  writers. 
Who  can  forget  the  blasting  mockery  with  which 
Elijah  overwhelms  the  prophets  of  Baal  —  the  great- 
est of  the  false  deities,  Syrian  or  Assyrian,  whose 
worship  had  spread  even  to  the  Druids  of  the  Western 
islands  ?  Or  the  withering  scorn  with  which  Isaiah 
pursues  the  whole  economy  of  idolatrous  worship  ?  — 
how  he  represents  a  man  as  summoning  the  carpen- 
ter and  the  blacksmith  ;  as  cutting  down  a  tree  of  his 
own  planting  and  rearing  ;  part  he  applies  as  fuel,  part 
.0  culinary  purposes  ;  and  then  —  having  satisfied  the 
meanest  of  his  animal  necessities  —  what  will  he  do 


104 


THE  ESSEXES. 


with  the  refuse,  with  the  ofFal  ?  Behold  —  *  of  the 
residue  he  maketh  himself  a  god  ? '  Or  again,  who 
can  forget  the  fierce  stream  of  ridicule,  like  a  flame 
driven  through  a  blowpipe,  which  Jeremiah  forces 
with  his  whole  afflatus  upon  the  process  of  idol  manu- 
facturing ?  The  workman's  part  is  described  as  un- 
exceptionable :  he  plates  it  with  silver  and  with  gold ; 
he  rivets  it  with  nails  ;  it  is  delivered  to  order,  true 
and  in  workmanlike  style,  so  that  as  a  figure,  as  a 
counterfeit,  if  counterfeits  might  avail,  it  is  perfect. 
But  then,  on  examination,  the  prophet  detects  over- 
sights :  it  cannot  speak  ;  the  breath  of  life  has  been 
overlooked ;  reason  is  omitted  ;  pulsation  has  been 
left  out ;  motion  has  been  forgotten  —  it  must  be 
carried,  'for  it  cannot  go.'  Here,  suddenly,  as  if  a 
semichorus  stepped  in,  with  a  moment's  recoil  of  feel- 
ing, a  movement  of  pity  speaks,  — '  Be  not  afraid  of 
them,  for  they  cannot  do  evil ;  neither  also  is  it  in 
them  to  do  any  good.'  But  in  an  instant  the  recoil  is 
compensated :  an  overwhelming  reaction  of  scorn 
comes  back,  as  with  the  reflux  of  a  tide  ;  and  a  full 
chorus  seems  to  exclaim,  with  the  prophet's  voice,  — 
'  They  (viz.  the  heathen  deities)  are  altogether  brutish 
and  foolish  ;  the  stock  is  a  doctrine  of  vanities.' 

What  need,  after  such  passages,  to  quote  the  express 
hij unction  from  Isaiah,  (chap.  xxx.  21,  22,)  '  And 
thine  ears  shall  hear  a  word  behind  thee,  saying,  This 
is  the  way  ;  walk  ye  in  it :  Ye  shall  defile  the  covering 
of  the  graven  images,  &c.  ;  ye  shall  cast  them  away 
as  a  polluted  cloth  '  ?  Or  this,  (chap.  xlii.  8,)  '  I  am 
the  Lord  ;  that  is  my  name  :  and  my  glory  will  I  not 
give  to  another  ;  neither  my  praise  to  graven  images  '  ? 
Once  for  all,  if  a  man  would  satisfy  himself  upon  this 


THE  ESSENES. 


105 


question  of  possible  compromises  with  idolatry.  let  him 
run  over  the  eleven  chapters  of  Jeremiah,  from  the 
tenth  to  the  twentieth  inclusive.  The  whole  sad  train 
of  Jewish  sufferings,  all  the  vast  equipage  of  woes  and 
captivities  that  were  to  pursue  them  through  so  many 
a  weary  century,  are  there  charged  upon  that  one  re- 
bellion of  idolatry,  which  Josephus  would  have  us 
believe  not  only  to  be  privileged,  but  (and  that  is  the 
reason  that  we  call  him  a  miscreant)  would  have  us 
believe  to  have  been  promoted  by  a  collusion  emanat- 
ing from  God.  In  fact,  if  once  it  had  been  said  authen- 
tically. Pay  an  outward  homage  to  the  Pagan  Pantheon, 
but  keep  your  hearts  from  going  along  with  it  —  then, 
in  that  countenance  to  idolatry  as  a  sufferable  thing, 
and  in  that  commendation  of  it  to  the  forbearance  and 
indulgence  of  men,  would  have  lurked  every  advantage 
that  polytheism  could  have  desired  for  breaking  down 
the  total  barriers  of  truth. 

Josephus,  therefore,  will  be  given  up  to  reprobation ; 
apologist  he  will  find  none  ;  he  will  be  abandoned  as 
a  profligate  renegade,  who,  having  sold  his  country  out 
of  fear  and  avarice,  having  sold  himself,  sold  also  his 
religion,  and  his  religion  not  simply  in  the  sense  of 
L'elling  his  individual  share  in  its  hopes,  but  who  sold 
his  religion  in  the  sense  of  giving  it  up  to  be  polluted 
in  its  doctrine  for  the  accommodation  of  its  Pagan 
enemies. 

VI.  —  But,  even  after  all  this  is  said,  there  are  othei 
aggravations  of  this  Jew's  crimes.  One  of  these,  though 
hurrying,  we  will  pause  to  state.  The  founder  of  the 
Jewish  faith  foresaw  a  certain  special  seduction  certain 
to  beset  its  professors  in  every  age.    But  liow  and 


106 


THE  ESSENES. 


through  what  avenues  ?  Was  it  chiefly  through  the 
base  and  mercenary  propensities  of  human  nature  that 
the  peril  lay  ?  No  ;  but  through  its  gentleness,  its 
goodness,  its  gracious  spirit  of  courtesy.  And  in  that 
direction  it  was  that  the  lawgiver  applied  his  warnings 
and  his  resistance.  What  more  natural  than  that  an 
idolatrous  wife  should  honor  the  religious  rites  which 
Bhe  had  seen  honored  by  her  parents  ?  What  more 
essential  to  the  dignity  of  marriage,  than  that  a  husband 
should  show  a  leaning  to  the  opinions  aiid  the  wishes 
of  his  wife  ?  It  was  seen  that  this  condition  of  things 
would  lead  to  a  collision  of  feelings  not  salutary  for 
man.  The  condition  was  too  full  of  strife,  if  you  sup- 
pose the  man  strong  —  of  temptation,  if  you  suppose 
him  weak.  How,  therefore,  was  the  casuistry  of  such 
a  situation  practically  met  ?  By  a  prohibition  of  mar- 
riages between  Jews  and  pagans  ;  after  which,  if  a 
man  were  to  have  pleaded  his  conjugal  affection  in 
palliation  of  idolatrous  compliances,  it  would  have  been 
answered  —  '  It  is  a  palliation  ;  but  for  an  error  com- 
mitted in  consequence  of  such  a  connection.  Your 
error  was  different ;  it  commenced  from  a  higher  point ; 
it  commenced  in  seeking  for  a  connection  which  had 
been  prohibited  as  a  snare.'  Thus  it  was  that  the 
'  wisest  heart '  of  Solomon  was  led  astray.  And  thus 
it  was  in  every  idolatrous  lapse  of  the  J ews  ;  —  they 
fell  by  these  prohibited  connections.  Through  that 
channel  it  was,  through  the  goodness  and  courtesy  of 
the  human  heart,  that  the  Jewish  law  looked  for  its 
dangers,  and  provided  for  them.  But  the  treason  of 
Josephus  came  through  no  such  generous  cause.  It 
.uad  its  origin  in  servile  fear,  self-interest  the  most 
mercenary,  cunning  the  most  wily.    Josephus  argued 


THE  ESSENES. 


107 


with  himself —  that  the  peculiar  rancor  of  the  Eoman 
mind  towards  the  Jews  had  taken  its  rise  in  religion. 
The  bigotry  of  the  Jews,  for  so  it  was  construed  by 
those  who  could  not  comprehend  any  possible  ground 
of  distinction  in  the  Jewish  God,  produced  a  reaction 
of  Roman  bigotry.  Once,  by  a  sudden  movement  of 
condescension,  the  Senate  and  people  of  Rome  had 
been  wilhng  to  make  room  for  Jehovah  as  an  assessor 
to  their  own  Capitoline  Jove.  This  being  declined,  it 
was  suppose^l  at  first  that  the  overture  was  too  over- 
whelming to  the  conscious  humility  of  Judea.  The 
truth  neither  was  comprehended,  nor  could  be  com- 
prehended, that  this  miserable  Palestine,  a  dark  speck 
in  the  blazing  orb  of  the  Roman  empire,  had  declined 
the  union  upon  any  principle  of  superiority.  But  all 
things  became  known  in  time.  This  also  became 
known  ;  and  the  delirious  passion  of  scorn,  retorting 
scorn,  was  certainly  never,  before  or  since,  exempli- 
fied on  the  same  scale.  Josephus,  therefore,  profoundly 
aware  of  the  Roman  feeling,  sets  himself,  in  this  au- 
dacious falsehood,  to  propitiate  the  jealousy  so  wide 
av/ake,  and  the  pride  which  had  been  so  much  irritated. 
You  have  been  misinformed,  he  tells  the  Romans ;  we 
have  none  of  that  gloomy  unsociality  which  is  imputed 
to  us.  It  is  not  true  that  we  despise  alien  gods.  We 
do  not  worship,  but  we  venerate  Jupiter.  Our  law- 
giver commanded  us  to  do  so.  Josephus  hoped  in  thig 
way  to  soothe  the  angry  wounds  of  the  Roman  spirit. 
But  it  is  certain  that,  even  for  a  moment,  he  could  not 
have  succeeded.  His  countrymen  of  Jerusalem  could 
not  expose  him ;  they  had  perished.  Bu*  there  were 
\nany  myriads  of  his  countrymen  spread  over  the  face 
of  the  world,  who  would  contradict  every  word  that 


108 


THE  ESSEJS-ES. 


any  equivocating  Jew  might  write.  And  this  treachery 
of  Josephus,  therefore,  to  the  very  primal  injunction  of 
his  native  law,  must  have  been  as  useless  in  the  event 
as  it  was  base  in  the  purpose. 

VII.  —  Now,  therefore,  v/e  may  ask,  was  there  ever  a 
more  abject  perfidy  committed  than  this  which  we  have 
exposed  —  this  deliberate  surrender,  for  a  selfish  object, 
of  the  supremacy  and  unity  in  the  Jehovah  of  the  Jews 

—  this  solemn  renunciation  of  that  law  and  its  integrity, 
in  maintenance  of  which  seventy  generations  of  Jews^ 
including  weak  women  and  children,  have  endured  the 
penalties  of  a  dispersion  and  a  humiliation  more  bittei 
by  many  degrees  than  death  ?  Weighing  the  grounds 
of  comparison,  was  a  viler  treason  ever  perpetrated  ^ 
We  take  upon  ourselves  to  say  —  No.  And  yet,  ever 
in  treason  there  is  sometimes  a  dignity.  It  is  by  possi- 
bility a  bold  act,  a  perilous  act.  Even  in  this  case 
though  it  will  hardly  be  thought  such,  the  treason  o{ 
Josephus  might  have  been  dangerous  :  it  was  certainly 
committed  under  terror  of  the  Roman  sword,  but  ic 
might  have  been  avenged  by  the  Jewish  dagger.  Ha*l 
L  written  book  in  those  days  been  as  much  a  puMica- 
tion  of  a  man's  words  as  it  is  now,  Josephus  would 
not  long  have  survived  that  sentence  of  his  Antiquities, 
This  danger  gives  a  shadow  of  respectability  to  that 
act  of  Josephus.  And  therefore,  w^hen  it  is  asked  — 
can  a  viler  act  be  cited  from  history  ?  we  now  ansv^'cr 

—  yes  :  there  is  one  even  viler.  And  by  whom  com- 
mitted ?    By  Josephus.    Listen,  reader. 

The  overthrov/  of  his  country  was  made  the  iiU  ject 
of  a  Roman  triumph  —  of  a  triumph  in  w'jdXm  his 
Datrons,  Vespasian  and  his  two  sons.  figurM  w  the 


XHE  ESSENES. 


109 


centres  of  the  public  honor.  Jiidea,  with  her  banners 
trailing  in  the  dust,  was  on  this  day  to  be  carried  cap- 
tive. The  Jew  attended  with  an  obsequious  face, 
dressed  in  courtly  snriles.  The  prisoners,  who  are  to 
die  by  the  executioner  when  the  pomp  shall  have 
reached  the  summit  of  the  hill,  pass  by  in  chains. 
What  is  their  crime?  They  have  fought  like  brave 
men  for  that  dear  country  which  the  base  spectator  has 
sold  for  a  bribe.  Josephus,  the  prosperous  renegade, 
laughs  as  he  sees  them,  and  hugs  himself  on  his 
cunning.  Suddenly  a  tumult  is  seen  in  the  advancing 
crowds  — what  is  it  that  stirs  them?  It  is  the  sword 
of  the  Maccabees  :  it  is  the  image  of  Judas  Maccabseus, 
the  warrior  Jew,  and  of  his  unconquerable  brothers. 
Josephus  grins  with  admiration  of  the  jewelled  trophies. 
Next  —  but  what  shout  is  that  which  tore  the  very 
heavens  ?  The  abomination  of  desolation  is  passing 
by  —  the  Lav\^  and  the  Prophets,  surmounted  by  Capi- 
toline  Jove,  vibrating  his  pagan  thunderbolts.  Judea,  in 
the  form  of  a  lady,  sitting  beneath  her  palms  —  Judea, 
with  her  head  muffled  in  her  robe,  speechless,  sightless, 
is  carried  past.  And  what  does  the  Jew  ?  He  sits, 
like  a  modern  reporter  for  a  newspaper,  taking  notes 
of  the  circumstantial  features  in  this  unparalleled  scene, 
delighted  as  a  child  at  a  puppet-show,  and  finally 
weaves,  the  whole  into  a  picturesque  narrative.  The 
apologist  must  not  think  to  evade  the  effect  upon  all 
honorable  minds  by  supposing  the  case  that  the  Jew's 
presence  at  this  scene  of  triumph  over  his  ruined 
country,  and  his  subsequent  record  of  its  circumstances, 
might  be  a  movement  of  frantic  passion  —  bent  on 
knowing  the  worst,  bent  on  drinking  up  the  cup  of 
iUcgradation  to  the  very  last  drop.  No,  no  ;  this  escape 


110 


THE  ESSENES. 


IS  not  open.  The  description  itself  remains  to  this 
hour  in  attestation  of  the  astounding  fact,  that  this 
accursed  Jew  surveyed  the  closing  scene  in  the  great 
agonies  of  Jerusalem  —  not  with  any  thought  for  its 
frenzy,  for  its  anguish,  for  its  despair,  but  absorbed  in 
the  luxury  of  its  beauty,  and  with  a  single  eye  for  its 
purple  and  gold.  '  Off,  off,  sir  ! '  —  would  be  the  cr} 
to  such  a  wretch  in  any  age  of  the  world  :  to  '  spit  upon 
his  Jewish  gaberdine,'  would  be  the  wish  of  every 
honest  man.  Nor  is  there  any  thoughtful  person  who 
will  allege  that  such  another  case  exists.  Traitors 
there  have  been  many :  and  perhaps  traitors  who, 
trusting  to  the  extinction  of  all  their  comrades,  might 
have  had  courage  to  record  their  treasons.  But  cer- 
tainly there  is  no  other  person  known  to  history  who 
did,  and  who  proclaimed  that  he  did,  sit  as  a  volunteer 
spectator  of  his  buried  country  carried  past  in  effigy, 
confounded  with  a  vast  carnival  of  rejoicing  mobs  and 
armies,  echoing  their  jubilant  outcries,  and  pampering 
his  eyes  with  ivory  and  gold,  with  spoils,  and  with 
captives,  torn  from  the  funeral  pangs  of  his  country. 
That  case  is  unique,  without  a  copy,  without  a  precedent. 

So  much  for  Josephus.  We  have  thought  it  neces- 
sary to  destroy  that  man's  character,  on  the  principles 
of  a  king's  ship  in  levelling  bulkheads  and  partitions 
when  clearing  for  action.  Such  a  course  is  requisite 
for  a  perfect  freedom  of  motion.  Were  Josephus 
trustworthy,  he  would  sometimes  prove  an  impediment 
in  the  way  of  our  views  :  and  it  is  because  he  has  been 
too  carelessly  received  as  trustworthy,  that  more  accu- 
rate glimpses  have  not  been  obtained  of  Jewish  affairs 
in  more  instances  than  one.  Let  the  reader  understand 
also  that,  as  regards  the  Essenes,  Josephus  is  not  trust- 


THE  ESSENES. 


Ill 


worthy  on  a  double  reason ;  first,  on  account  of  his 
perfidy,  as  now  sufficiently  exposed,  which  too  often 
interfered  to  make  secondary  perfidies  requisite,  by  way 
of  calling  off  the  field  of  hunters  from  his  own  traces 
in  the  first ;  secondly,  because  his  peculiar  situation  as 
a  Pharisaic  doctor  of  the  law,  combined  with  his  char- 
acter, (which  surely  could  not  entirely  have  concealed 
itself  in  any.  stage  of  his  public  life,)  must  have  made 
it  necessary  for  the  Essenes  to  trust  him  very  cautious- 
ly, and  never  to  any  extent  that  might  have  been  irre- 
trievable in  the  event  of  his  turning  informer.  The 
Essenes,  at  all  events,  had  some  secret  to  guard ;  in 
any  case,  therefore,  they  were  responsible  for  the  lives 
of  all  their  members,  so  far  as  they  could  be  effected 
by  confidences  reposed  ;  and,  if  that  secret  happened 
to  be  Christianity,  then  were  they  trebly  bound  to  care 
and  jealousy,  for  that  secret  involved  not  only  many 
lives,  but  a  mighty  interest  of  human  nature,  so  that  a 
single  instance  of  carelessness  might  be  the  most  awful 
of  crimes.  Hence  we  understand  at  once  why  it  is 
that  Josephus  never  advanced  beyond  the  lowest  rank 
in  the  secret  society  of  the  Essenes.  His  worldly 
character,  his  duplicity,  his  weakness,  were  easily 
discerned  by  the  eagle-eyed  fathers  of  Christianity. 
Consequently,  he  must  be  viewed  as  under  a  perpetual 
surveillance  from  what  may  be  called  the  police  of 
history  —  liable  to  suspicion  as  one  who  had  a  frequent 
interest  in  falsehood,  in  order  to  screen  himself;  sec- 
ondly, as  one  liable  to  unintentional  falsehood,  from 
the  indisposition  to  trust  him.  Having  now  extracted 
the  poison-fangs  from  the  Jewish  historian,  we  will 
take  a  further  notice  of  his  history  in  relation  to  the 
Essenes  in  Part  III. 


112 


THE  ESSENES, 


PART  III. 

The  secret  history  of  Judea,  thro  igh  the  two  gene- 
rations preceding  the  destruction  of  Jeiusalem,  might 
yet  be  illuminated  a  little  better  than  it  has  been  by 
Josephus.  It  would,  however,  require  a  separate  paper 
for  itself.  At  present  we  shall  take  but  a  slight  glance 
or  two  at  that  subject,  and  merely  in  reference  to  the 
Essenes.  Nothing  shows  the  crooked  conduct  of  Jose- 
phus so  much  as  the  utter  perplexity,  the  mere  laby- 
rinth of  doubts,  in  which  he  has  involved  the  capital 
features  of  the  last  Jewish  war.  Two  points  only  we 
notice,  for  their  connection  with  the  Essenes. 

Firsts  What  was  the  cause,  the  outstanding  pretext, 
on  either  side,  for  the  Jewish  insurrectionary  war? 
We  know  well  what  were  the  real  impulses  to  that 
war;  but  what  was  the  capital  and  overt  act  on  either 
side  which  forced  the  Jewish  irritation  into  a  hopeless 
contest  r  What  was  the  ostensible  ground  alleged  for 
the  war  ? 

Josephus  durst  not  have  told,  had  he  known.  He 
must  have  given  a  Roman,  an  ex  parte  statement,  at 
any  rate  ;  and  let  that  consideration  never  be  lost  sight 
of  in  taking  his  evidence.  He  might  blame  a  particu- 
lar Roman,  such  as  Gessius  Florus,  because  he  found 
Jiat  Romans  themselves  condemned  Jiim.  He  might 
vaunt  his  veracity  and  his  naoQ^ma  in  a  little  corner  of 
the  general  story ;  but  durst  he  speak  plainly  on  the 
broad  field  of  Judsean  politics  ?  Not  for  his  life.  Or, 
had  the  Roman  magnanimity  taken  off  his  shackles, 
what  becamB  of  his  court  favor  and  preferment,  in  case 
he  spoke  freely  of  Roman  policy  as  a  system  ? 

Hence  it  is  that  Josephus  shuffles  so  miserably  when 


THE  ESSENES. 


113 


attempting  to  assign  the  cause  or  causes  of  the  war. 
Four  different  causes  he  assigns  in  different  places,  not 
one  of  which  is  other  than  itself  an  effect  from  higher 
causes,  and  a  mere  symptom  of  the  convulsions  work- 
ing below.  For  instance,  the  obstinate  withdrawal  of 
the  daily  sacrifice  offered  for  Caesar,  which  is  one  of 
the  causes  alleged,  could  not  have  occurred  until  the 
real  and  deep-seated  causes  of  that  war  had  operated 
on  the  general  temper  for  some  time.  It  was  a  public 
insult  to  Rome  :  would  have  occasioned  a  demand  for 
explanation  :  would  have  been  revoked  :  the  imme(Ji- 
ate  author  punished  :  and  all  would  have  subsided  into 
a  personal  affair,  had  it  not  been  supported  by  exten- 
sive combinations  below  the  surface,  which  could  no 
longer  be  suppressed.  Into  them  we  are  not  going  to 
enter.  We  wish  only  to  fix  attention  upon  the  igno- 
rance of  Josephus,  whether  unaffected  in  this  instance, 
or  assumed  for  the  sake  of  disguising  truths  unaccept- 
able to  Roman  ears. 

The  question  of  itself  has  much  to  do  with  the 
origin  of  the  Essenes. 

Secondly,  Who  were  those  Sicarii  of  whom  J^Dse- 
phus  talks  so  m_uch  during  the  latter  years  of  Jerusa- 
lem ?  Can  any  man  believe  so  monstrous  a  fable  as 
this,  viz.  that  not  one,  but  thousands  of  men  were  con- 
federated for  purposes  of  murder  ;  2dly,  of  murder  not 
interested  in  its  own  success  —  murder  not  directed 
against  any  known  derterminate  objects,  but  murder 
indiscriminate,  secret,  objectless,  what  a  lawyer  might 
call  liomicidium  vagum ;  3dly,  that  this  confederacy 
Bhould  subsist  for  years,  should  levy  war,  should  en- 
trench itself  in  fortresses ;  4thly,  (which  is  more  in- 
comprehensible than  all  the  rest,)  should  talk  and 
8 


114 


THE  ESSENES. 


harangue  in  the  spirit  of  sublime  martyrdom  to  some 
holy  interest ;  5thly,  should  breathe  the  same  spirit 
into  women  and  little  children  ;  and  finally,  that  all; 
with  one  accord,  rather  than  submit  to  foreign  con- 
quest, should  choose  to  die  in  one  hour,  from  the  old- 
est to  the  youngest  ?  Such  a  tale  in^  its  outset,  in  the 
preliminary  confederation,  is  a  tale  of  ogres  and 
ogresses,  not  of  human  creatures  trained  under  a  divine 
law  to  a  profound  sense  of  accountability.  Such  a 
tale,  in  its  latter  sections,  is  a  tale  of  martyrs  more 
thcin  human.  Such  a  tale,  as  a  whole,  is  self-contra- 
dictory. A  vile  purpose  makes  vile  all  those  that 
pursue  it.  Even  the  East  Indian  Thugs  are  not  con- 
gregated by  families.  It  is  much  if  ten  thousand  fami- 
lies furnish  one  Thug.  And  as  to  the  results  of  such 
a  league,  is  it  possible  that  a  zealous  purpose  of  murder 

—  of  murder  for  the  sake  of  murder,  should  end  in 
nobility  of  spirit  so  eminent,  that  nothing  in  Christian 
martyrdoms  goes  beyond  the  extremity  of  self-sacrifice 
which  even  their  enemies  have  granted  to  the  Sicarii  ? 
'  Whose  courage,'  (we  are  quoting  from  the  bitterest 
of  enemies,)  '  whose  courage,  or  shall  we  call  it  mad- 
ness, everybody  was  amazed  at ;  for,  when  all  sorts  of 
torments  that  could  be  imagined  were  applied  to  their 
bodies,  not  one  of  them  would  comply  so  far  as  to 
confess,  or  seem  to  confess,  that  Caesar  was  their  lord 

—  as  if  they  received  those  torments,  and  the  very 
fury  of  the  furnace  which  burned  them,  to  ashes,  with 
bodies  that  were  insensible  and  with  souls  that  exceed- 
ingly rejoiced.  But  what  most  of  all  astonished  the 
beholders  was  the  courage  of  the  children  ;  for  not 
one  of  all  these  children  was  so  far  subdued  by  the 
torments  it  endured,  as  to  confess  Caesar  for  its  lord. 


THE  ESSENES. 


115 


Such  a  marvellous  thing  for  endurance  is  the  tender 
and  delicate  body  of  man,  when  supported  by  an  un- 
conquerable soul ! ' 

No,  no,  reader,  there  is  villany  at  work  in  this  whole 
story  about  the  Sicarii.  We  are  duped,  we  are  cheat- 
ed, we  are  mocked.  Felony,  conscious  murder,  never 
in  this  world  led  to  such  results  as  these.  Conscience 
it  was,  that  must  have  acted  here.  No  power  short  of 
that,  ever  sustained  frail  women  and  children  in  such 
fiery  trials.  A  conscience  it  may  have  been  erring  in 
its  principles  ;  but  those  principles  must  have  been 
divine.  Resting  on  any  confidence  less  than  iliat^  the 
resolution  of  women  and  children  so  tried  must  have 
given  way.  Here,  too,  evidently,  we  have  the  genuine 
temper  of  the  Maccabees,  struggling  and  sufi'ering  in 
the  same  spirit  and  with  the  same  ultimate  hopes. 

After  what  has  been  exposed  with  regard  to  Jose- 
phus,  we  presume  that  his  testimony  against  the  Sicarii 
will  go  for  little.  That  man  may  readily  be  supposed 
to  have  borne  false  witness  against  his  brethren  who 
is  proved  to  have  borne  false  witness  against  God. 
Him,  therefore,  or  anything  that  he  can  say,  we  set 
aside.  But  as  all  is  still  dark  about  the  Sicarii,  we 
shall  endeavor  to  trace' their  real  position  in  the  Jewish 
war.  For  merely  to  prove  that  they  have  been  calum- 
niated does  not  remove  the  cloud  that  rests  upon  their 
history.  That,  indeed,  cannot  be  removed  at  this  day 
in  a  manner  satisfactory  ;  but  we  see  enough  to  indi- 
cate the  purity  of  their  intentions.  And,  with  respect 
to  their  enemy  Josephus,  let  us  remember  one  fact, 
which  merely  the  want  of  a  personal  interest  in  the 
question  has  permitted  to.  lie  so  long  in  the  shade,  viz. 
that  three  distinct  causes  made  it  really  impossible  for 


116 


THE  ESSENES. 


that  man  to  speak  the  truth.  First,  his  own  partisan- 
ship :  having  adopted  one  faction,  he  was  bound  to 
regard  all  others  as  wrong  and  hostile :  Secondly,  his 
captivity  and  interest :  —  in  what  regarded  the  merits 
of  the  cause,  a  Roman  prisoner  durst  not  have  spoken 
the  truth.  These  causes  of  distortion  or  falsehood  in 
giving  that  history  would  apply  even  to  honest  men, 
unless  with  their  honesty  they  combined  a  spirit  of 
martyrdom.  But  there  w^as  a  third  cause  peculiar  to 
the  position  of  Josephus,  viz.  conscious  guilt  and  shame. 
He  could  not  admit  others  to  have  been  right  but  in 
words  that  would  have  confounded  himself.  If  they 
were  not  mad,  he  was  a  poltroon :  if  they  had  done 
their  duty  as  patriots,  then  was  he  a  traitor ;  if  they 
were  not  frantic,  then  was  Josephus  an  apostate.  This 
was  a  logic  which  required  no  subtle  dialectician  to 
point  and  enforce  :  simply  the  narrative,  if  kept  steady 
to  the  fact  and  faithful,  must  silently  suggest  that  con- 
clusion to  everybody.  And  for  that  reason,  had  there 
been  no  other,  it  was  not  steady ;  for  that  reason  it  was 
not  faithful.  Now  let  us  turn  to  the  Sicarii.  Who 
were  they  ? 

Thirdly,  It  is  a  step  towards  the  answer  if  we  ask 
previously.  Who  were  the  Galileans  ?  Many  people 
read  Josephus  under  the  impression  that,  of  course, 
this-  term  designates  merely  the  inhabitants  of  the  two 
Galilees.  We,  by  diligent  collation  of  passages,  have 
convinced  ourselves  that  it  does  not  —  it  means  a 
particular  faction  in  Jewish  politics.  And,  which  is  a 
fact  already  noticed  by  Eusebius,  it  often  includes 
many  of  the  new  Christian  sect.  But  this  requires  an 
explanation. 

Strange  it  seems  to  us  that  men  should  overlook  so 


THE  ESSENES. 


117 


obvious  a  truth  as  that  in  every  age  Christianity  must 
have  counted  amongst  it  nominal  adherents  the  erring 
believer,  the  partial  believer,  the  wavering  believer, 
equally  with  the  true,  the  spiritual,  the  entire,  and  the 
steadfast  believer.  What  sort  of  believers  were  those 
who  would  have  taken  Christ  and  forcibly  made  him  a 
king  ?  Erroneous  believers,  it  must  be  admitted  ;  but 
still  in  some  points,  partially  and  obscurely,  they  must 
have  been  powerfully  impressed  by  the  truth  which 
they  had  heard  from  Christ.  Many  of  these  might 
fall  away  when  that  personal  impression  was  with- 
drawn ;  but  many  must  have  survived  all  hinderances 
and  obstacles.  Semi- Christians  there  must  always 
have  been  in  great  numbers.  Those  who  were  such 
in  a  merely  religious  view  we  believe  to  have  been 
called  Nazarenes ;  those  in  whom  the  political  aspects, 
at  first  universally  ascribed  to  Christianity,  happened 
to  predominate,  were  known  by  the  more  general 
name  of  Galileans.  This  name  expressed  in  its  fore- 
most element,  opposition  to  the  Romans  ;  in  its  sec- 
ondary element,  Christianity.  And  its  rise  may  be 
traced  thus : 

Whoever  would  thoroughly  investigate  the  very 
complex  condition  of  Palestine  in  our  Saviour's  days, 
must  go  back  to  Herod  the  Great.  This  man,  by  his 
peculiar  policy  and  his  power,  stood  between  the  Jews 
and  the  Romans  as  a  sort  of  Janus,  or  indifferent 
mediator.  Any  measure  which  Roman  ignorance 
would  have  inflicted,  unmodified,  on  the  rawest  con- 
dition of  Jewish  bigotry,  he  contrived  to  have  tem- 
pered and  qualified.  For  his  own  interest,  and  not 
with  any  more  generous  purpose,  he  screened  from 
the  Romans  various  ebullitions  of  Jewish  refractori- 


118 


THE  ESSENES. 


ness,  and  from  the  Jews  he  screened  all  accurate 
knowledge  of  the  probable  Eoman  intentions.  But 
after  his  death,  and  precisely  during  the  course  of  our 
Saviour's  life,  these  intentions  transpired  :  reciprocal 
knowledge  and  menaces  were  exchanged ;  and  the 
elements  of  insurrection  began  to  mould  themselves 
silently,  but  not  steadily ;  for  the  agitation  was  great 
and  increasing  as  the  crisis  seemed  to  approach. 
Herod  the  Great,  as  a  vigorous  prince,  and  very  rich, 
might  possibly  have  maintained  the  equilibrium,  had 
he  lived.  But  this  is  doubtful.  In  his  old  age  various 
events  had  combined  to  shake  his  authority,  viz.,  the 
tragedies  in  his  own  family,  and  especially  the  death 
of  Mariamne ;  ^  by  which,  like  Ferdinand  of  Aragon, 
pr  our  Henry  VII.,  under  the  same  circumstances,  he 
seemed  in  law  to  lose  his  title  to  the  throne.  But, 
above  all,  his  compliance  with  idolatry,  (according  to 
the  Jewish  interpretation,)  in  setting  up  the  golden 
eagle  by  way  of  homage  to  Home,  gave  a  shock  to 
his  authority  that  never  could  have  been  healed.  Out 
of  the  affair  of  the  golden  eagle  grew,  as  we  are 
persuaded,  the  sect  of  the  Herodians  —  those  who 
justified  a  compromising  spirit  of  dealing  with  the 
Romans.  This  threw  off,  as  its  anti-pole,  a  sect  furi- 
ously opposed  to  the  Bomans.  That  sect,  under  the 
management  of  Judas,  (otherwise  called  Theudas,)  ex- 
panded greatly  ;  he  was  a  Galilean,  and  the  sect  were 
therefore  naturally  called  Galileans.  Into  this  main 
sea  of  Jewish  nationality  emptied  themselves  all  other 
less  powerful  sects  that,  under  any  modification, 
avowed  an  anti-Boman  spirit.  The  religious  rect  of 
the  Christians  was  from  the  first  caught  and  hurried 
away  into  this  overmastering  vortex.    No  matter  that 


THE  ESSENES. 


119 


Christ  lost  no  opportunity  of  teaching  that  his  kingdom 
was  not  of  this  world.  Did  he  not  preach  a  new 
salvation  to  the  House  of  Israel  ?  Where  could  that 
lie  but  through  resistance  to  Rome  ?  His  followers 
resolved  to  place  him  at  their  head  as  a  king  ;  and  his 
crucifixion  in  those  stormy  times  was  certainly  much 
influenced  by  the  belief  that,  as  the  object  of  political 
attachment,  he  had  become  dangerous  whether  sanc- 
tioning that  attachment  or  not. 

Out  of  this  sect  of  Galileans,  comprehending  all 
who  avowed  a  Jewish  nationality,  (and  therefore  many 
semi- Christians,  that  is,  men  who,  in  a  popular  sense, 
and  under  whatever  view,  had  professed  to  follow 
Christ,)  arose  the  sect  of  Sicarii  —  that  is,  out  of  a 
vast  multitude  professing  good-will  to  the  service, 
these  men  separated  themselves  as  the  men  of  action, 
the  executive  ministers,  the  self- devoting  soldiers. 
This  is  no  conjecture.  It  happens  that  Josephus,  who 
had  kept  us  in  the  dark  about  these  Sicarii  in  that  part 
of  his  narrative  which  most  required  some  clue  to 
their  purposes,  afterwards  forgets  himself,  and  inci- 
dentally betrays  [_Wars,  B.  vii.  chap.  8,  sect.  1]  that 
the  Sicarii  had  originally  been  an  offset  from  the  sect 
founded  by  Judas  the  Galilean;  that  their  general 
purpose  was  the  same  ;  so  that,  no  doubt,  it  was  a 
new  feature  of  the  time  giving  a  new  momentary 
direction  to  the  efforts  of  the  patriotic  which  had 
constituted  the  distinction  and  which  authorized  the 
denomination.  Was  Miltiades  wrong  ?  Was  Tell 
wrong  ?  Was  Wallace  wrong  ?  Then,  but  not  else, 
were  the  Galileans  ;  and  from  them  the  Sicarii  proba- 
bably  differed  only  as  the  brave  doer  differs  from  the 
just  thinker.     But  the  Sicarii,  you  will  say,  used 


120 


THE  ESSENES. 


unhallowed  means.  Probably  not.  We  do  not  know 
what  means  they  used,  except  most  indistiuctly  from 
theii  base  and  rancorous  enemy.  The  truth,  so  far  as 
it  can  be  descried  through  the  dust  of  ages  and  the 
fury  of  partisanship,  appears  to  be,  that,  at  a  moment 
when  law  slumbered  and  police  was  inefficient,  they 
assumed  the  duties  of  resistance  to  a  tyranny  which 
even  the  Roman  apologist  admits  to  have  been  insuf- 
ferable. They  are  not  heard  of  as  actors  until  the 
time  when  Gessius  Florus,  by  opening  the  floodgates 
to  military  insolence,  had  himself  given  a  license  to 
an  armed  reaction.  Where  justice  W^s  sought  in  vain, 
probably  the  Sicarii  showed  themselves  as  ministers  of 
a  sudden  retribution.  When  the  vilest  outrages  were 
uifered  by  foreigners  to  their  women,  probably  thev 
'  visited  '  for.  such  atrocities.  That  state  of  things, 
which  caused  the  tribunal  to  slumber,  privileged  the 
individual  to  awake.  And  in  a  land  whose  inspired 
monuments  recorded  for  everlasting  praise  the  acts  of 
Judith,  of  Samson,  of  Judas  Maccabseus,  these  sum- 
mary avengers,  the  Sicarii,  might  reasonably  conceive 
that  they  held  the  same  heavenly  commission  under 
the  same  earthly  oppression. 

Reviewing  the  whole  of  that  calamitous  period, 
combining  the  scattered  notices  of  the  men  and  their 
acts,  and  the  reflections  of  both  thrown  back  from 
the  mirrors  offered  to  us  by  the  measures  of  counter- 
action adopted  at  the  time,  we  have  little  doubt  that 
the  Sicarii  and  the  Zealots  were  both  offsets  from 
the  same  great  sect  of  the  Galileans,  and  that  in  an 
imperfect  sense,  or  by  tendency,  all  were  Christians ; 
whence  partly  the  re-infusion  of  the  ancient  Jewish 
spirit  into  their  acts  and  counsels  and  indomitable 
lesolution. 


THE  ESSENES. 


121 


But  also  we  believe  that  this  very  political  leaven  it 
fvas,  as  dispersed  through  the  body  of  the  Galileans, 
which  led  to  the  projection  from  the  main  body  of  a 
new  order  called  the  Essenes  ;  this  political  taint,  that 
is  to  say,  combined  with  the  danger  of  professing  a 
'proselytizing  Christianity.  In  that  anarchy,  which 
through  the  latter  years  of  Nero  covered  J udea  as  with 
the  atmosphere  of  hell,  the  Christian  fathers  saw  the 
necessity  of  separating  themselves  from  these  children 
of  violence.  They  might  be  right  politically  —  and 
certainly  they  began  in  patriotism —  but  too  often  the 
apprehensive  consciences  of  Christians  recoiled  from 
the  vengeance  in  which  they  ended.  By  tolerating  the 
belief  that  they  coimtenanced  the  Galileans  or  Sicarii, 
the  primitive  Church  felt  that  she  would  be  making 
herself  a  party  to  their  actions  —  often  bloody  and 
vindictive,  and  sometimes  questionable  on  any  princi- 
ples, since  private  enmities  would  too  easily  mingle 
with  public  motives,  and  if  right,  would  be  right  in  an 
earthly  sense.  But  the  persecution  which  arose  at 
Jerusalem  would  strengthen  these  conscientious  scruples 
by  others  of  urgent  prudence.  A  sect  that  prosely- 
tized was  at  any  rate  a  hazardous  sect  in  Judea ;  and 
a  sect  that  had  drawn  upon  itself  persecution,  must 
have  felt  a  triple  summons  to  the  instant  assumption  of 
a  disguise. 

Upon  this  warning,  we  may  suppose,  arose  the 
secret  society  of  the  Essenes ;  and  its  organization 
was  most  artful.  In  fact,  the  relations  of  Judaism  to 
Christianity  furnished  a  means  of  concealment  such  as 
could  not  have  otherwise  existed  without  positive  deceit. 
By  arranging  four  concentric  circles  about  one  mys- 
terious centre  —  by  suffering  no  advances  to  be  made 


122 


THE  ESSENES. 


from  the  outside  to  the  innermost  ring  but  through 
years  of  probation,  through  multiplied  trials  of  temper, 
multiplied  obligations  upon  the  conscience  to  secrecy, 
the  Christian  fathers  were  enabled  to  lead  men  on- 
wards insensibly  from  intense  Judaic  bigotry  to  the 
purest  form  of  Christianity.  The  outermost  circle 
received  those  candidates  only  whose  zeal  for  rigorous 
Judaism  argued  a  hatred  of  pagan  corruptions,  and 
therefore  gave  some  pledge  for  religious  fervor.  In 
this  rank  of  novices  no  ray  of  light  broke  out  from  the 
centre  —  no  suspicion  of  any  alien  doctrine  dawned 
upon  them :  all  was  J udaic,  and  the  whole  Mosaic  the- 
ology was  cultivated  alike.  This  we  call  the  ultimate 
rank.  Next,  in  the  penultimate  rank,  the  eye  was  fa- 
miliarized with  the  prophecies  respecting  the  Messiah, 
and  somewhat  exclusively  pointed  to  that  doctrine,  and 
such  other  doctrines  in  the  Mosaic  scheme  as  express 
an  imperfection,  a  tendency,  a  call  for  an  integration. 
In  the  third,  or  antepenultimate  rank,  the  attention  was 
trained  to  the  general  characters  of  the  Messiah,  as 
likely  to  be  realized  in  some  personal  manifestation  ; 
and  a  question  was  raised,  as  if  for  investigation,  in 
what  degree  these  characters  met  and  were  exempli- 
fied in  the  mysterious  person  who  had  so  lately 
engaged  the  earnest  attention  of  all  Palestine.  He 
had  assumed  the  office  of  Messiah :  he  had  suffered 
for  that  assumption  at  Jerusalem.  By  what  evidences 
was  it  ascertained,  in  a  way  satisfactory  to  just  men, 
that  he  was  not  the  Messiah  ?  Many  points,  it  would 
be  urged  as  by  way  of  unwilling  concession,  did  cer- 
tainly correspond  between  the  mysterious  person  and 
the  prophetic  delineation  of  the  idea.  Thus  far  no 
suspicion  has  been  suffered  to  reach  the  disciple,  that 


THE  ESSENES. 


12S 


he  is  now  rapidly  aproaching  to  a  torrent  that  will 
suck  him  into  a  new  faith.  Nothing  has  transpired 
which  can  have  shocked  the  most  angry  Jewish  fanati- 
cism. And  yet  all  is  ready  for  the  great  transition. 
But  at  this  point  comes  the  last  crisis  for  the  aspirant. 
Under  color  of  disputing  the  claims  of  Christ,  the 
disciple  has  been  brought  acquainted  with  the  whole 
mystery  of  the  Christian  theory.  If  his  heart  is  good 
and  true,  he  has  manifested  by  this  time  such  a  sense 
of  the  radiant  beauty  which  has  been  gradually  un- 
veiled, that  he  reveals  his  own  trustworthiness.  If  he 
retains  his  scowling  bigotry,  the  consistory  at  the 
centre  are  warned,  and  trust  him  no  farther.  He  is 
excluded  from  the  inner  ranks,  and  is  reconciled  to  the 
exclusion  (or,  if  not,  is  turned  aside  from  suspicion) 
by  the  impression  conveyed  to  him,  that  these  central 
ranks  are  merely  the  governing  ranks,  —  highest  in 
power,  but  not  otherwise  distinguished  in  point  of 
doctrine. 

Thus,  though  all  is  true  from  first  to  last,  from  centre 
to  circumference  — though  nothing  is  ever  taught  but 
the  truth  —  yet,  by  the  simple  precaution  of  gradua- 
tion, and  of  not  teaching  everywhere  the  whole  truth 
—  in  the  very  midst  of  truth  the  most  heavenly,  were 
attained  all  the  purposes  of  deceit  the  most  earthly. 
The  case  was  as  though  the  color  of  blue  were  a  pro- 
hibited and  a  dangerous  color.  But  upon  a  suggestion 
that  yellow  is  a  most  popular  color,  and  green  tole- 
rated, whilst  the  two  extremes  of  blue  and  yellow  are 
both  blended  and  confounded  in  green,  this  last  is 
selected  for  the  middle  rank ;  and  then  breaking  it  up 
by  insensible  degradations  into  the  blue  tints  towards 
the  interior,  and  the  yellow  towards  the  outermost 


124 


THE  ESSENES. 


rings,  the  cas3  is  so  managed  as  to  present  the  full 
popular  yellow  at  the  outside,  and  the  celestial  blue  at 
the  hidden  centre. 

Such  was  the  constitution  of  the  Essenes  ;  in  which, 
however,  the  reader  must  not  overlook  one  fact,  that, 
because  the  danger  of  Christianity  as  a  religious  pro- 
fession was  confined,  during  the  Epichristian  age,  to 
J udea,  therefore  the  order  of  the  Essenes  was  confined 
to  that  region  ;  and  that  in  the  extra- Syrian  churches, 
the  Christians  of  Palestine  were  known  simply  as  the 
Brethren  of  Jerusalem,  of  Sepphoris,  &c.,  without 
further  designation  or  disguise.  Let  us  now  see, 
having  stated  the  particular  circumstances  in  which  this 
disguise  of  a  secret  society  called  Essenes  arose,  what 
further  arguments  can  be  traced  for  identifying  these 
Essenes  with  the  Christians  of  Palestine. 

We  have  already  pursued  the  Essenes  and  the 
Christians  through  ten  features  of  agreement.  Now 
let  us  pursue  them  through  a  few  others.  And  let  the 
logic  of  the  parallel  be  kept  steadily  in  view  :  above, 
we  show  some  characteristic  reputed  to  be  true  of  the 
Essenes  ;  below,  we  show  that  this  same  characteristic 
is  known  from  other  sources  to  be  true  of  the  Chris- 
tians. 

No.  I.  —  The  Essenes^  according  to  Josephus,  were 
in  the  habit  of  prophesying.  —  The  only  prophets 
known  in  the  days  of  the  Apostles,  and  recognized  as 
such  by  the  Christian  writers,  Agabus  for  instance,  and 
others,  were  Christians  of  the  Christian  brotherhood  in 
Judea. 

'  And  it  is  hut  seldom,^  says  Josephus,  '  they  miss  in 
their  predictions.'  — Josephus  could  not  but  have  been 


THE  ESSENES. 


-125 


acquainted  svith  this  prophecy  of  Agabus  —  too  prac- 
tical, too  near,  too  urgent,  too  local,  not  to  have  rung 
throughout  Judea;  before  the  event,  as  a  warning; 
after  it,  as  a  great  providential  miracle.  He  must 
therefore  have  considered  Agabus  as  one  of  those  people 
whom  he  means  by  the  term  Essenes.  Now  ive  know 
him  for  a  Christian.  Ergo,  here  is  a  case  of  identity 
made  out  between  a  Christian,  owned  for  such  by  the 
Apostles,  and  one  of  the  Essenes. 

No.  II.  —  The  Essenes  particularly  applied  them- 
selves to  the  study  of  medicine.  —  This  is  very  re- 
markable in  a  sect  like  the  Essenes,  who,  from  their 
rigorous  habits  of  abstinence,  must  of  all  men  have 
had  ttie  least  personal  call  for  medicine  :  but  not  at  all 
remarkable  if  the  Essenes  are  identified  with  the 
Christians.  For, 

1.  Out  of  so  small  a  number  as  four  Evangelists, 
one  was  a  physician  —  which  shows  at  least  the  fact 
that  medicine  was  cultivated  amongst  the  Christians. 
But, 

2.  The  reason  of  this  will  appear  immediately  in 
the  example  left  by  Christ,  and  in  the  motives  to  that 
example. 

As  to  the  example,  at  least  nine  in  ten  of  Christ's 
miracles  were  7nedical  miracles  —  miracles  applied  to 
derangements  of  the  human  system. 

As  to  the  motives  which  governed  our  Saviour  in 
this  particular  choice,  it  would  be  truly  ridiculous  and 
worthy  of  a  modern  utilitarian,  to  suppose  that  Christ, 
would  have  suffered  his  time  to  be  occupied,  and  the 
great  vision  of  his  contemplations  to  be  interrupted, 
oy  an  employment  so  trifling,  (trifling  surely  by  com- 


126 


THE  ESSENES. 


parisoii  with  Lis  transcendent  purposes,)  as  the  healing 
of  a  few  hundreds,  more  or  less,  in  one  small  district 
through  one  brief  triennium.  This  healing  office  was 
adopted,  not  chiefly  for  its  own  sake,  but  partly  as  a 
symbolic  annunciation  of  a  superior  healing,  abun- 
dantly significant  to  Oriental  minds ;  chiefly,  however, 
as  the  indispensable  means,  in  an  eastern  land,  of 
advertising  his  approach  far  and  wide,  and  thus  con- 
voking the  people  by  myriads  to  his  instructions*. 
From  Barbary  to  Hindostan  —  from  the  setting  to  the 
rising  sun  —  it  is  notorious  that  no  travelling  character 
is  so  certainly  a  safe  one  as  that  of  hakim  or  physician. 
As  he  advances  on  his  route,  the  news  fly  before  him  ; 
disease  is  evoked  as  by  the  rod  of  Amram's  son  ;  the 
beds  of  sick  people,  in  every  rank,  are  ranged  along 
the  road-sides  ;  and  the  beneficent  dispenser  of  health 
or  of  relief  moves  through  the  prayers  of  hope  on  the 
one  side,  and  of  gratitude  on  the  other.  Well  may 
the  character  be  a  protection  :  for  not  only  is  every 
invalid  in  the  land  his  friend  from  the  first,  but  every 
one  who  loves  or  pities  an  invalid.  In  fact,  the  char- 
acter is  too  favorable,  because  it  soon  becomes  burden- 
some ;  so  that  of  late,  in  Afighanistan,  Bokhara,  &c., 
Englishmen  have  declined  its  aid  —  for  inevitably  it 
impedes  a  man's  progress  ;  and  it  exposes  him  to  two 
classes  of  applications,  one  embarrassing  from  the 
extravagance  of  its  expectations,  (as  that  a  man  should 
understand  doubtful  or  elaborate  symptoms  at  a  glance,) 
the  other  degrading  to  an  Englishman's  feelings,  by 
calling  upon  him  for  aphrodisiacs  or  other  modes  of 
collusion  with  Oriental  sensuality.  This  medical 
character  the  Apostles  and  their  delegates  adopted, 
using  it  both  as  the  trumpet  o^  summons  to  some  cen- 


THE  ESSENES. 


127 


fcral  rendezvous,  and  also  as  the  very  best  means  of 
opening  the  heart  to  religious  influences  —  the  heart 
softened  already  by  suffering,  turned  inwards  by  soli- 
tary musing ;  or  melted,  perhaps,  by  relief  from 
anguish  into  fervent  gratitude.  This,  upon  consid 
eration,  we  believe  to  have  been  the  secret  key  to  the 
apostolic  meaning,  in  sending  abroad  the  report  that 
they  cultivated  medicine.  They  became  what  so  many 
of  us  Englishmen  have  become  in  Oriental  countries, 
hakims ;  and  as  with  us,  that  character  was  assumed 
as  a  disguise  for  ulterior  purposes  that  could  not  have 
been  otherwise  obtained  ^  —  our  purposes  were  liberal, 
theirs  divine.  Therefore  we  conclude  our  argument 
No.  II.  by  saying,  that  this  medical  feature  in  the 
Essenes  is  not  only  found  in  the  Christians,  but  is  found 
radicated  in  the  very  constitution  of  that  body,  as  a 
'proselytizing  order,  who  could  not  dispense  with 
some  excuse  or  other  for  assembling  the  people  in 
crowds. 

No.  III.  — The  Essenes  think  that  oil  is  a  defilement, 
—  So  says  J osephus,  as  one  who  stood  in  the  outermost 
rank  of  the  order  —  admitted  to  a  knowledge  of  some 
distinctions,  but  never  to  the  secret  meaning  upon 
which  those  distinctions  turned.  Now  with  respect  to 
this  new  characteristic,  what  is  our  logical  duty  ?  It 
IS  our  duty  to  show  that  the  Essenes,  supposing  them 
to  be  the  latent  Christians,  had  a  special  motive  for  re- 
jecting oil ;  whereas  on  any  other  assumption  they  had 
no  such  motive.  And  next,  we  will  show  that  this 
special  motive  has  sustained  itself  in  the  traditionary 
usages  of  a  remote  posterity. 

First  of  all,  then,  how  came  the  Jews  ever  to  use  oil 


128 


THE  ESSENES. 


at  all  for  the  purpose  of  anointing  their  persons  ?  It  was 
adopted  as  a  Grecian  luxury,  from  their  Grecian  fellow- 
townsmen  in  cities  without  number,  under  the  Syro- 
Macedonian  kings.  Not  only  in  Syria  proper,  but  in 
many  other  territories  adjacent  to  Judea,  there  were 
cities  like  the  two  Csesareas,  the  maritime  and  the  in- 
land, which  were  divided  between  Greeks  and  Jews  ; 
from,  which  equality  of  rights  came  feuds  and  dreadful 
calamities  in  the  end,  but  previously  a  strong  contagion 
of  Grecian  habits.  Hence,  in  part,  it  arose  that  the 
Jews  in  our  Saviour's  time  were  far  from  being  that 
simple  people  which  they  had  been  whilst  insulated  in 
gloomy  seclusion,  or  whilst  associated  only  with  mo- 
notonous Oriental  neighbors.  Amongst  other  luxuries 
which  they  had  caught  from  their  Grecian  neighbors, 
were  those  of  the  bath  and  the  palaestra.  But  in  Jeru- 
salem, as  the  heart  of  Judea,^  and  the  citadel  of  Jewish 
principle,  some  front  of  resistance  was  still  opposed  to 
these  exotic  habits.  The  language  was  one  aid  to  this 
resistance  ;  for  elsewhere  the  Greek  was  gaining 
ground,  whilst  here  the  corrupted  Hebrew  prevailed. 
But  a  stronger  repulsion  to  foreigners  was  the  eternal 
gloom  of  the  public  manners.  No  games  in  Jerusalem 
—  no  theatre  —  no  hippodrome  ;  for  all  these  you  must 
go  down  to  the  seaside,  where  Csesarea,  though  built 
by  a  Jew,  and  half-peopled  by  Jews,  was  the  Roman 
m  3tropolis  of  Palestine,  and  with  every  sort  of  Roman 
luxury.  To  this  stern  Jerusalem  standard  all  Jews  con- 
formed in  the  proportion  of  their  patriotism ;  to  Grsecize 
or  not  to  Graecize  had  become  a  test  of  patriotic  feel- 
ing ;  and  thus  far  the  Essenes  had  the  same  general 
reasons  as  the  Christians  (supposing  them  two  distinct 
i)rders  of  men)  for  setting  their  faces  against  the  luxu 


THE  ESSENES. 


129 


rious  manners  of  the  age.  But  if  the  Essenes  were 
Christians,  then  we  infer  that  they  had  a  much  stronger 
and  a  special  motive  to  all  kinds  of  abstinence,  from 
the  memorable  charge  of  Christ  to  his  evangelizing 
disciples  ;  for  which  charge  there  was  a  double  motive  : 
1st.  To  raise  an  ideal  of  abstinence;  2d.  To  release 
the  disciple  from  all  worldly  cares,  and  concentrate  his 
thoughts  upon  his  duty.  Now,  the  Essenes,  if  Chris- 
t'ans,  stood  precisely  in  that  situation  of  evangelizers. 

Even  thus  far,  therefore,  the  Essenes,  as  Christians, 
would  have  higher  motives  to  abstinence  than  simply 
as  a  sect  of  Jews ;  yet  still  against  oil,  merely  as  a 
mode  of  luxury,  their  reasons  were  no  stronger  than 
against  any  luxury  in  any  other  shape.  But  a  Chris- 
tian of  that  day  had  a  far  more  special  restraint  with 
regard  to  the  familiar  use  of  oil  —  not  as  a  luxury,  but 
as  a  consecrated  symbol,  he  regarded  it  with  awe  — 
oil  was  to  him  under  a  perpetual  interdict.  The  very 
name  Christos,  the  anointed,  gave  in  one  instant  an 
inaugurating  solemnity,  a  baptismal  value,  to  the  act 
of  anointing.  Christians  bearing  in  their  very  name 
(though  then,  by  the  supposition,  a  '  secret  name,*)  a 
record  and  everlasting  memorial  of  that  chrism  by 
which  their  Founder  was  made  the  Anointed  of  God, 
thought  it  little  consistent  with  reverential  feelings  to 
use  that  consecrated  rite  of  anointing  in  the  economy, 
of  daily  life.  They  abstained  from  this  Grecian  prac- 
tice, therefore,  not  as  the  ignorant  Jew  imagines,  from 
vlespising  it,  but  from  too  much  revering  it.  The  sym- 
bolic meaning  overpowered  and  eclipsed  its  natural 
meaning  ;  and  they  abstained  from  the  unction  of  the 
tpalsestra  just  as  any  man  amongst  ourselves,  the  least 
'lable  to  superstition,  would  (if  he  had  any  pious  feel- 


130 


THE  ESSENES. 


mg  at  all)  recoil  from  the  use  of  sacramental  vessels 
in  a  service  of  common  household  life. 

After  this  explanation  of  our  view,  we  shall  hardly 
need  to  go  forward  in  proof,  that  this  sanctity  of  the 
oil  and  of  the  anointing  act  has  sustained  itself  in  tra- 
ditionary usages,  and  propagated  its  symbolic  meaning 
to  a  posterity  far  distant  from  the  Essenes.  The  most 
solemn  of  the  ceremonies  in  the  coronation  of  Chris- 
tian kings  is  a  memorial  of  this  usage  so  reverentially 
trealed  by  the  Essenes.  The  affecting  rite  by  which  a 
new  "born  stranger  upon  earth  is  introduced  within  the 
fold  of  the  Christian  Church,  is  but  the  prolongation  of 
that  ancient  chrism.  And  so  essential,  in  earlier  ages, 
was  the  presence  of  the  holy  Judsean  oil  used  by  the 
first  Christians,  were  it  only  to  the  amount  of  one  soli- 
tary drop,  that  volumes  might  be  collected  on  the  ex- 
ertions made  for  tending  the  trees  which  produced  it, 
and  if  possible  for  multiplying  or  transplanting  them. 
Many  eastern  travellers  in  our  own  day,  have  given  the 
history  of  those  consecrated  trees,  and  their  slow  de- 
clension to  the  present  moment ;  and  to  this  hour,  in 
our  London  bills  of  mortality,  there  is  one  subdivision 
headed,  '  Chrysom  children,'  ^  which  echoes  from  a 
distance  of  almost  two  thousand  years  the  very  act  and 
ceremony  which  was  surrounded  with  so  much  reve- 
rence by  the  Essenes. 

No.  IV.  —  The  Essenes  think  it  a  thing  of  good 
omen  to  he  dressed  in  white  rohes.  —  Yes  ;  here  again 
we  find  the  external  fact  reported  by  Josephus,  but 
with  his  usual  ignorance  of  its  smybolic  value,  and  the 
secret  record  which  it  involved.  He  does  not  pretend 
to  have  been  more  than  a  novice  —  that  is,  at  moKsl 


THE  ESSENES. 


131 


he  had  been  admitted  into  the  lowest  or  outermost 
class,  where  no  hint  would  be  given  of  the  Christian 
mysteries  that  would  open  nearer  to  the  centre.  The 
white  robes  were,  of  course,  either. the  baptismal  robes, 
the  alhatcB  vestes  noticed  in  note  (5),  or  some  other 
of  the  typical  dresses  assumed  in  different  ranks  and 
situations  by  the  primitive  Christians. 

No.  V.  —  In  the  judgments  they  pass,  the  Essene3 
are  most  accurate  and  just ;  nor  do  they  pass  sentence 
by  the  votes  of  a  court  that  is  lower  than  a  hundred, 

—  Here  we  find  Josephus  unconsciously  alluding  tc 
the  secret  arrangements  of  the  early  Christian  Church 

—  the  machinery  established  for  conducting  affairs  so 
vast,  by  their  tendency,  in  a  condition  so  critical  by  its 
politics.  The  apostolical  constitutions  show  that  many 
of  the  forms  in  general  councils,  long  after  that  age, 
had  been  traditionally  derived  from  this  infancy  of  the 
Christian  Church  —  a  result  which  is  natural  in  any 
case,  but  almost  inevitable  where  the  original  organ- 
izers are  invested  with  that  sort  of  honor  and  authority 
attached  to  inspired  apostles.  Here  are  positive  traces 
of  the  Christian  institutions,  as  viewed  by  one  who 
knew  of  their  existence  under  another  name,  and  wit- 
nessed some  of  their  decisions  in  the  result,  but  was 
never  admitted  to  any  conjectural  glimpse  of  their 
deliberations,  or  their  system  of  proceeding,  or  their 
principles.  Here  is  the  truth,  but  traced  by  its  shadow. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  the  Essenes  (considered  as  dis- 
tinct from  Christians)  were  concerned,  what  need 
should  Ihey  have  of  courts  —  numerous  or  not  numer- 
ous ?  Had  the  Sadducees  courts  ?  Had  the  Pharisees 
courts  ?    Doubtless  they  had,  in  their  general  charactei 


132 


THE  ESSEXES. 


of  Jews,  but  certainly  not  in  their  separate  character 
as  sects.  Here  again,  therefore,  in  this  very  mention 
of  courts,  had  there  been  no  word  dropped  of  their 
form,  we  see  an  insuperable  evidence  to  the  fact  of  the 
Christians  being  the  parties  concerned. 

No.  VI  —  The  Essenes  are  divided  by  Philo- 
'Judaeus  into  the  Therapeutici  and  the  Practici.  —  A 
division  into  four  orders  has  already  been  noticed,  in 
explaining  the  general  constitution  of  the  society. 
These  orders  would  very  probably  have  characteristic 
names  as  well  as  barely  distinguishing  numbers.  And 
if  so,  the  name  of  Therapeutce  would  exactly  corres- 
pond to  the  medical  evangelists  (the  hakims)  noticed 
under  No.  II. 

No.  VII.  —  Moreover  the  Essenes  are  stricter  than 
any  other  of  the  Jeios  in  resting  from  their  labors  on 
the  seventh  day  :  for  they  even  get  their  food  ready  on 
the  day  before,  that  they  may  not  be  obliged  to  kindle 
a  fire  on  that  day.  —  Now,  then,  it  will  be  said,  these 
Essenes,  if  Christians,  ought  not  to  have  kept  the 
Jewish  Sabbath.  This  seems  a  serious  objection.  But 
pause,  reader.  One  consideration  is  most  important 
in  this  whole  discussion.  The  Jews  are  now  ranged  in 
hostility  to  the  Christians  ;  because  now  the  very  name 
of  Jew  makes  open  proclamation  that  they  have 
rejected  Christianity ;  but  in  the  earliest  stage  of 
Christianity,  the  Jew's  relation  to  that  new  creed  was 
in  suspense  and  undetermined  :  he  might  be,  1,  in  a 
state  of  hostility  ;  2,  in  a  state  of  certain  transition  ; 
3,  in  a  state  of  deliberation.  So  far,  therefore,  from 
shocking  his  prejudices  by  violent  alterations  of  form^ 


THE  ESSENES. 


133 


ind  of  outward  symbol,  not  essential  to  the  triitli  sym- 
bolized, the  error  of  the  early  Christians  would  lie  the 
other  way  ;  as  in  fact  we  know  that  it  did  in  Judea, 
that  is,  in  the  land  of  the  Essenes,  where  they  retained 
too  much  rather  than  too  little  of  Mosaic  rites.  Judaism 
is  the  radix  of  Christianity  —  Christianity  the  integra- 
tion of  Judaism.  And  so  long  as  this  integration  was 
only  net  accepted^  it  was  reasonable  to  presume  it  the 
subj  ect  of  examination ;  and  to  regard  the  J ew  as  a 
Christian  in  transitu^  and  by  tendency  as  a  Christian 
elect.  For  one  generation  the  Jews  must  have  been 
regarded  as  novices  in  a  lower  class  advancing  grad- 
ually to  the  higher  vows  —  not  as  enemies  at  all,  but 
as  imperfect  .  aspirants.  During  this  pacific  interim, 
(which  is  not  to  be  thought  hostile,  because  individual 
Jews  were  hostile,)  the  Christians  most  entangled  with 
Jews,  viz.,  the  Christians  of  Palestine,  would  not  seek 
to  widen  the  interval  which  divided  them.  On  the  con- 
trary, they  would  too  much  concede  to  the  prejudices 
of  their  Jewish  brethren ;  they  would  adopt  too  many 
of  the  Jewish  rites  :  as  at.  first  even  circumcision  —  d 
fortiori,  the  Jewish  Sabbath.  Thus  it  would  be  during 
the  period  of  suspense.  Hostility  would  first  com- 
?a3nce  when  the  two  orders  of  men  could  no  longer  be 
viewed  as  the  inviting  and  invited  —  as  teaching  and 
learning  ;  but  as  affirming  and  denying  —  as  worship- 
pers and  blasphemers.  Then  began  the  perfect  schism 
of  the  two  orders.  Then  began  amongst  the  Syrian 
Christians  the  observance  of  a  Christian  Sunday  ;  then 
began  the  general  disuse  of  circumcision. 

Here  we  are  called  upon  to  close  this  investigation,, 
and  for  the  following  reasons  :  Most  subjects  offer  them- 
selves under  two  aspects  at  the  least,  often  under  more 


134 


THE  ESSENES. 


This  question  accordingly,  upon  the  true  relations  ol 
the  Essenes,  may  be  contemplated  either  as  a  religious 
question,  or  as  a  question  of  Christian  antiquities. 
Under  this  latter  aspect,  it  is  not  improperly  entertained 
by  a  journal  whose  primary  functions  are  literary.  But 
to  pursue  it  further  might  entangle  us  more  intricately 
in  speculations  of  Christian  doctrine  than  could  be 
suitable  to  any  journal  not  essentially  theological.  We 
pause,  therefDre  ;  though  not  for  want  of  abundant 
matter  to  continue  the  discussion.  One  point  only  we 
shall  glance  at  in  taking  leave  :  —  The  Church  of  Home 
has  long  ago  adopted  the  very  doctrine  for  which  we 
have  been  contending  :  she  has  insisted,  as  if  it  were 
an  important  article  of  orthodox  faith,  upon  the  identity 
of  the  Essenes  and  the  primitive  Christians.  But 
does  not  this  fact  subtract  from  the  originality  of  our 
present  essay  ?  Not  at  all.  If  it  did,  we  are  careless. 
But  the  truth  is  —  it  does  not.  And  the  reason  is  this 
—  as  held  by  the  Church  of  Bome  the  doctrine  is 
simply  what  the  Germans  call  a  machtspruch,  i.  e.  a 
hard  dogmatical  assertion,  without  one  shadow  of  proof 
or  presumptive  argument  —  that  so  it  7nust  have  been, 
nothing  beyond  the  allegation  of  an  old  immemorial 
tradition  —  that  so  in  fact  it  was.  Papal  Bome  adopts 
our  theory  as  a  fact,  as  a  blind  result ;  but  not  as  a 
result  resting  upon  any  one  of  our  principles.  Having, 
as  she  thinks,  downright  testimony  and  positive  depo- 
sitions upon  oath,  she  is  too  proud  to  seek  the  aid  of 
circumstantial  evidence,  of  collateral  probability,  or  of 
secret  coincidence. 

If  so,  and  the  case  being  that  the  Papal  belief  on  this 
point  (though  coinciding  with  our  own)  offers  it  no 
collateral  support,  wherefore  do  we  mention  it  ?  For 


THE  ESSENES. 


135 


the  following  reason  —  important  at  any  rate  —  and 
specially  important  as  a  reason  in  summing  up  ;  as  a 
reason  to  take  leave  with  —  as  a  linch-pin  or  iron  bolt 
to  lock  up  all  our  loose  arguments  into  one  central 
cohesion.  Dogmatism,  because  it  is  haughty,  because 
it  is  insolent,  will  not  therefore  of  necessity  be  false^ 
Nay,  in  this  particular  instance,  the  dogmatism  of 
Rome  rests  upon  a  sense  of  transcendent  truth  —  of 
truth  compulsory  to  the  Christian  conscience.  And 
what  truth  is  that?  It  is  one  which  will  reply  triumph- 
antly to  the  main  objection  likely  to  be  urged  by  the 
reader.  He  will  be  apt  to  say  —  This  speculation  is 
curious  ;  but  of  what  use  is  it  ?  Of  what  consequence 
to  us  at  this  day,  whether  the  Essenes  were  or  were 
not  the  early  Christians  ?  Of  such  consequence,  we 
answer,  as  to  have  forced  the  Church  of  Rome  into  a 
probable  lie ;  that  Church  chose  rather  to  forge  a 
falsehood  of  mere  historical  fact,  [in  its  pretended  tra- 
dition of  St.  Mark,]  than  to  suffer  any  risk  as  to  the  sum 
total  and  principle  of  truth  doctrinal.  The  Christian 
religion  offers  two  things  —  a  body  of  truth,  of  things 
to  be  believed,  in  the  first  place  ;  in  the  second  place, 
a  spiritual  agency,  a  mediatorial  agency  for  carrying 
these  truths  into  operative  life.  Otherwise  expressed, 
the  Christian  religion  offers  —  1st,  a  knowledge  ;  2d,  a 
power  —  that  is,  1st,  a  rudder  to  guide  ;  2dly,  sails  to 
propel.  Now  mark  :  —  the  Essenes,  as  reported  to  us 
by  Josephus,  by  Philo-Judaeus,  or  three  centuries  after- 
wards by  Eusebius,  do  not  appear  to  have  claimed  No. 
II. ;  and  for  this  reason  —  because,  as  a  secret  society, 
and  for  the  very  cause  which  made  it  prudent  for  them 
to  be  a  secret  society,  that  part  of  their  pretensions 
^ould  not  have  been  stated  safely  ;  not  without  avow- 


136 


THE  ESSENES. 


iiig  the  very  thing  which  it  was  their  purpose  to  con- 
ceal, viz.,  their  allegiance  to  Christ.  But  as  to  No.  I. 
—  as  to  the  total  truths  taught  by  Christianity,  taken 
in  contradistinction  to  the  spiritual  powers  —  these  the 
Essenes  did  claim ;  these  they  did  appropriate  ;  and 
therefore  take  notice  of  this  :  If  the  Essenes  were  not 
the  early  Christians  in  disguise,  then  was  Christianity, 
as  a  knowledge,  taught  independently  of  Christ ;  nay, 
in  opposition  to  Christ ;  nay,  if  we  were  to  accept  the 
hyperbolical  fairy-tale  of  Pliny,  positively  two  thou- 
sand years  before  the  era  of  Christ.  Grant  the  affirm- 
ative of  our  hypothesis,  all  is  clear,  all  consistent ; 
and  Christianity  here,  as  forever,  justifies  herself. 
Take  the  negative  alternative  —  Suppose  the  Essenes 
a  distinct  body  from  the  primitive  Christians  of  Pales- 
tine, (i.  e.  those  particular  Christians  who  stood  under 
the  ban  of  Jerusalem,)  and  you  have  a  deadlier  wound 
offered  to  Christian  faith  than  the  whole  army  of  infi- 
dels ever  attempted.  A  'parhelion  —  a  double  sun  — 
a  secondary  sun,  that  should  shine  for  centuries  with 
equal  proofs  for  its  own  authenticity  as  existed  for  the 
original  sun,  would  not  be  more  shocking  to  the  sense 
and  to  the  auguries  of  man  than  a  secondary  Chris- 
tianity not  less  spiritual,  not  less  heavenly,  not  less 
divine  than  the  primary,  pretending  to  a  separate  and 
even  hostile  origin.  Much  more  is  to  be  said  in  behalf 
of  our  thesis.  But  say  more  or  say  less  —  say  it  well 
or  say  it  ill  —  the  main  argument  —  that  the  Essenes 
were  the  early  Christians,  locally  in  danger,  and  there- 
fore locally  putting  themselves,  with  the  wisdom  of  the 
serpent,  under  a  cloud  of  disguise,  impenetrable  to 
fierce  Jewish  enemies  and  to  timid  or  treacherous 
brethren  —  that  argument  is  essential  to  the  dignity  of 


THE  ESSENES. 


137 


Christian  truth.  That  theory  is  involved  in  the  al- 
mighty principle  —  that,  as  there  is  but  one  God,  hni 
one  hope,  but  one  anchorage  for  man  — so  also  there 
can  be  but  one  authentic  faith,  but  one  derivation  of 
truth,  but  one  perfect  revelation. 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


At  a  very  early  age  commenced  my  own  interest 
in  the  mystery  that  surrounds  Secret  Societies  ;  the 
mystery  being  often  double  —  1 .  What  they  do  ;  and 
2.  What  they  do  it  for.  Except  as  to  the  premature 
growth  of  this  interest,  there  was  nothing  surprising  in 
that.  For  everybody  that  is  by  nature  meditative 
must  regard,  with  a  feeling  higher  than  any  vulgar 
curiosity,  small  fraternities  of  men  forming  themselves 
as  separate  and  inner  vortices  within  the  great  vortex 
of  society,  communicating  silently  in  broad  daylight 
by  signals  not  even  seen,  but  if  seen,  not  understood 
except  among  themselves,  and  connected  by  the  link 
either  of  purposes  not  safe  to  be  avowed,  or  by  the 
grander  link  of  awful  truths  which,  merely  to  shelter 
themselves  from  the  hostility  of  an  age  unprepared  for 
their  reception,  must  retire,  perhaps  for  generations, 
behind  thick  curtains  of  secrecy.  To  be  hidden  amidst 
crowds  is  sublime  —  to  come  down  hidden  amongst 
crowds  from  distant  generations,  is  doubly  sublime. 

The  first  incident  in  my  own  childish  experience 
that  threw  my  attention  upon  the  possibility  of  such 
dark  associations,  was  the  Abbe  BarueFs  book,  soon 
olio  wed  by  a  similar  book  of  Professor  Robi  son's 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


139 


in  demonstration  of  a  regular  conspiracy  tliroughout 
Europe  for  exterminating  Christianity.  This  I  did 
not  read,  but  I  heard  it  read  and  frequently  discussed. 
I  had  already  Latin  enough  to  know  that  cancel*  meant 
a  crab,  and  that  the  disease  so  appalling  to  a  child's 
imagination,  which  in  English  we  call  a  cancer,  as 
soon  as  it  has  passed  beyond  the  state  of  an  indolent 
schirrous  tumor,  drew  its  name  from  the  horrid  claws, 
or  spurs,  or  roots  by  which  it  connected  itself  with 
distant  points,  running  underground,  as  it  were,  baffling 
detection,  and  defying  radical  extirpation.  What  I 
heard  read  aloud  from  the  Abbe  gave  that  dreadful 
cancerous  character  to  the  plot  against  Christianity. 
This  plot,  by  the  Abbe's  account,  stretched  its  horrid 
fangs,  and  threw  out  its  forerunning  feelers  and  tenta- 
cles into  many  nations,  and  more  than  one  century. 
That  perplexed  me,  though  also  fascinating  me  by  its 
grandeur.  How  men,  living  in  distant  periods  and 
distant  places  —  men  that  did  not  know  each  other, 
nay,  often  had  not  even  heard  of  each  other,  nor  spoke 
the  same  languages  —  could  yet  be  parties  to  the  same 
treason  against  a  mighty  religion  towering  to  the  high- 
est heavens,  puzzled  my  comprehension.  Then,  also, 
when  wickedness  was  so  easy,  why  did  they  take  all 
this  trouble  to  be  wicked  ?  The  how  and  the  why 
were  alike  mysterious  to  me.  Yet  the  Abbe,  every- 
body said,  was  a  goocL  man  ;  incapable  of  telling  false- 
hoods, or  of  countenancing  falsehoods  ;  and,  indeed, 
to  say  that  was  superfluous  as  regarded  myself;  for 
every  man  that  wrote  a  book  was  in  my  eyes  an 
essentially  good  man,  being  a  revealer  of  hidden 
truth.  Things  in  MS.  might  be  doubtful,  but  things 
printed  were  unavoidably  and  profoundly  true.  So 


140 


SECEET  SOCIETIES. 


that  if  I  questioned  and  demurred  as  hotly  as  an  infidel 
would  have  done,  it  never  was  that  by  the  slightest 
shade  I  had  become  tainted  with  the  infirmity  of 
scepticism.  On  the  contrary,  I  believed  everybody  as 
well  as  eyeiything.  And,  indeed,  the  very  starting- 
point  of  my  too  importunate  questions  was  exactly 
that  incapacity  of  scepticism  —  not  any  lurking  jeal- 
ousy that  even  part  might  be  false^  but  confidence  too 
absolute  that  the  whole  must  be  true  ;  since  the  more 
undeniably  a  thing  was  certain,  the  more  clamorous 
I  called  upon  people  to  make  it  intelligible.  Other 
people,  when  they  could  not  comprehend  a  thing,  had 
often  a  resource  in  saying,  '  But,  after  all,  perhaps  it's 
a  lie.'  /had  no  such  resource.  A  lie  was  impossible 
in  a  man  that  descended  upon  earth  in  the  awful  shape 
of  four  volumes  octavo.  Such  a  great  man  as  that 
was  an  oracle  for  me,  far  beyond  Dodona  or  Delphi. 
The  same  thing  occurs  in  another  form  to  everybody. 
Often  (you  know)  —  alas  !  too  often  —  one's  dear 
friend  talks  something,  which  one  scruples  to  call 
*  rigmarole,'  but  which,  for  the  life  of  one  (it  becomes 
necessary  to  whisper),  cannot  be  comprehended.  Well, 
after  puzzling  over  it  for  two  hours,  you  say,  '  Come, 
that's  enough  ;  two  hours  is  as  much  time  as  I  can 
spare  in  one  life  for  one  unintelligibility.'  And  then, 
you  proceed,  in  the  most  tranquil  frame  of  mind,  to 
take  cofiee  as  if  nothing  had  happened.  The  thing 
does  not  haunt  your  sleep  :  for  you  say,  '  My  dear 
friend,  after  all,  was  perhaps  unintentionally  talking 
nonsense.'  But  how  if  the  thing  that  puzzles  you 
happens  to  be  a  phenomenon  in  the  sky  or  the  clouds 
—  something  said  by  nature  ?  Nature  never  talks 
uonsensa.    There's  no  getting  rid  of  the  thing  in  that 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


141 


tvay.  You  can't  call  that  '  rigmarole.'  As  to  youi 
dear  friend,  you  were  sceptical ;  and  the  consequence 
was,  that  you  were  able  to  be  tranquil.  There  was  a 
valve  in  reserve,  by  which  your  perplexity  could 
escape.  But  as  to  Nature,  you  have  no  scepticism  at 
all ;  you  believe  in  her  to  a  most  bigoted  extent ;  you 
believe  every  word  she  says.  And  that  very  belief  is  the 
cause  that  you  are  disturbed  daily  by  something  which 
you  cannot  understand.  Being  true,  the  thing  ought 
to  be  intelligible.  And  exactly  because  it  is  not  — 
exactly  because  this  horrid  unintelligibility  is  denied 
the  comfort  of  doubt  —  therefore  it  is  that  you  are  so 
unhappy.  If  you  could  once  make  up  your  mind  to 
doubt  and  to  think,  '  Oh,  as  to  Nature,  I  don't  believe 
one  word  in  ten  that  she  says,'  then  and  there  you 
would  become  as  tranquil  as  when  your  dearest  friend 
talks  nonsense.  My  purpose,  as  regarded  Baruel,  was 
not  tentative,  as  if  presumptuously  trying  whether  I 
should  like  to  swallow  a  thing,  with  an  arriere  pensee 
that,  if  not  palatable,  I  might  reject  it,  but  simply  the 
preparatory  process  of  a  boa-constrictor  lubricating 
the  substance  offered,  whatever  it  might  be,  towards 
its  readier  deglutition  ;  that  result,  whether  easy  or 
not  easy,  being  one  that  followed  at  any  rate. 

The  person,  who  chiefly  introduced  me  to  Baruel, 
was  a  lady,  a  stern  lady,  and  austere,  not  only  in  her 
manners,  which  made  most  people  dislike  her,  but  also 
in  the  character  of  her  understanding  and  morals  — 
an  advantage  which  made  most  people  afraid  of  her. 
Me,  however,  she  treated  with  unusual  indulgence, 
chiefly,  I  believe,  because  I  kept  her  intellectuals  in  a 
^tate  of  exercise,  nearly  amounting  to  persecution. 
She  was  just  five  times  my  age  when  our  warfare  of 


142 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


disputation  commenced,  I  being  seven,  she  thirty-five  ; 
and  she  was  not  quite  four  times  my  age  when  our 
warfare  terminated  by  sudden  separation,  I  being  then 
ten,  and  she  thirty-eight.  This  change,  by  the  way,  in 
the  multiple  that  expressed  her  chronological  relations 
to  myself,  used  greatly  to  puzzle  me  ;  because,  as  the 
interval  between  us  had  diminished,  within  the  memory 
of  man,  so  rapidly,  that,  from  being  five  times  younger, 
I  found  myself  less  than  four  times  younger,  the  natu- 
ral inference  seemed  to  be,  that,  in  a  few  years,  I 
should  not  be  younger  at  all,  but  might  come  to  be 
the  older  of  the  two ;  in  which  case,  I  should  certainly 
have  '  taken  my  change '  out  of  the  airs  she  continual- 
ly gave  herself  on  the  score  of  '  experience.'  That 
decisive  word  '  experience  '  was,  indeed,  always  a  sure 
sign  to  me  that  I  had  the  better  of  the  argument,  and 
that  it  had  become  necessary,  therefore,  suddenly 
to  pull  me  up  in  the  career  of  victory  by  a  violent 
exertion  of  authority  ;  as  a  knight  of  old,  at  the  very 
moment  when  he  would  else  have  unhorsed  his  oppo- 
nent, was  often  frozen  into  unjust  inactivity  by  the 
king's  arbitrary  signal  for  parting  the  tilters.  It  was, 
however,  only  when  very  hard  pressed  that  my  fair 
antagonist  took  this  not  fair  advantage  in  our  daily 
tournaments.  Generally,  and  if  I  showed  any  modera- 
tion in  the  assault,  she  was  rather  pleased  with  the 
sharp  rattle  of  my  rolling  musketry.  Objections  she 
rather  liked,  and  questions,  as  many  as  one  pleased 
upon  the  pourquoi,  if  one  did  not  go  on  to  le  pour  quo  i 
du  pourquoi.  That,  she  said,  was  carrying  things  too 
far  ;  excess  in  anything  she  disapproved.  Now,  there 
I  difiered  from  her :  excess  was  the  thing  I  doated  on. 
The  fun  seemed  to  me  only  beginning,  when  she 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


143 


jisserted  that  it  had  ah^eady  '  over-stepped  the  limits  ot 
propriety/  Ha !  those  limits,  I  thought,  were  soon 
reached. 

But,  however  much  or  often  I  might  vault  over  the 
limits  of  propriety,  or  might  seem  to  challenge  both  her 
and  the  Abbe  —  all  this  was  but  anxiety  to  reconcile 
my  own  secret  belief  in  the  Abbe,  with  the  arguments 
for  not  believing ;  it  was  but  the  form  assumed  by  my 
earnest  desire  to  see  how  the  learned  gentleman  could 
be  right,  whom  my  intense  faith  certified  beyond  all 
doubt  to  he  so,  and  whom,  equally,  my  perverse  logical 
recusancy  whispered  to  be  continually  in  the  wrong. 
I  wished  to  see  my  own  rebellious  arguments,  which 
I  really  sorrowed  over  and  bemoaned,  knocked  down 
like  ninepins  ;  shown  to  be  softer  than  cotton,  frailer 
than  glass,  and  utterly  worthless  in  the  eye  of  reason. 
All  this,  indeed,  the  stern  lady  assured  me  that  she 
had  shown  over  and  over  again.  Well,  it  might  be 
so  ;  and  to  this,  at  any  rate,  as  a  decree  of  court,  I 
saw  a  worldly  prudence  in  submitting.  But,  probably, 
I  must  have  looked  rather  grim,  and  have  wished 
devoutly  for  one  fair  turn-up,  on  Salisbury  plain, 
with  herself  and  the  Abbe,  in  which  case  my  heart 
told  me  how  earnestly  I  should  pray  that  they  might 
forever  floor  me,  but  how  melancholy  a  conviction 
oppressed  my  spirits  that  my  destiny  was  to  floor  them. 
Victorious,  I  should  find  my  belief  and  my  understand- 
ing in  painful  schism  :  beaten  and  demolished,  I  should 
find  my  whole  nature  in  harmony  with  itself. 

The  mysteriousness  to  me  of  men  becoming  partners 
(and  by  no  means  sleeping  partners)  in  a  society  of 
which  they  had* never  heard;  or,  again,  of  one  fellow 
standing  at  the  beginning  of  a  century,  and  stre  tchmg 


144 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


out  his  hand  as  an  accomplice  towards  another  fellow 
standing  at  the  end  of  it,  without  either  having  known 
of  the  other's  existence  —  all  that  did  not  sharpen  the 
interest  of  wonder  that  gathered  about  the  general 
economy  of  secret  societies.  Tertullian's  profession 
of  believing  things,  not  in  spite  of  being  impossible, 
but  because  they  were  impossible,  is  not  the  extrava- 
gance that  most  people  suppose  it.  There  is  a  deep 
truth  in  it.  Many  are  the  things  which,  in  proportion 
as  they  attract  the  highest  modes  of  belief,  discover  a 
tendency  to  repel  belief  on  that  part  of  the  scale  which 
is  governed  by  the  lower  understanding.  And  here, 
as  so  often  elsewhere,  the  axiom,  with  respect  to  ex- 
tremes meeting,  manifests  its  subtle  presence.  The 
highest  form  of  the  incredible,  is  sometimes  the  initial 
form  of  the  credible.  But  the  point  on  which  our 
irreconcilability  was  greatest,  respected  the  cui  bono 
of  this  alleged  conspiracy.  What  were  the  conspirators 
to  gain  by  success  ?  and  nobody  pretended  that  they 
could  gain  anything  by  failure.  The  lady  replied  — 
that,  by  obliterating  the  light  of  Christianity,  they  pre- 
pared the  readiest  opening  for  the  unlimited  gratifica- 
tion of  their  odious  appetites  and  passions.  But  to 
this  the  retort  was  too  obvious  to  escape  anybody,  and 
for  me  it  threw  itself  into  the  form  of  that  pleasant 
story,  reported  from  the  life  of  Pyrrhus  the  Epirot  — 
viz.,  that  one  day,  upon  a  friend  requesting  to  know 
what  ulterior  purpos3  the  king  might  mask  under  his 
expedition  to  Sicily,  '  Why  after  that  is  finished,'  re- 
plied the  king,  '  I  mean  to  administer  a  little  correction 
(very  much  wanted)  to  certain  parts  of  Italy,  and 
particularly  to  that  nest  of  rascals  in  Latium.'  'And 
then  — '  said  the  friend:  'and  then,' said  Pyrrhus^ 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


145 


*  next  we  go  for  Macedoii ;  and  after  that  job's  jobbed, 
next,  of  course,  for  Greece/  '  Which  done,'  said  the 
friend  :  '  which  done,'  interrupted  the  king,  '  as  done 
it  shall  be,  then  we're  off  to  tickle  the  Egyptians.' 
'  Whom  having  tickled,'  pursued  the  friend,  '  then  we,' 
—  '  tickle  the  Persians,'  said  the  king.  '  But  after 
that  is  done,'  urged  the  obstinate  friend,  '  whither 
next  ?  '  '  Why,  really  man,  it's  hard  to  say ;  you  give 
one  no  time  to  breathe ;  but  we'll  consider  the  case  in 
Persia,  and,  until  we've  settled  it,  we  can  crown  our- 
selves with  roses,  and  pass  the  time  pleasantly  enough 
over  the  best  wine  to  be  found  in  Ecbatana.'  '  That's 
a  very  just  idea,'  replied  the  friend ;  '  but,  with  sub- 
mission, it  strikes  me  that  we  might  do  that  just  now, 
and,  at  the  beginning  of  all  these  tedious  wars,  instead 
of  waiting  for  their  end.'  '  Bless  me  ! '  said  Pyrrhus, 
'  if  ever  I  thought  of  that  before.  Why,  man,  you're 
a  conjurer;  you've  discovered  a  mine  of  happiness. 
So,  here  boy,  bring  us  roses  and  plenty  of  Cretan 
wine.'  Surely,  on  the  same  principle,  these  French 
Encyclopedistes,  and  Bavarian  Illuminati,  did  not  need 
to  postpone  any  jubilees  of  licentiousness  which  they 
promised  themselves,  to  so  very  indefinite  a  period  as 
their  ovation  over  the  ruins  of  Christianity.  True,  the 
impulse  of  hatred,  even  though  irrational,  may  be  a 
stronger  force  for  action  than  any  motive  of  hatred, 
however  rational,  or  grounded  in  self-interest.  But 
the  particular  motive  relied  upon  by  the  stern  lady,  as 
the  central  spring  of  the  an ti- Christian  movement, 
being  obviously  insufficient  for  the  weight  which  it  had 
to  sustain,  naturally  the  lady,  growing  sensible  of  this 
herself,  became  still  sterner ;  very  angry  with  me  ; 
ftnd  not  quite  satisfied,  in  this  instance,  with  the  Abbe 
10 

ii 


146 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


Yet,  after  all,  it  was  not  any  embittered  remembrance 
of  our  eternal  feuds,  in  dusting  the  jacket  of  the  Abbe 
Baruel,  that  lost  me,  ultimately,  the  favor  of  this 
austere  lady.  All  that  she  forgave ;  and  especially 
because  she  came  to  think  the  Abbe  as  bad  as  myself, 
for  leaving  such  openings  to  my  inroads.  It  was  on 
a  question  of  politics  that  our  deadliest  difference 
arose,  and  that  my  deadliest  sarcasm  was  launched ; 
not  against  herself,  but  against  the  opinion  and  party 
which  she  adopted.  I  was  right,  as  usually  I  am  ;  but, 
on  this  occasion,  must  have  been,  because  I  stood  up 
as  a  patriot,  intolerant,  to  frenzy,  of  all  insult  directed 
against  dear  England;  and  'she,  though  otherwise 
patriotic  enough,  in  this  instance  ranged  herself  in 
alliance  with  a  false  anti-national  sentiment.  My 
sarcasm  was  not  too  strong  for  the  case.  But  certainly 
I  ought  to  have  thought  it  too  strong  for  the  presence 
of  a  lady  ;  whom,  or  any  of  her  sex,  on  a  matter  of 
politics  in  these  days,  so  much  am  I  changed,  I  would 
allow  to  chase  me,  like  a  foot-ball,  all  round  the 
tropics,  rather  than  offer  the  least  show  of  resistance. 
But  my  excuse  was  childhood ;  and,  though  it  may  be 
true,  as  the  reader  will  be  sure  to  remind  me,  that  she 
was  rapidly  growing  down  to  my  level  in  that  respect, 
still  she  had  not  quite  reached  it ;  so  that  there  was 
more  excuse  for  me,  after  all,  than  for  her.  She  was 
no  longer  five  times  as  old,  or  even  four ;  but  when 
she  would  come  down  to  be  two  times  as  old  and  one 
time  as  old,  it  was  hard  to  say. 

Thus  I  had  good  reason  for  remembering  my  first 
introduction  to  the  knowledge  of  Secret  Societies, 
since  this  knowledge  introduced  me  to  the  more 
gloomy   knowledge   of  the  strife  which  gathers  in 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


147 


Dlouds  over  the  fields  of  human  life ;  and  to  the 
knowledge  of  this  strife  in  two  shapes,  one  of  which 
none  of  us  fail  to  learn  —  the  personal  strife  which  is 
awakened  so  eternally  hy  difference  of  opinion,  or 
difference  of  interest ;  the  other,  which  is  felt,  per- 
haps, obscurely  by  all,  but  distinctly  noticed  only  by 
the  profoundly  reflective,  viz.,  the  schism  —  so  mys- 
terious to  those  even  who  have  examined  it  most  — 
between  the  human  intellect  and  many  undeniable 
realities  of  human  experience.  As  to  the  first  modb 
of  strife,  I  could  not  possibly  forget  it ;  for  the  stern 
lady  died  before  we  had  an  opportunity  to  exchange 
forgiveness,  and  that  left  a  sting  behind.  She,  I  am 
sure,  was  a  good  forgiving  creature  at  heart ;  and 
especially  she  would  have  forgiven  me,  because  it  was 
my  place  (if  one  only  got  one's  right  place  on  earth) 
to  forgive  her.  Had  she  even  hauled  me  out  of  bed 
with  a  tackling  of  ropes  in  the  dead  of  night,  for  the 
mere  purpose  of  reconciliation,  I  should  have  said  — 
'  Why,  you  see,  I  can't  forgive  you  entirely  to-night, 
because  I'm  angry  when  people  waken  me  without 
notice,  but  to-morrow  morning  I  certainly  will ;  or,  if 
that  won't  do,  you  shall  forgive  me.  No  great  matter 
which,  as  the  conclusion  must  be  the  same  in  eithei 
case,  viz.  to  kiss  and  be  friends.' 

But  the  other  strife,  which  perhaps  sounds  meta- 
physical in  the  reader's  ears,  then  first  wakened  up  to 
my  perceptions,  and  never  again  went  to  sleep  amongst 
my  perplexities.  Oh,  Cicero !  my  poor,  thoughtless 
Cicero  !  in  all  your  shallow  metaphysics,  not  once  did 
you  give  utterance  to  such  a  bounce  as  when  you  as- 
serted, that  never  yet  did  human  reason  say  one  thing, 
and  Nature  say  another.     On  the  contrary,  every 


148 


SECKET  SOCIETIES. 


part  of  Nature  —  meclianics,  dynamics,  morals,  meta- 
physics, and  even  pure  mathematics  —  are  continually 
giving  the  lie  flatly  by  their  facts  and  conclusions  to 
the  very  necessities  and  laws  of  the  human  under- 
standing. Did  the  reader  ever  study  the  Antinomies 
of  Kant  ?  If  not,  he  has  read  nothing.  Now,  there 
he  will  have  the  pleasure  of  seeing  a  set  of  quadrilles 
or  reels,  in  which  old  Mother  Reason  amuses  herself 
by  dancing  to  the  right  and  left  two  variations  of  blank 
contradiction  to  old  Mother  Truth,  both  variations  being 
irrefragable,  each  variation  contradicting  the  other, 
each  contradicting  the  equatorial  reality,  and  each 
alike  (though  past  all  denial)  being  a  lie.  But  he 
need  not  go  to  Kant  for  this.  Let  him  look  as  one 
having  eyes  for  looking,  and  everywhere  the  same 
perplexing  phenomenon  occurs.  And  this  first  dawned 
upon  myself  in  the  Baruel  case.  As  Nature  is  to  the 
human  intellect,  so  was  Baruel  to  mine.  We  all  be- 
lieve in  Nature  without  limit,  yet  hardly  understand  a 
page  amongst  her  innumerable  pages.  I  believed  in 
Baruel  by  necessity,  and  yet  everywhere  my  under- 
standing mutinied  against  his. 

But  in  Baruel  I  had  heard 'only  of  Secret  Societies 
that  were  consciously  formed  for  mischievous  ends  ; 
or  if  not  always  for  a  distinct  purpose  of  evil,  yet 
always  in  a  spirit  of  malignant  contradiction  and 
hatred.  Soon  I  read  of  other  Societies  even  more 
secret,  that  watched  over  truth  dangerous  to  publish  or 
even  to  whisper,  like  the  sleepless  dragons  that  Ori- 
ental fable  associated  with  the  subterraneous  guardian- 
ship of  regal  treasures.  The  secrecy,  and  the  reasons 
for  the  secrecy,  were  alike  sublime.  The  very  image, 
unveiling  itself  by  unsteady  glimpses,  of  men  linked 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


149 


by  brotherly  love  and  perfect  confidence,  met- ting  m 
secret  chambers,  at  the  noontide  of  night,  to  shelter, 
by  muffling,  with  their  own  persons  interposed,  and 
at  their  own  risk,  some  solitary  lamp  of  truth  —  shel- 
tering it  from  the  carelessness  of  the  world,  and  its 
stormy  ignorance  —  this  would  soon  have  blown  it  out 

—  sheltering  it  from  the  hatred  of  the  world,  that 
would  soon  have  found  out  its  nature,  and  made  wai 
upon  its  life  —  that  was  superhumanly  sublime.  The 
fear  of  those  men  was  sublime  —  the  courage  was 
sublime  —  the  stealthy,  thief-like  means  were  sublime 

—  the  audacious  end,  viz.  to  change  the  kingdoms  of 
earth,  was  sublime.  If  they  acted  and  moved  like 
cowards,  those  men  were  sublime  :  if  they  planned 
with  the  audacity  of  martyrs,  those  men  were  sublime 

—  not  less  as  cowards,  not  more  as  martyrs  ;  for  the 
cowardice  that  appeared  above,  and  the  courage  that 
lurked  below,  were  parts  of  the  same  machinery. 

But  another  feature  of  sublimity,  which  it  surprises 
one  to  see  so  many  coarse-minded  men  unaware  of, 
lies  in  the  self-perpetuation  and  phcenix-like  defiance 
to  mortality  of  such  Societies.  This  feature  it  is  tliat 
throws  a  grandeur  even  on  a  humbug,  of  which  there 
i  ave  been  many  examples,  and  two  in  particular, 
which  I  am  soon  going  to  memorialize.  Often  and 
often  have  men  of  finer  minds  felt  this  secret  spell  of 
grandeur,  and  labored  to  embody  it  in  external  forms. 
There  was  a  phoenix-club  once  in  Oxford,  (up  and 
down  Europe  there  have  been  several,)  that  by  its 
constitution  grasped  not  only  at  the  sort  of  immortality 
aspired  after  by  Phoenix  Insurance  offices,  viz.  a  legal 
or  notional  perpetuation,  liable  merely  to  no  practical 
interruptions  as  regarded  paying,  and  d  fortiori  as 


150 


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regarded  receiving  money,  but  otherwise  fast  asleep 
every  night  like  other  dull  people  —  far  more  faithful, 
literal,  intense,  was  the  realization  in  this  case  of  an 
undying  life.  Such  a  condition  as  a  '  sede  vacante,'' 
which  is  a  condition  expressed  in  the  constitutions  of 
all  other  societies,  was  impossible  in  this  for  any 
office  whatever.  That  great  case  was  realized,  which 
has  since  been  described  by  Chateaubriand  as  govern- 
ing the  throne  of  France  and  its  successions.  '  His 
Majesty  is  dead  !  '  shouts  a  v  jice,  and  this  seems  to 
argue,  at  least,  a  moment's  i,  terregnum :  not  at  all; 
not  a  moment's :  the  thing  is  impossible :  simultaneous 
(and  not  successive)  is  the  breath  that  ejaculates, 
'  May  the  King  live  forever  ! '  The  birth  and  the 
death,  the  rising  and  the  setting,  syncronize  by  a 
metaphysical  nicety  of  neck-and-neck,  inconceivable 
to  the  book-keepers  of  earth.  These  wretched  men 
imagine  that  the  second  rider's  foot  cannot  possibly 
be  in  the  stirrup  until  the  first  rider's  foot  is  out.  If 
the  one  event  occurs  in  moment  M,  the  other  they 
think  must  occur  in  moment  N.  That  may  be  as 
regards  stirrups,  but  not  as  regards' metaphysics.  I 
admit  that  the  guard  of  a  mail-coach  cannot  possibly 
leave  the  post-office  hefore  the  coachman,  but  upon 
the  whole  a  little  after  him.  Such  base  rules,  how- 
ever, find  themselves  compelled  to  give  way  in  pres- 
ence of  great  metaphysicians.  In  whose  science,  as 
[  stoop  to  inform  book-keepers,  the  efi'ect,  if  anything, 
goes  rather  ahead  of  the  cause.  Now  that  Oxford  club 
arose  on  these  sublime  principles  :  no  disease  like  in- 
termitting 2^ulse  was  known  there.  No  fire,  but  Vestal 
fire,  was  used  for  boiling  the  tea-kettle.  The  rule 
was  —  that,  if  once  entered  upon  the  matricula  of  this 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


151 


amaranthine^'  club,  thencefor wards,  come  from  what 
zone  of  the  earth  you  would  —  come  without  a 
minute's  notice  —  send  up  your  card  —  Mr.  O.  P., 
from  the  Anthropophagi  —  Mr.  P.  0.,  from  the  men 
whose  heads  do  grow  beneath  their  shoulders  —  in 
stantly  you  were  shown  in  to  the  sublime  presence 
You  were  not  limited  to  any  particular  century.  Nay, 
by  the  rigor  of  the  theory,  you  had  your  own  choice 
of  millennium.  Whatever  might  be  convenient  to 
you,  was  convenient  to  the  club.  The  constitution 
of  the  club  assumed,  that,  in  every  successive  gene- 
ration, as  a  matter  of  course,  a  President  duly  elected 
(or  his  authorized  delegate)  would  be  found  in  the 
chair  :  scornfully  throwing  the  onus  of  proof  to  the 
contrary  upon  the  presumptuous  reptile  that  doubted 
it.  Public  or  private  calamity  signified  not.  The 
President  reverberated  himself  through  a  long  sinking 
fund  of  Surrogates  and  Vice-Presidents.  There,  night 
and  day,  summer  and  winter,  seed-time  and  harvest, 
sat  the  august  man,  looking  as  grim  as  the  Princeps 
Senatus  amongst  the  Conscript  Fathers  of  Rome,  when 
the  Gauls  entered  on  the  errand  of  cutting  their  throats. 
If  you  entered  this  club  on  the  very  same  errand,  the 
President  was  backed  to  a  large  amount  to  keep  his 
seat  until  his  successor  had  been  summoned.  Sup- 
pose the  greatest  of  revolutions  to  have  passed  over 
the  island  during  your  absence  abroad  ;  England,  let 
us  say,  has  even  been  conquered  by  a  polished  race 
of  Hottentots.  Very  good  :  an  accomplished  Hotten- 
tot will  then  be  found  seated  in  the  chair  ;  you  will 
be  allowed  to  kiss  Mr.  President's  black  paw;  and 
^ill  understand  that,  although  farewells  might  be 
common  enough  as  regarded  individual  members,  yet 


152 


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by  the  eternal  laws  of  this  eternal  club,  the  word 
adjournment  for  the  whole  concern  was  a  word  so 
treasonable,  as  not  to  be  uttered  without  risk  of  mas- 
sacre. 

The  same  principle  in  man's  nature,  the  everlasting 
instinct  for  glorifying  the  everlasting,  the  impulse  for 
petrifying  the  fugitive,  and  arresting  the  transitory, 
which  shows  itself  in  ten  thousand  forms,  has  also,  in 
this  field  of  secret  confederations,  assumed  many 
grander  forms.  To  strive  after  a  conquest  over  Time 
the  conqueror,  is  already  great,  in  whatsoever  direc- 
tion. But  it  is  still  greater  when  it  applies  itself  to 
objects  that  are  per  se  immortal,  and  mortal  only  as 
respects  their  alliance  with  man.  Glorification  of 
heaven  —  litanies,  chanted  day  and  night  by  adoring 
hearts  —  these  will  doubtless  ascend  forever  from  this 
planet.  That  result  is  placed  out  of  hazard,  and  needs 
not  the  guarantee  of  princes.  Somewhere,  from  some 
climate,  from  some  lips,  such  a  worship  will  not  cease 
\o  rise.  But,  let  a  man's  local  attachments  be  what 
they  may,  he  must  sigh  to  think  that  no  assignable 
spot  of  ground  on  earth,  that  no  nation,  that  no  family, 
enjoys  any  absolute  privilege  in  that  respect.  No 
land,  whether  continent  or  island  —  nor  race,  whether 
freemen  or  slaves,  can  claim  any  fixed  inheritance,  or 
indefeasible  heirlooms  of  truth.  Yet,  for  that  very 
reason,  men  of  deep  piety  have  but  the  more  earnestly 
striven  to  bind  down,  and  chain  their  own  conceptions 
Df  truth  within  the  models  of  some  unchanging  estab- 
lishments, even  as  the  Greek  Pagans  of  old  chained 
down  their  gods  from  deserting  them ;  have  striven 
to  train  the  vagrant  water-brooks  of  Wisdom,  lest  she 
might  desert  the  region  altogether,  into  the  cliannels 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


153 


Df  some  local  homestead  ;  to  connect,  with  a  fixed 
succession  of  descendants,  the  conservation  of  religion ; 
to  root,  as  one  would  root  a  forest  that  is  to  flourish 
through  ages,  a  heritage  of  ancient  truth  in  the  territo- 
rial heritage  of  an  ancient  household.  That  sounds  to 
some  ears  like  the  policy  that  founded  monastic  in- 
stitutions. Whether  so  or  not,  it  is  not  necessarily 
Roman  Catholic.  The  same  policy  —  the  same 
principle  —  the  sighing  after  peace  and  the  image  of 
perpetuity  —  have  many  times  moulded  the  plans  of 
Protestant  families.  Such  families,  with  monastic 
imaginations  linked  to  Protestant  hearts,  existed  nume- 
rously in  England  through  the  reign  of  the  First 
James  and  Charles  —  families  amongst  the  gentry,  or 
what  on  the  Continent  would  be  called  the  lower 
nobility,  that  remembered  with  love  the  solemn  ritual 
and  services  of  the  Romish  Church  ;  but  with  this  love 
combined  the  love  of  Protestant  doctrines.  Amongst 
these  families,  and  distinguished  amongst  them,  was 
that  of  the  Farrers.^  The  name  of  their  patrimonial 
estate  was  Little  Gidding,  and,  I  think,  in  the  county 
of  Hertford.  They  were,  by  native  turn  of  mind,  and 
by  varied  accomplishments,  a  most  interesting  family. 
In  some  royal  houses  of  Europe  it  was  once  a  custom, 
that  every  son,  if  not  every  daughter,  should  learn  a 
trade.  This  custom  subsisted  down  to  the  days  of  the 
unhappy  Louis  XVL,  who  was  a  locksmith;  and  I  was 
once  assured  by  a  Frenchman,  who  knew  him  well, 
not  so  bad  a  one,  considering  (you  know)  that  one 
cannot  be  as  rough  as  might  be  wished  in  scolding  a 
locksmith  that  one  is  obliged  to  address  as  '  youi 
majesty.'  A  majestic  locksmith  has  a  sort  of  right  to 
be  a  bad  one.    The  Farrers  adopted  this  custom,  and 


154 


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most  of  tliem  chose  the  trade  of  a  bookbinder.  Why 
this  was  a  good  trade  to  choose,  I  will  explain  in  a 
brief  digression.  It  is  a  reason  which  applies  only  to 
three  other  trades,  viz :  to  coining,  to  printing  books, 
and  to  making  gold  or  silver  plate.  And  the  reason  is 
this  -  -  all  the  four  arts  stand  on  an  isthmus,  connecting 
them,  on  one  side,  with  merely  mechanic  crafts,  on 
the  other  side,  with  the  Fine  Arts.  This  was  the 
marking  distinction  between  the  coinages  of  ancient 
classical  days  and  our  own.  Our  European  and  East 
Indian^ coins  are  the  basest  of  all  base  products  from 
rude  barbaresque  handicraft.  They  are  imagined  by 
the  man,  some  horrid  Cyclops,  who  conceived  the 
great  idea  of  a  horseshoe,  a  poker,  and  a  tenpenny 
nail.  Now,  the  ancient  coins  were  modelled  by  the 
same  immortal  artists  that  conceived  their  exquisite 
gems,  the  cameos  and  intaglios,  which  you  may  buy, 
in  Tassie's  Sulphurs,  at  a  few  shillings  each,  or  for 
much  less  in  the  engraved  GlyptotheccB.  But,  as  to 
coining,  our  dear  lady  the  Queen  (God  bless  her !)  is 
so  avaricious,  that  she  will  have  it  all  to  herself.  She 
taboos  it.  She  won't  let  you  or  me  into  the  smallest 
share  of  the  business  ;  and  she  lags  us  if  we  poach. 
That  is  what  I  call  monopoly.  And  I  do  wish  her 
Majesty  woidd  be  persuaded  to  read  a  ship-load  of 
political  economists  that  I  could  point  out,  on  the  ruin- 
ous consequences  of  that  vice,  which,  otherwise,  it  may 
be  feared  nobody  ever  will  read.  After  coining,  the 
next  best  trade  is  Printing.  This,  also,  might  approach 
to  a  Fine  Art.  When  entering  the  twilight  of  dotage, 
reader,  I  mean  to  have  a  printing-press  in  my  own 
study.  I  shall  print  some  immaculate  editions,  as  fare- 
well keepsakes,  for  distribution  amongst  people  that  T 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


155 


ove  ;  but  rich  arid  rare  must  be  the  gems  on  w  hich  1 
shall  condescend  to  bestow  this  manual  labor.  I  mean, 
also,  to  print  a  spelling-book  for  the  reader's  use.  As 
it  seems  that  he  reads,  he  surely  ought  to  spell.  J 
hope  he  will  not  be  offended.  If  he  is,  and  dreadfully, 
viewing  it  as  the  most  awful  insult  that  man  could  offer 
to  his  brother  man,  in  that  case  he  might  bequeath  it 
by  will  to  his  possible  grandson.  Two  generations 
might  wash  out  the  affront.  ^  Or  if  he  accepts,  and 
furnishes  me  with  his  name,  I  w^ill  also  print  on  a 
blank  leaf  the  good  old  ancestral  legend  —  'A.  B.,  Ms 
book.  Heaven  grant  him  grace  therein  to  look.'  As  to 
Plate-making,  it  seems  to  rank  with  mechanic  base- 
ness ;  you  think  not  of  the  sculptor,  the  chaser,  and 
their  exquisite  tools,  but  of  Sheffield,  Birmingham, 
Glasgow,  sledge-hammers,  and  pincers.  It  seems  to 
require  no  art.  I  think  I  could  make  a  dessert  spoon 
myself.  Yet  the  openings  which  it  offers  are  vast, 
wherever  wealth  exists,  for  the  lovelier  conceptions  of 
higher  art.  Benvenuto  Cellini  —  what  an  artist  was 
lie  I  There  are  some  few  of  his  most  exquisite  works 
in  this  country,  which  may  be  seen  by  applying  in  the 
right  quarters.  Judge  of  him  by  these,  and  not  by  his 
autobiography.  There  he  appears  as  a  vain,  ostenta- 
tious man.i^  One  would  suppose,  to  hear  him  talk, 
that  nobody  ever  executed  a  murder  but  himself.  His 
own  are  tolerable,  that's  all  you  can  say  ;  but  not  one 
of  them  is  first-rate,  or  to  be  named  on  the  same  day 
with  the  Pope's  attempt  at  murdering  Gellini  himself, 
which  must  command  the  unqualified  approbation  of 
&e  connoisseur.  True,  the  Papal  attempt  did  not  suc- 
ceed, and  most  of  Cellini's  did.  What  of  that  ?  Who 
out  idiots  judge  by  the  event?    Much,  therefore,  as  I 


156 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


condemn  the  man's  vanity,  and  the  more  so  because 
he  claims  some  murders  that  too  probably  were  none 
of  his  (not  content  with  exaggerating  his  own,  he  abso- 
lutely pirated  other  men's  murders!)  yet,  when  you 
turn  from  this  walk  cf  art,  in  which  he  practised  only 
as  an  amateur^  to  his  orfeverie  —  then  you  feel  the 
interval  that  divides  the  charlatan  from  the  man  o. 
exquisite  genius.  As  a  murderer,  he  was  a  poor 
creature ;  as  an  artist  ^  in  gold,  he  was  inimitable. 
Finally,  there  remains  Booh-hinding^^^  of  which  also  one 
may  affirm,  that,  being  usually  the  vilest  of  handicrafts, 
it  is  susceptible  of  much  higher  effects  in  the  enrich- 
ments, tooling,  architecture,  heraldic  emblazonries,  &;c. 
This  art  Mr.  Farrer  selected  for  his  trade.  He  had 
travelled  on  foot  through  Spain ;  and  I  should  think  it 
not  impossible  that  he  had  there  seen  some  magnificent 
specimens  of  book-binding.  For  I  was  once  told, 
though  I  have  not  seen  it  mentioned  in  any  book,  that 
a  century  before  the  date  of  Farrer's  travels.  Cardinal 
Ximenes,  when  printing  his  great  Complutensian  Bible, 
gave  a  special  encouragement  to  a  new  style  of  bind- 
ing —  fitted  for  harmonizing  with  the  grandeur  of  royal 
furniture,  and  the  carved  enrichments  of  gothic  libra- 
ries.^^ This,  and  the  other  accomplishments  which  the 
Farrers  had,  they  had  in  perfection.  But  the  most 
remarkable  trait  in  the  family  character,  was  the  exal- 
tation of  their  devotional  feelings.  Had  it  not  been  for 
their  benignity  and  humility,  they  might  have  been 
thought  gloomy  and  ascetic.  Something  there  was, 
as  in  thoughtful  minds  left  to  a  deep  rural  solitude 
there  is  likely  to  be,  of  La  Trappism  and  Madame 
Guyon  Quietism.  A  nun-like  aspiration  there  was  in 
the  females  after  purity  and  oblivion  of  earth  :  in  Mr. 


SECKET  SOCIETIES. 


157 


Farrcr,  the  head  of  the  family,  a  devotional  energy, 
put  forth  in  continual  combat  with  the  earthly  energies 
that  tempted  him  away  to  the  world,  and  with  all  that 
offered  itself  under  the  specious  name  of  public  useful- 
ness. In  this  combination  of  qualities  arose  the  plan 
which  the  family  organized  for  a  system  of  perpetual 
worship.  They  had  a  family  chapel  regularly  conse- 
crated, as  so  many  families  of  their  rank  still  have  in 
England.  They  had  an  organ :  they  had  means  of 
forming  a  choir.  Gradually  the  establishment  was 
mounted :  the  appointments  were  completed :  the 
machinery  was  got  into  motion.  How  far  the  plan 
was  ever  effectually  perfected,  would  be  hard  to  say. 
The  increasing  ferment  of  the  times,  until  the  meeting 
of  the  Long  Parliament  in  November,  1640,  and  in  less 
than  two  years  after  that^  the  opening  of  the  great 
civil  war  must  have  made  it  absolutely  impossible  to 
adhere  systematically  to  any  scheme  of  that  nature, 
which  required  perfect  seclusion  from  worldly  cares 
within  the  mansion,  and  public  tranquillity  outside. 
Not  to  mention  that  the  Farrers  had  an  extra  source  of 
molestation  at  that  period,  when  Puritanism  was  ad- 
vancing rapidly  to  a  domineering  station  of  power,  in 
the  public  suspicions  which  unjustly  (but  not  altogether 
unplausibly)  taxed  them  with  Popish  leanings.  A 
hundred  years  later.  Bishop  Butler  drew  upon  himself 
at  Durham  the  very  same  suspicion,  and  in  some  de- 
gree by  the  very  same  act,  viz.  by  an  adoption  of 
seme  pious  symbols,  open  undeniably  to  the  whole 
Catholic  family  of  Christian  Churches,  and  yet  equiv- 
ocal in  their  meaning,  because  popularly  appropriated 
from  old  associations  of  habit  to  the  use  of  Popish 
communities. Abstracting,  however,  from  the  violent 


158 


SECKET  SOCIETIES. 


disturbances  of  those  stormy  times  in  the  way  of  all 
religious  schemes,  we  may  collect  that  the  scheme  of 
the  Farrers  was  —  that  the  chapel  services  should  be 
going  on,  by  means  of  successive  '  reliefs '  as  in  camps, 
or  of  '  watches  '  as  at  sea,  through  every  hour  of  the 
day  and  the  night,  from  year  to  year,  from  childhood 
to  old  age.  Come  when  you  might,  come  in  the 
dawning,  come  in  the  twilight,  come  at  noonday,  come 
through  silent  roads  in  the  dead  of  night,  always  you 
were  to  be  sure  of  hearing,  through  the  woods  of  Little 
Gidding,  the  blair  of  the  organ,  or  the  penitential  wail 
of  the  solitary  choristers,  or  the  glad  triumphant  burst 
of  the  full  choir  in  jubilation.  There  was  some  affinity 
in  Mr.  Farrer's  mind  to  the  Spanish  peculiarities,  and 
the  Spanish  modes  of  grandeur ;  awful  prostration, 
like  Pascal's  before  the  divine  idea  ;  gloom  that  sought 
to  strengthen  itself  by  tenfold  involution  in  the  night 
of  solitary  woods  ;  exaggerated  impressions  (if  such 
impressions  could  be  exaggerated)  of  human  wretch- 
edness, and  a  brooding  sense  of  some  unknown  illim- 
itable grandeur  —  a  sense  that  could  sustain  itself  at 
its  natural  level,  only  by  eternal  contemplation  of  ob- 
jects that  had  no  end. 

Mr.  Farrer's  plan  for  realizing  a  vestal  fire,  or 
something  beyond  it,  viz.  a  secrecy  of  truth,  burning 
brightly  in  darkness  —  and,  secondly,  a  perpetuity  of 
truth  —  did  not  succeed  ;  as  many  a  noble  scheme, 
that  men  never  heard  of,  has  been  swept  away  in  its 
infancy  by  the  ruins  of  flood,  fire,  earthquake,  which 
also  are  forgotten  no  less  completely  than  what  they 
ruined.  Thank  Heaven  for  that !  If  the  noble  is 
often  crushed  suddenly  by  the  ignoble,  one  forgetful- 
n^5S  travels  after  both.     The  wicked  earthquake  is 


SECKET  SOCIETIES. 


159 


forgotten  not  less  than  the  glorious  temples  which  it 
ruined.  Yet  the  Farrer  plan  has  repeatedly  succeeded 
and  prospered  through  a  course  of  centuries,  and  for 
purposes  of  the  same  nature.  But  the  strange  thing 
is,  (which  already  I  have  noticed,)  that  the  general 
principle  of  such  a  plan  has  succeeded  most  memora- 
bly when  applied  to  purposes  of  humbug.  The  two 
best  known  of  all  Secret  Societies,  that  ever  have 
Deen,  are  the  two  most  extensive  monuments  of  hum- 
bug on  the  one  side  and  credulity  on  the  other.  They 
divide  themselves  between  the  ancient  world  and  the. 
modern.  The  great  and  illustrious  humbug  of  ancient 
history  was,  The  Eleusinian  Mysteries.  The  great 
and  illustrious  humbug  of  modern  history,  of  the  his- 
tory which  boasts  a  present  and  a  future,  as  well  as  a 
past,  is  FuEEMASOi^riiY.  Let  me  take  a  few  liberties 
with  both. 

The  Eleusinian  humbug  was  for  centuries  the  op- 
probrium of  scholars.  Even  in  contemporary  times  it 
tvas  such.  The  greatest  philosopher,  or  polyhistor,  of 
Athens  or  of  Rome,  could  no  more  tell  you  the  secret 
—  the  to  oporeton  (unless  he  had  been  initiated,  in 
which  case  he  durst  not  tell  it)  —  than  I  can.  In  fact, 
if  you  come  to  that,  perhaps  I  myself  can  tell  it.  The 
ancient  philosopher  would  retort,  that  we  of  these  days 
are  in  the  same  predicament  as  to  our  own  humbug  — 
the  Freemasons.  No,  no,  my  friend,  you're  wrong 
there.  We  know  all  about  that  humbug,  as  I  mean  to 
show  you.  But  for  what  w.e  know  of  Eleusis  and  its 
mummeries,  which  is  quite  enough  for  all  practical 
purposes,  we  are  indebted  to  none  of  you  ancients, 
but  entirely  to  modern  sagacity.  Is  not  that  shocking, 
\liat  a  hoax  should  first  be  unmasked  when  it  has  been 


160 


SECBET  SOCIETIES. 


defunct  for  fifteen  hundred  years  r  The  interest  which 
attaches  to  the  Eleusinian  shows,  is  not  properly  an 
interest  in  them^  but  an  alien  interest  in  accidents  indi- 
rectly connected  with  them.  Secret  there  was  virtually 
none  ;  but  a  mystery  at  length  begins  to  arise  —  how  it 
was  that  this  distressing  secret,  viz.  of  there  being  no 
secret  at  all,  could,  through  so  many  generations,  pass 
dow^n  in  religious  conservation  of  itself  from  all  profane 
curiosity  of  outside  barbarians.  There  was  an  endless 
file  of  heroes,  philosophers,  statesmen,  all  hoaxed,  all 
of  course  incensed  at  being  hoaxed,  and  yet  not  one 
of  them  is  known  to  have  blabbed.  A  great  modern 
poet,  musing  philosophically  on  the  results  amongst 
the  mob  '  in  Leicester's  busy  square,'  from  looking 
through  a  showman's  telescope  at  the  moon,  is  sur- 
prised at  the  crowd  of  spectators  going  off  with  an  air 
of  disappointment  : 

*  One  after  one  they  turn  aside  ;  nor  have  I  one  espied. 
That  doth  not  slackly  go  away,  as  if  dissatisfied. ' 

Yes,  but  I  can  tell  him  the  reason  of  that.  The  fact 
is,  a  more  pitiful  sight  for  sight-seers,  than  our  own 
moon,  does  not  exist.  The  first  man  that  showed  me 
the  moon  through  a  glass  of  any  power,  was  a  distin- 
guished professor  of  astronomy.  I  was  so  incensed 
with  the  hoax  (as  it  seemed)  put  upon  me  —  such  a 
weak,  watery,  wicked  old  harridan,  substituted  for  the 
pretty  creature  I  had  been  used  to  see  —  that  I  marched 
up  to  him  with  the  angry  design  of  demanding  my 
half-crown  back  again,  until  a  disgusting  remembrance 
came  over  me,  that,  being  a  learned  professor,  the 
showman  could  not  possibly  have  taken  any  half- 
crown,  which  fact  also  destroyed  all  ground  of  actior 


SECBET  SOCIETIES. 


161 


against  him  as  obtaining  money  under  false  pretences. 
I  contented  myself  therefore  with  saying,  that,  until  he 
showed  me  the  man  in  the  moon,  with  his  dog,  lantern, 
and  bundle  of  thorns,  I  must  decline  corroborating  his 
fancy  of  being  able  to  exhibit  the  real  old  original  moon 
and  no  mistake.  Endymion  never  could  have  had  such 
a  s^veetheart  as  that.  Let  the  reader  take  my  advice, 
not  to  seek  familiarity  with  the  moon.  Familiarity 
breeds  contempt. 

It  is  certain  that,  like  the  travellers  through  '  Leices- 
ter's busy  square,'  all  the  visiters  of  Eleusis  must  have 
abominated  the  lioax  put  upon  them  — 

 *  nor  have  I  one  espied, 

That  did  not  slackly  walk  away,  as  if  dissatisfied.' 

See  now  the  different  luck  of  hoaxers  in  this  world. 
Joseph  Ady^'*  is  smoked  pretty  nearly  by  the  whole  race 
of  man.  The  Continent  is,  by  this  time,  wide  awake  ; 
Belgium  has  refused  to  take  in  his  letters  ;  and  the  cruel 
Lord  Mayor  of  London  has  threatened  to  indict  Joe 
for  a  fraud,  value  twopence,  by  reason  of  the  said  Joe 
having  seduced  his  lordship  into  opening  an  unpaid 
letter,  which  was  found  to  contain  nothing  but  an  invi- 
tation from  '  yours  respectfully  '  —  not  to  a  dinner 
party  —  but  to  an  early  remittance  of  one  pound,  for 
reasons  subsequently  to  be  disclosed.  I  should  think, 
but  there's  no  knowing,  that  there  might  be  a  chance 
still  for  Joe,  (whom,  really  one  begins  to  pity,  as  a 
persecuted  man  —  cruising,  like  the  Flying  Dutchman, 
through  seas  that  have  all  closed  their  ports,)  in  Astra- 
«han,  and,  perhaps,  in  Mecca.  Some  business  might  be 
done,  for  a  few  years,  in  Timbuctoo ;  and  an  opening 
there  would  undoubtedly  be  found  for  a  connection  with 
11 


162 


SECHET  SOCIETIES. 


Abd-el-Kader.  if  only  any  opening  could  be  found  to 
Abd-el-Kader  Ihrough  the  French  lines.  Now,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  goddess  and  her  establishment  of  hoax- 
ers at  Eleusis,  did  a  vast  '  stroke  of  business '  for  more 
than  six  centuries,  without  any  '  unpleasantries '^^  oc- 
curring ;  no  cudgels  shaken  in  the  streets,  little  inci- 
dents that  custom  (by  making  too  familiar)  has  made 
contemptible  to  the  philosophy  of  Joe ;  no  round 
robbins,-  signed  by  the  whole  main-deck  of  the  acad- 
emy or  the  porch ;  no  praetors  or  lord  mayors  threat- 
ening actions  repetuiidarwn,  and  mourning  o\er 
twopences  that  had  gone  astray.  '  Misfortune  ac- 
quaints a  man  with  strange  bed-fellows ; '  and  the 
common  misfortune  of  having  been  hoaxed,  lowers 
the  proudest  and  the  humblest  into  a  strange  unanim- 
ity, for  once,  of  pocketing  their  wrongs  in  silence. 
Eleusis,  with  her  fine  bronzed  face,  might  say  proudly 
and  laughingly  —  '  Expose  me,  indeed  !  —  why,  I 
hoaxed  this  man's  great-grandfather,  and  I  trust  to 
hoax  his  great-grandson  ;  all  gjsnerations  of  his  house 
have  been  or  shall  be  hoaxed,  and  afterwards  grateful 
to  me  for  not  exposing  that  fact  of  the  hoax  at  their 
private  expense.' 

There  is  a  singularity  in  this  case,  of  the  same  kind 
as  that  stratagem,  (but  how  prodigiously  exceeded  in 
its  scale,)  imperfectly  executed  on  the  Greek  leaders 
by  the  Persian  satrap  Tissaphernes,  but  perfectly,  in 
one  or  two  cases,  amongst  the  savage  islands  of  the 
South  Seas,  upon  European  crews,  when  one  victim. 
Having  first  been  caught,  has  been  used  as  the  means 
of  trepanning  all  his  comrades  in  succession.  Each 
successive  novice  has  been  tamed,  by  terror,  into  an 
instrument  for  decoying  other  novices    from  A  to 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


163 


Z.  NbXt,  after  this  feature  of  interest  about  the 
Eleusiiiian  Teletai,  is  another  which  modern  times 
have  quickened  and  developed,  viz.,  the  gift  of  enor- 
mous nonsense,  the  inspiration  of  nonsense,  which 
the  enigma  of  these  mysteries  has  been  the  fortu- 
nate means  of  blowing  into  the  brains  of  various 
able  men.  It  requires  such  men,  in  fact,  to  suc- 
ceed as  speculators  in  nonsense.  None  but  a  man 
of  extraordinary  talents  can  write  first-rate  nonsense. 
Perhaps  the  prince  of  all  men,  ever  formed  by  nature 
and  education,  for  writing  superior  nonsense,  was 
Warburton.  The  natural  vegetation  of  his  intellect 
tended  to  that  kind  of  funguj  which  is  called  '  crotch- 
et;  '  so  much  so,  that  if  he  had  a  just  and  powerful 
thought,  (as  sometimes  he  had,)  or  even  a  wise  and 
beautiful  thought,  or  even  a  grand  one,  by  the  mere 
perversity  of  his  tortuous  brain,  it  was  soon  digested 
into  a  crotchet.  This  native  tendency  of  his  was  cul- 
tured and  watered,  for  years,  by  his  practice  as  an 
attorney.  Making  hijn  a  bishop  was,  perhaps,  a  mis- 
tak(5  ;  it  certainly  stunted  the  growth  of  special  plead- 
ing, perhaps  ruined  the  science  ;  on  the  other  hand, 
it  saved  the  twelve  judges  of  that  day  from  being 
driven  mad,  as  they  would  have  been  by  this  Hermes 
Trismegistus,  this  born  Titan,  in  the  realms  of  La 
Chicane,  Some  fractions  of  the  virus  descended 
through  the  Warburtonian  commentaries  upon  Pope, 
&c.,  corroding  the  flesh  to  the  very  bones,  wherever 
it  alighted.  But  the  Centaur's  shirt  of  W.'s  malignity 
was  destined  for  the  Hebrew  lawgiver,  and  all  that 
could  be  made  to  fall  within  that  field.  Did  my 
reader  ever  read  the  '  Divine  Legation  of  Moses  '  ? 
Is  he  aware  of  the  mighty  syllogism,  that  single  block 


164 


SECEEI  SOCIETIES. 


of  granite,  such  as  you  can  see  nowhere  but  at  St* 
Petersburgj^^  on  which  that  elaborate  work  reposes  ? 
There  is  a  Welsh  bridge,  near  Llanroost,  the  birth- 
place of  Inigo  Jones,  built  by  that  architect  with  such 
exquisite  skill,  that  the  people  astonished  me  (but  the 
people  were  two  milkmaids),  by  protesting  that  invari- 
ably a  little  breeze-footed  Camilla,  of  three  years  old, 
in  running  across,  caused  the  bridge  to  tremble  like  a 
guilty  thing.  So  admirable  was  the  equilibrium,  that 
an  infant's  foot  disturbed  it.  Unhappily,  Camilla  had 
sprained  her  ancle  at  that  time,  so  that  the  experiment 
could  not  be  tried  ;  and  the  bridge  to  me  seemed  not 
guilty  at  all,  (to  judge  by  its  trembling,)  but  as  inno- 
cent as  Camilla  herself.  Now,  Warburton  must  have 
sought  to  rival  the  Welsh  pontifex  in  this  particular 
test  of  architectural  skill  ;  for  his  syllogism  is  so  di- 
vinely poised,  that  if  you  shake  this  key-stone  of  his 
great  arch,  (as  you  certainly  may,)  then  you  will 
become  aware  of  a  vibration  —  of  a  nervous  tremor  — 
running  through  the  entire  dome  of  his  divine  lega- 
tion ;  you  are  absolutely  afraid  of  the  dome  coming 
down  with  yourself  in  the  centre  ;  just  as  the  Llan- 
roost bridge  used  to  be  near  going  into  hysterics  when 
the  light-footed  Camilla  bounded  across  it.  This  syl- 
logism, on  account  of  its  connection  with  the  Eleusin- 
ian  hoax,  I  will  rehearse  :  it  is  the  very  perfection  of 
a  crotchet.  Suppose  the  major  proposition  to  be  this  : 
That  no  religion,  unless  through  the  advantage  of 
divine  inspiration,  could  dispense  with  the  doctrine  of 
future  rewards  and  punishments.  Suppose  the  minof 
proposition  this  :  That  the  Mosaic  religion  did  dispense 
vith  that  doctrine.  Then  the  conclusion  will  be  — 
er^o,  the  Mosaic  religion  was  divinely  inspired.  The 


SECEET  SOCIETIES. 


165 


monstrous  tenor  of  this  argument  made  it  necessary  to 
argue  most  elaborately  that  all  the  false  systems  of 
false  and  cruel  religions  were  affectionately  anxious 
for  maintaining  the  doctrine  of  a  future  state  ;  but, 
2dly,  that  the  only  true  faith  and  the  only  pure  wor- 
ship were  systematically  careless  of  that  doctrine.  Of 
course  it  became  necessary  to  show,  inter  alia,  that 
the  Grecian  States  and  lawgivers  maintained  officially, 
as  consecrated  parts  of  the  public  religion,  the  doctrine 
of  immortality  as  valid  for  man's  expectations  and 
fears ;  whilst  at  Jerusalem,  at  Hebron,  on  Mount 
Sinai,  this  doctrine  was  slighted.  Generally  speaking, 
a  lie  is  a  hard  thing  to  establish.  The  Bishop  of 
Gloucester  was  forced  to  tax  his  resources  as  an  artist, 
in  building  palaces  of  air,  not  less  than  ever  Inigo 
Jones  before  him  in  building  Whitehall  or  St.  Vitus's 
bridge  at  Llanroost.  Unless  he  could  prove  that  Pa- 
ganism fought  hard  for  this  true  doctrine,  then  by  his 
own  argument  Paganism  would  be  found  true.  Just 
as,  inversely,  if  he  failed  to  prove  that  Judaism  coun- 
tenanced the  false  doctrine,  Judaism  would  itself  be 
found  false.  Whichever  favored  the  false,  was  true 
whichever  favored  the  true  was  false.  There's  a 
crotchet  for  you,  reader,  round  and  full  as  any  prize 
turnip  ever  yet  crowned  with  laurels  by  great  agricul- 
tural societies  !  I  suspect  that,  in  Homeric  language, 
twice  nine  of  such  degenerate  men  as  the  reader  and. 
myself  could  not  grow  such  a  crotchet  as  that ! 

The  Bishop  had,  therefore,  to  prove  —  it  was  an 
obligation  self-created  by  his  own  syllogism  —  that  the 
Pagan  religion  of  Greece,  in  some  great  authorized 
institution  of  the  land,  taught  and  insisted  on  the 
doctrine  of  a  future  state  as  the  basis  on  which  al] 


166 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


legal  ethics  rested.  This  great  doctrine  he  had  to 
suspend  as  a  chandelier  in  his  halls  of  Pagan  mytho- 
logy. A  pretty  chandelier  for  a  Christian  Bishop  to 
be  chaining  to  the  roof  and  lighting  up  for  the  glory  of 
heathenism  !  Involuntarily  one  thinks  of  Aladdin's 
impious  order  for  a  roc's  egg,  the  egg  of  the  very 
deity  whom  the  slave  of  the  lamp  served,  to  hang  up 
in  his  principal  saloon.  The  Bishop  found  his  chan- 
delier, or  fancied  he  had  found  it,  in  the  old  hmber 
garrets  of  Eleusis.  He  knew,  he  could  prove,  what 
was  taught  in  the  Eleusinian  shows.  Was  the  Bishop 
ever  there  ?  No  :  but  what  of  that  ?  He  could  read 
through  a  milestone.  And  Virgil,  in  his  6th  ^neid, 
had  given  the  world  a  poetic  account  of  the  Teletai, 
which  the  Bishop  kindly  translated  and  expanded  into 
the  truth  of  absolute  prose.  The  doctrine  of  immor- 
tality, he  insisted,  was  the  chief  secret  revealed  in  the 
mysteries.  And  thus  he  proved  decisively  that,  because 
it  taught  a  capital  truth.  Paganism  must  be  a  capital 
falsehood.  It  is  impossible  to  go  within  a  few  pages 
into  the  innumerable  details.  Sufficient  it  would  be 
for  any  casual  reader  to  ask,  if  this  were  the  very 
hinge  of  all  legislative  ethics  in  Greece,  how  it  hap- 
pened that  it  was  a  matter  of  pure  fancy  or  accident 
whether  any  Greek,  or  even  any  Athenian,  were  initi- 
ated or  not ;  2dly,  how  the  Bishop  would  escape  the 
following  dilemma  —  if  the  supposed  doctrine  were 
advanced  merely  as  an  opinion,  one  amongst  others, 
then  what  authority  did  it  draw  from  Eleusis  ?  If,  on 
the  other  hand,  Eleusis  pretended  to  some  special 
argument  for  immortality,  how  came  it  that  many 
Greek  and  some  Roman  philosophers,  who  had  been 
introduced  at  Eleusis,  or  had  even  ascended  to  the 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


167 


highest  degree  of  ^ivjjoig,  did  not.  in  discussing  this 
question,  refer  to  that  secret  proof  which,  though  not 
privileged  to  develop,  they  might  safely  have  built 
upon  as  a  postulate  amongst  initiated  brothers  ?  An 
opinion  ungrounded  was  entitled  to  no  weight  even 
in  the  mobs  of  Eleusis  —  an  argument  upon  good 
grounds  must  have  been  often  alluded  to  in  philosophic 
schools.  Neither  could  a  nation  of  holy  cowards, 
trembling  like  the  bridge  at  Llanroost,  have  had  it  in 
their  power  to  intercept  the  propagation  of  such  a 
truth.  The  47th  of  Euclid  I.  might  have  been  kept  a 
secret  by  fear  of  assassination,  because  no  man  coald 
communicate  that  in  a  moment  of  intoxication  ;  if  his 
wife,  for  instance,  shoidd  insist  on  his  betraying  the 
secret  of  that  proposition,  he  might  safely  tell  her  — - 
not  a  woid  would  she  understand  or  remember;  and 
the  worst  result  would  be,  that  she  would  box  his  ears 
for  imposing  upon  her.  I  once  heard  a  poor  fellow 
complain,  that,  being  a  Freemason,  he  had  been  led 
the  life  of  a  dog  by  his  wife,  as  if  he  were  Samson 
and  she  were  Delilah,  with  the  purpose  of  forcing  him 
to  betray  the  Masonic  secret  and  sign :  and  these,  he 
solemnly  protested  to  us  all,  that  he  had  betrayed  most 
regularly  and  faithfully  whenever  he  happened  to  be 
drunk.  But  what  did  he  get  for  his  goodness  r  All 
the  return  he  ever  had  for  the  kindness  of  this  invari- 
able treachery  was  a  word,  too  common,  I  regret  to  say, 
"n  female  lips,  viz.  Jlddle-de-dee  :  and  he  declared, 
with  tears  in  his  eyes,  that  peace  for  him  was  out  of 
the  question,  until  he  could  find  out  some  plausible 
falsehood  that  might  prove  more  satisfactory  to  his 
wife's  mind  than  the  truth.  Now  the  Eleusinian  secret, 
if  it  related  to  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  could  not 


168 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


have  the  protection  of  obscurity  or  complex  involution. 
If  it  had,  then  it  could  not  have  been  intelligible  to 
mobs  :  if  it  had  not,  then  it  could  not  have  been 
guarded  against  the  fervor  of  confidential  conversation. 
A  very  subtle  argument  could  not  have  been  commu- 
nicated to  the  multitudes  that  visited  the  shows  —  a 
very  popular  argument  would  have  passed  a  man's 
lips,  in  the  ardor  of  argument,  before  he  would  himself 
be  aware  of  it. 

But  all  this  is  superfluous.  Let  the  reader  study  the 
short  essay  of  Lobeck  on  this  subject,  forming  one 
section  in  three  of  his  AgIaopha?nus,  and  he  will  treat, 
with  derision,  all  the  irrelevant  skirmishing,  and  the 
vast  roars  of  artillery  pointed  at  shadows,  which  amuse 
the  learned,  but  disgust  the  philosophic  in  the  '  Divine 
Legation.'  Much  remains  to  be  done  that  Lobeck's 
rustic  seclusion  denied  him  the  opportunities  for 
doing :  "^^  much  that  can  be  done  eflectually  only  in 
great  libraries.  But  1  return  to  my  assertion,  that  the 
most  memorable  of  all  Secret  Societies  was  the  mean- 
est. That  the  Society  which  made  more  people  hold 
their  tongues  than  ever  the  Inquisition  did,  or  the 
mediseval  Vehm-gericht,  was  a  hoax ;  nay,  except 
Freemasonry,  the  hoax  of  hoaxes. 


PART  II. 

Has  the  modern  world  no  hoax  of  its  own,  answer- 
Jig  to  the  Eleusinian  mysteries  of  Grecian  days  ? 
Oh,  yes,  it  has.  I  have  a  very  bad  opinion  of  the 
ancient  world ;  and  it  would  grieve  me  if  such  a  world 


SEOflET  SOCIETIES. 


169 


could  be  sliown  to  have  beaten  us  even  in  tbe  quality 
of  our  hoaxes.  I  have,  also,  not  a  very  favorable 
opinion  of  the  modern  world.  But  1  dare  say  that 
in  fifty  thousand  years  it  will  be  considerably  im- 
proved ;  and,  in  the  meantime,  if  we  are  not  quite 
so  good  or  so  clever  as  we  ought  to  be,  yet  still  we 
are  a  trifle  better  than  our  ancestors  ;  I  hope  we  are 
up  to  a  hoax  any  day.  A  man  must  be  a  poor  creature 
that  can't  invent  a  hoax.  For  two  centuries  we  have 
had  a  first-rate  one  ;  and  its  name  is  Freemasonry , 
Do  you  know  the  secret,  my  reader  ?  Or  shall  I  tell 
you  ?  Send  me  a  consideration,  and  I  will.  But 
stay,  the  weather  being  so  fine,  and  philosophers, 
therefore,  so  good-tempered,  I'll  tell  it  you  for  nothing, 
(vhereas,  if  you  become  a  mason,  you  must  pay  for  it. 
Here  is  the  secret.  When  the  novice  is  introduced 
into  the  conclave  of  the  Freemasons,  the  grand-master 
looks  very  fierce  at  him,  and  draws  his  sword,  which 
makes  the  novice  look  very  melancholy,  as  he  is  not 
aware  of  having  had  time  as  yet  for  any  profaneness, 
and  fancies,  therefore,  that  somebody  must  have  been 
slandering  him.  Then  the  grand-master,  or  his 
deputy,  cites  him  to  the  bar,  saying,  '  What's  that 
you  have  in  your  pocket?'  To  which  the  novice 
replies,  'A  guinea.'  'Anything  more?'  'Another 
guinea.'  'Then,'  replies  the  ofiicial  person  in  a  voice 
of  thunder,  '  Fork  out.'  Of  course  to  a  man  coming 
sword-in-hand  few  people  refuse  to  do  that.  This 
forms  the  first  half  of  the  mysteries ;  the  second  half, 
which  is  by  much  the  more  interesting,  consists  entirely 
of  brandy.  In  fact,  this  latter  mystery  forms  the 
reason,  or  final  cause,  for  the  elder  mystery  of  the 
Forking  out    *But  how  did  I  learn  all  this  so  ac* 


170 


SECEET  SOCIETIES. 


curately  ?  Isn't  a  man  liable  to  be  assassinated,  if  he 
betrays  that  ineffable  mystery  or  an.ofj^7jTo  of  masonry, 
which  no  wretch  but  one  since  King  Solomon's  day  is 
reputed  e^  er  to  have  blabbed  ?  And  perhaps,  reader, 
the  wretch  did'nt  blab  the  whole  ;  he  only  got  as  far 
as  the  Forking  out  ;  and  being  a  churl  who  grudged 
his  money,  he  ran  away  before  reaching  the  hraiidy. 
So  that  this  fellow,  if  he  seems  to  you  but  half  as  guilty 
as  myself,  on  the  other  hand  is  but  half  as  learned. 
It's  better  for  you  to  stick  by  the  guiltier  man.  And 
yet,  on  consideration,  I  am  not  so  guilty  as  we  have 
both  been  thinking.  Perhaps  it  was  a  mistake.  Dream- 
ing on  days  far  back,  when  I  was  scheming  for  an 
introduction  to  the  honorable  society  of  masons,  and  of 
course  to  their  honorable  secret,  with  the  single-minded 
intention  of  instantly  betraying  that  secret  to  a  dear 
female  friend  (and,  you  see,  in  honor  it  was  not  pos- 
sible for  me  to  do  otherwise,  because  she  had  made 
me  promise  that  I  would)  —  all  this  time  I  was  soothing 
my  remorse  with  a  belief  that  woman  was  answerable 
for  my  treachery,  she  having  positively  compelled  me 
to  undertake  it.  When  suddenly  I  woke  into  a  bright 
conviction  that  all  was  a  dream ;  that  I  had  never  been 
near  the  Freemasons  ;  that  I  had  treacherously  evaded 
the  treachery  which  I  ought  to  have  committed,  by 
perfidiously  forging  a  secret  quite  as  good,  very  likely 
better,  than  that  which  I  was  pledged  in  honor  to 
betray  ;  and  that,  if  anybody  had  ground  of  complaint 
against  myself,  it  w^as  not  the  grand-master,  sword-in- 
hand,  but  my  poor  ill-used  female  friend,  so  confiding, 
60  amiably  credulous  in  my  treachery,  so  cruelly  de- 
ceived, who  had  swallowed  a  mendacious  account  of 
Freemasonry  forged  by  myself,  the  same  which,  ] 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


171 


greatly  fear  that,  on  looking  back,  I  shall  find  myself 
to  have  been  palming,  in  this  very  page,  upon  the 
CQuch  respected  reader.  Serioi/sly,  however,  the  whole 
bubble  of  Freemasonry  was  shattered  in  a  paper  which 
I  myself  once  threw  into  a  London  journal  about  the 
year  1823  or  '4.  It  was  a  paper  in  this  sense  mine, 
that  from  me  it  had  received  form  and  arrangement ; 
but  the  materials  belonged  to  a  learned  German,  viz. 
Buhle,  the  same  (Ebelison)  that  edited  the  '  Bipont 
Aristotle,'  and  wrote  a  history  of  philosophy.  No 
German  has  any  conception  of  style.  I  therefore  did 
him  the  favor  to  wash  his  dirty  face,  and  make  him 
presentable  amongst  Christians  ;  but  the  substance  was 
drawn  entirely  from  this  German  book.  It  was  there 
established,  that  the  whole  hoax  of  masonry  had  been 
invented  in  the  year  1629  by  one  Andrea;  and  the 
reason  that  this  exposure  could  have  dropped  out  of 
remembrance,  is,  probably,  that  it  never  reached  the 
public  ear  :  partly  because  the  journal  had  a  limited 
circulation  ;  but  much  more  because  the  title  of  the 
paper  was  not  so  constructed  as  to  indicate  its  object. 
A  title,  which  seemed  to  promise  only  a  discussion 
of  masonic  doctrines,  must  have  repelled  everybody  ; 
whereas,  it  ought  to  have  announced  (what  in  fact  it 
accomplished)  the  utter  demolition  of  the  whole  ma- 
sonic edifice.  At  this  moment  I  have  not  space  for 
an  abstract  of  that  paper  ;  but  it  w^as  conclusive  ;  and 
hereafter,  when  I  have  strengthened  it  by  facts  since 
noticed  in  my  own  reading,  it  may  be  right  to  place  it 
more  effectually  before  the  public  eye. 

Finally,  I  will  call  the  reader's  attention  to  the  most 
••emarkable  by  far  of  all  secret  societies  ever  heard  of, 
»nd  for  this  reason,  that  it  suddenly  developed  th« 


172 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


most  critical  wisdom  in  a  dreadful  emergency ;  secona< 
ly,  the  grandest  purpose ;  and,  lastly,  with  entire 
success.  The  purpose  was,  to  protect  a  jewel  by 
hiding  it  from  all  eyes,  whilst  it  navigated  a  sea 
swarming  with  enemies.  The  critical  wisdom  was 
the  most  remarkable  evidence  ever  given  by  the 
primitive  Christians  of  that  serpent's  subtlety  which 
they  had  been  warned  to  combine  with  the  innocence 
of  the  dove.  The  success  was,  the  victory  of  the 
Christian  church  over  the  armies  that  waylaid  its 
infancy.  Without  falsehood,  without  shadow  of  false- 
hood, all  the  benefits  of  falsehood  —  the  profoundest 
—  were  secured.  Without  need  to  abjure  anything,  all 
that  would  have  raised  a  demoniac  yell  for  instant 
abjuration  was  suddenly  hidden  out  of  sight.  In  noon- 
day the  Christian  Church  was  suddenly  withdrawn 
behind  impenetrable  veils,  even  as  the  infant  Christ 
himself  was  caught  up  to  the  secrecies  of  Egypt  and 
the  wilderness  from  the  bloody  wrath  of  Herod.  And 
whilst  the  enemies  of  this  infant  society  were  roaming 
round  them  on  every  side,  seeking  for  them,  walking 
upon  their  very  traces,  absolutely  touching  them,  oi 
divided  from  their  victims  only  as  children  in  bed  hav( 
escaped  from  murderers  in  thick  darkness,  sheltered 
by  no  screen  but  a  muslin  curtain  ;  all  the  while  the 
mner  principle  of  the  church  lurked  as  in  the  cell  a< 
the  centre  of  a  labyrinth.  Was  the  hon.  reader  ever 
\n  a  real  labyrinth,  like  that  described  by  Herodotus  ? 
We  have  all  been  in  labyrinths  of  doubt,  labyrinths 
of  error,  labyrinths  of  metaphysical  nonsense.  But  I 
speak  of  literal  labyrinths.  Now,  at  Bath,  in  my  laby- 
rinthine childhood,  there  was  such  a  mystery.  Thia 
mystery  I  used  to  vi«it ;  and  I  can  assert  that  no  type 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


173 


ever  flashed  upon  my  mind  so  pathetically  shadowing 
out  the  fatal  irretrievability  of  early  errors  in  lifa 
Turn  hut  wrong  at  first  entering  the  thicket,  and  all  was 
over  ;  you  were  ruined  ;  no  wandering  could  recover 
the  right  path.  Or  suppose  you  even  took  the  right 
turn  at  first,  what  of  that  ?  You  couldn't  expect  to 
draw  a  second  prize  ;  five  turnings  ofiered  very  soon 
after ;  your  chance  of  escaping  error  was  now  reduced 
to  one-fifth  of  unity ;  and  supposing  that  again  you 
draw  no  blank,  not  very  far  had  you  gone  before 
fourteen  roads  offered.  What  remained  for  you  to  do 
now  ?  Why,  if  you  were  a  wise  man,  to  lie  down 
and  cry.  None  but  a  presumptuous  fool  would  count 
upon  drawing  for  a  third  time  a  prize,  and  such  a 
prize  as  one  amongst  fourteen.  I  mention  all  this,  I 
recall  this  image  of  the  poor  Sidney  Labyrinth,  whose 
roses,  I  fear,  must  long  ago  have  perished,  betraying 
all  the  secrets  of  the  mysterious  house,  simply  to  teach 
the  stranger  how  secure  is  the  heart  of  a  labyrinth. 
Gibraltar  is  nothing  to  it.  You  may  sit  in  that  deep 
grave-like  recess,  you  may  hear  distant  steps  approach- 
ing, but  laugh  at  them.  If  you  are  coining,  and  have 
all  the  implements  of  coining  round  about  you,  never 
trouble  yourself  to  hide  them.  Nobody  will  in  this 
life  ever  reach  you.  Why,  it  is  demonstrable  by  the 
arithmetic  of  combinations,  that  if  a  man  spent  the 
flower  of  his  life  as  a  police  officer  in  trying  to  reach 
your  coining-shop,  he  could  not  do  it ;  you  might  rest 
as  in  a  sanctuary,  that  is,  hidden  and  inaccessible  to 
those  who  do  not  know  the  secret  of  the  concealment, 
[n  that  recess  you  might,  keep  a  private  still  for  a 
i^entury  without  fear  of  the  exciseman.  Light,  com- 
mon daylight  will  not  show  you  the  stars ;  on  the 


174 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


contrary,  it  hides  them  ;  and  the  brighter  this  lighi 
becomes,  the  more  it  hides  them.  Even  so,  from  the 
exquisite  machinery  of  the  earliest  Christian  society, 
whatever  suspicions  might  walk  about  in  the  darkness, 
all  efforts  of  fanatical  enemies  at  forcing  an  entrance 
within  the  air-woven  gates  of  these  entrenchments 
were  (as  the  reader  will  see)  utterly  thrown  away 
Round  and  round  the  furious  Jews  must  have  circum- 
ambulated the  camp,  like  the  poor  gold  fish  eternally 
wheeling  round  his  crystal  wall,  but,  after  endless 
cruisings,  never  nearer  to  any  opening.  That  con- 
cealment for  the  Christian  nursery  was  absolutely 
required,  because  else  martyrdom  would  have  come 
too  soon.  Martyrdom  was  good  for  watering  the 
church,  and  quickening  its  harvests ;  but,  at  this  early 
stage  of  advance,  it  would  utterly  have  extirpated  the 
church*  If  a  voice  had  been  heard  from  heaven, 
saying,  '  Let  there  be  martyrs,'  soon  the  great  answer- 
ing return  would  be  heard  rolling  back  from  earth, 
'  And  there  were  martyrs.  But  for  this  there  must  be 
time  ;  the  fire,  to  be  sure,  will  never  be  extinguished, 
if  once  thoroughly  kindled ;  but,  in  this  earliest  twilight 
of  the  primitive  faith,  the  fire  is  but  a  little  gathering 
of  scanty  fuel  fanned  by  human  breath,  and  barely 
sufficient  to  show  one  golden  rallying  star  in  all  the 
mighty  wilderness. 

There  was  the  motive  to  the  Secret  Society  which 
I  am  going  to  describe  ?  —  there  was  its  necessity  ! 
*  Mask,  or  you  will  be  destroyed  ! '  was  the  private 
signal  among  the  Christians.  '  Fall  flat  on  your  faces,' 
says  the  Arab  to  the  Pilgrims,  when  he  sees  the  purple 
baze  of  the  simoorn  running  before  the  wind.  '  Lie 
down,  men,'  says  the  captain  to  his  fusiliers,  '  till  these 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


17L 


hurricanes  of  the  artillery  be  spent.'  To  hide  from 
the  storm  during  its  first  murderous  explosion,  was  so 
absolutely  requisite,  that,  simply  from  its  sine  qua  non 
necessity,  and  supposing  there  were  no  other  argument 
whatever,  I  should  infer  that  it  had  been  a  fact.  Be- 
cause it  must  have  been,  therefore  (I  should  say)  it 
was.  However,  do  as  you  like  ;  pray  use  your  own 
pleasure  ;  consider  yourself  quite  at  home  amongst  my 
arguments,  and  kick  them  about  with  as  little  apology 
as  if  they  were  my  children  and  servants.  What 
makes  me  so  easy  in  the  matter  is,  that  I  use  the  above 
argument  —  though,  in  m.y  opinion,  a  strong  one  —  eit 
abundanti ;  it  is  one  string  more  than  I  want  to  my 
bow ;  so  I  can  afford  to  lose  it,  even  if  T  lose  it  unjustly. 
But,  by  quite  another  line  of  argument,  and  dispensing 
with  this  altogether,  I  mean  to  make  you  believe, 
reader,  whether  you  like  it  or  not. 

I  once  threw  together  a  few  thoughts  upon  this  ob- 
scure question  of  the  Essenes,  which  thoughts  were 
published  a-t  the  time  in  a  celebrated  journal,  and  my 
reason  for  referring  to  them  here  is  in  connection  with 
a  single  inappropriate  expression  since  applied  to  that 
paper.  In  a  short  article  on  myself  in  his  '  Gallery  of 
Literary  Portraits,'  Mr.  Gilfillan  spoke  of  that  little 
disquisition  in  terms  beyond  its  merit,  and  I  thank  him 
for  his  kind  opinion.  But  as  to  one  word,  not  affecting 
myself  but  the  subject,  I  find  it  a  duty  of  sincerity  to 
dissent  from  him.  He  calls  the  thesis  of  that  paper 
'  paradoxical^  Now  paradox  is  a  very  charming 
thing,  and,  since  leaving  ofi"  opium,  I  take  a  great  deal 
too  much  of  it  for  my  health.  But,  in  this  case,  the 
paradox  lies  precisely  ai^  outrageously  in  the  opposite 
direction  ;  that  is,  w^hen  used  (as  the  w^ord  paradox 


176 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


commonly  is)  to  mean  something  that  startles  by  its 
extravagance.  Else  I  have  twice  oi  three  times  ex- 
plained in  print,  for  the  benefit  of  my  female  or  non- 
Grecian  readers,  that  paradox^  being  a  purely  Greek 
word,  onght  strictly  to  be  read  by  a  Grecian  light,  and 
then  it  implies  nothing,  of  necessity,  that  may  not  bf 
right.  Here  follows  a  rigorous  definition  of  'paradox 
in  a  Greek  sense.  Not  that  only  is  paradoxical  which, 
being  really  false,  puts  on  the  semblance  of  truth  ; 
but,  secondly,  that^  also,  which,  being  really  true,  puts 
on  the  semblance  of  falsehood.  For,  literally  speak- 
ing, everything  is  paradoxical  which  contradicts  the 
public  doxa  ((^o^u),  that  is,  contradicts  the  popular 
opinion  or  the  public  expectation,  which  may  be  done 
by  a  truth  as  easily  as  a  falsehood.  The  very  weight- 
iest truths  now  received  amongst  men,  have  nearly  all 
of  them,  in  turn,  in  some  one  stage  of  their  develop- 
ment, been  found  strong  paradoxes  to  the  popular 
mind.  Hence  it  is,  viz.  in  the  Grecian  sense  of  the 
word  paradox  as  something  extraordinary,  but  not  on 
that  account  the  less  likely  to  be  true,  that  several 
great  philosophers  have  published,  under  the  idea  and 
title  of  paradoxes,  some  first-rate  truths  on  which  they 
desired  to  fix  public  attention  ;  meaning,  in  a  short- 
hand form,  to  say  —  '  Here,  reader,  are  some  extraor- 
dinary truths,  looking  so  very  like  falsehoods,  that  you 
would  never  take  them  for  anything  else  if  you  were 
not  invited  to  give  them  a  special  examination.'  Boyle 
published  some  elementary  principles  in  hydrostatics 
as  paradoxes.  Natural  philosophy  is  overrun  with 
paradoxes.  Mathematics,  mechanics,  dynamics,  are  all 
partially  infested  with  them,  ^^nd  in  morals  the  Stoics 
threw  their  weightiest  doctrines  under  the  rubric  of 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


177 


paraiioxes  —  a  fact  which  survives  to  this  day  in  a  little 
essay  of  C'cero's.  To  be  paradoxical,  therefore,  is 
not  necessarily  to  be  unphilosophic  ;  and  that  being  so, 
it  might  seem  as  though  Mr.  Gilfillan  had  laid  me 
under  no  obligation  to  dissent  from  him  ;  but  used 
popularly,  as  naturally  Mr.  Gilfillan  meant  to  use  it  in 
that  situation,  the  word  certainly  throws  a  reproach  of 
extravagance  upon  any  thought,  argument,  or  specula-' 
tion,  to  which  it  is  imputed. 

Now  it  is  important  for  the  reader  to  understand 
that  the  very  first  thing  which  ever  fixed  my  sceptical 
eye  upon  the  whole  fable  of  the  Essenes,  as  commonly 
received  amongst  Christian  churches,  was  the  intolera- 
ble extravagance  of  the  received  story.  The  outrage- 
ousness  —  the  mere  Cyclopian  enormity  of  its  paradox 

—  this,  and  nothing  else,  it  was  that  first  extorted  from 
me,  on  a  July  day,  one  long  shiver  of  horror  at  the 
credulity,  the  bottomless  credulity,  that  could  have 
swallowed  such  a  legend  of  delirium.  Why,  Pliny, 
my  excellent  Sir,  you  were  a  gentleman  mixing  with 
men  of  the  highest  circles  —  you  were  yourself  a  man 
of  fine  and  brilliant  intellect  —  a  jealous  inquirer  — 
and,  in  extent  of  science,  beyond  your  contemporaries 

—  how  came  you,  then,  to  lend  an  ear,  so  learned  as 
yours,  to  two  such  knaves  as  your  Jewish  authorities  ? 
For,  doubtless,  it  loas  they,  viz.  Josephus  and  Philo- 
Judceus,  that  poisoned  the  Plinian  ear.  Others  from 
Alexandria  would  join  the  cabal,  but  these  vaga- 
bonds were  the  ringleaders.  Now  there  were  three 
reasons  for  specially  distrusting  such  men,  tv/o  known 
equally  well  to  Pliny  and  me,  one  separately  to  myself, 
Jews  had  by  that  fc'me  earned  the  reputation,  in  Roman 
literature,  of  being  credulous  by  preference  amongst 

12 


178 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


the  cliildren  of  earth.  That  was  one  reason;  a  second 
was,  that  all  men  tainted  with  intense  nationality^ 
and  especially  if  not  the  gay,  amiable,  nationality  of 
Frenchmen,  but  a  gloomy  unsocial  nationality,  are 
liable  to  suspicion  as  liars.  So  much  was  known  to 
Pliny  :  and  a  third  thing  which  was  not,  I  could  have 
told  him,  viz.  that  Josephus  was  the  greatest  knave  in 
that  generation.  A  learned  man  in  Ireland  is  at  this 
moment  bringing  out  a  new  translation  of  Josephus, 
which  has,  indeed,  long  been  wanted ;  for  '  wicked 
Will  Whiston '  was  a  very  moderate  Grecian  —  a 
miserable  antiquarian  —  a  coarse  writer  of  English  — 
and  at  that  time  of  day,  in  the  absence  of  the  main 
German  and  English  researches  on  the  many  questions 
(chronological  or  historical)  in  Syro-Judaic  and  Egyp- 
tian antiquities,  had  it  not  within  his  physical  possibili- 
ties to  adorn  the  Sparta^^  which  chance  had  assigned 
him.  From  what  I  hear,  the  history  will  benefit  by 
this  new  labor  of  editorial  culture  ;  the  only  thing  to 
be  feared  is,  that  the  historian,  the  bad  Josephus,  will 
not  be  meritoriously  scourged.  J,  Uctor,  colUga  manus. 
One  aspect  of  Josephus  and  his  character  occurs  to 
me  as  interesting,  viz.  when  placed  in  collision  with 
the  character  so  different,  and  the  position  partially  the 
same,  of  St.  Paul.  In  both,  when  suddenly  detained 
for  inspection  at  an  early  stage  of  their  career,  we 
have  a  bigot  of  the  most  intractible  quality  ;  and  in 
both  the  bigotry  expressed  its  ferocity  exclusively  upon 
the  Christians,  as  the  new-born  heretics  that  troubled 
the  unity  of  the  national  church.  Thus  far  the  parties 
agree  ;  and  they  agree  also  in  being  as  learned  as  the 
limited  affinities  in  their  native  studies  to  exotic  learn- 
ing would  allow.    But  from  that  point,  up  to  whicb 


SECHET  SOCIEIIES. 


179 


the  resemblance  in  position,  in  education,  in  temper, 
is  so  close,  how  entirely  opposed  !  Both  erring  pro- 
foundly ;  yet  the  one  not  only  in  his  errors,  but 
his  errors  showing  himself  most  single-minded,  con- 
scientious, fervent,  devout ;  a  holy  bigot ;  as  incapable 
of  anytliing  mercenary  then,  of  anything  insidious,  or 
of  compromise  with  any  mode  of  self-interest,  as  aftei 
the  rectification  of  his  views  he  was  incapable  of  com- 
promise with  profounder  shapes  of  error.  The  other, 
a  time-serving  knavQ,  sold  to  adulation  and  servile 
ministries ;  a  pimp ;  a  liar ;  or  ready  for  any  worse 
office,  if  worse  is  named  on  earth.  Never  on  any 
human  stage  was  so  dramatically  realized,  as  by  Jose- 
phus  in  Rome,  the  delineation  of  the  poet : 

'  A  fingering  meddling  slave  ; 
One  that  would  peep  and  botanize 
Upon  his  mother's  grave.' 

Yes,  this  master  in  Israel,  this  leader  of  Sanhedrims, 
went  as  to  a  puppet-show,  sat  the  long  day  through  to 
see  a  sight.  What  sight  ?  Jugglers,  was  it  ?  buffoons  ? 
tumblers  ?  dancing  dogs  ?  or  a  reed  shaken  by  the 
wind  ?  Oh,  no  !  Simply  to  see  his  ruined  country 
carried  captive  in  effigy  through  the  city  of  her  con- 
queror —  to  see  the  sword  of  the  Maccabees  hung  up 
as  a  Roman  trophy  —  to  see  the  mysteries  of  the 
glorious  temple  dragged  from  secrecy  before  the 
grooms  and  gladiators  of  Rome.  Then  when  this 
was  finished,  a  woe  that  would  once  have  caused 
Hebrew  corpses  to  stir  in  their  graves,  he  goes  home 
to  find  his  atrium  made  glorious  with  the  monuments 
of  a  thousand  years  that  had  descended  through  the 
princes  of  Hebrew  tribes  ;  and  to  find  his  luxury,  his 


180 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


palace,  and  his  liarem,  charged  as  a  perpetual  tax 
upon  the  groans  of  his  brave  unsurrendering  country- 
men, that  had  been  sold  as  slaves  into  marble  quarries : 
they  worked  extra  hours,  that  the  only  traitor  to  Jeru- 
salem might  revel  in  honor. 

When  first  I  read  the  account  of  the  Essenes  in 
Joseplius,  I  leaned  back  in  my  seat,  and  apostrophized 
the  writer  thus :  —  '  Joe,  listen  to  me  ;  you've  been 
telling  us  a  fairy  tale ;  and,  for  my  part,  I've  no  objec- 
tion to  a  fairy  tale  in  any  situation ;  because,  if  one 
can  make  no  use  of  it  oneself,  one  always  knows  a 
child  that  will  be  thankful  for  it.  But  this  tale,  Mr. 
Joseph,  happens  also  to  be  a  lie  ;  secondly,  a  fraudu- 
lent lie  ;  thirdly,  a  malicious  lie.'  It  was  a  fiction  of 
hatred  against  Christianity.  For  I  shall  startle  the 
reader  a  little  when  I  inform  him  that,  if  there  were  a 
syllable  of  truth  in  the  main  statement  of  Josephus, 
then  at  one  blow  goes  to  wreck  the  whole  edifice  of 
Christianity.  Nothing  but  blindness  and  insensibility 
of  heart  to  the  true  internal  evidence  of  Christianity 
could  ever  have  hidden  this  from  men.  Religious 
sycophants  who  affect  the  profoundest  admiration,  but* 
in  their  hearts  feel  none  at  all,  for  what  they  profess  to 
regard  as  the  beauty  of  the  moral  revelations  made  in 
the  New  Testament,  are  easily  cheated,  and  often  have 
been  cheated,  by  the  grossest  plagiarisms  from  Chris- 
tianity offered  to  them  as  the  pure  natural  growths  of 
paganism.  I  would  engage  to  wTite  a  Greek  version 
somewhat  varied  and  garbled  of  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount,  were  it  hidden  in  Pompeii,  unearthed,  and 
published  as  a  fragment  from  a  posthumous  work  of  a 
Stoic,  with  the  certain  result  that  very  few  people 
indeed  should  detect  in  it  any  signs  of  ^orgery.  There 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


181 


are  several  cases  of  that  nature  actually  unsuspected 
at  this  hour,  which  my  deep  cynicism  and  detestation 
of  human  hypocrisy  yet  anticipates  a  banquet  of  grati- 
fication in  one  day  exposing.  Oh,  the  millions  of  deaf 
hearts,  deaf  to  everything  really  impassioned  in  music, 
that  pretend  to  admire  Mozart  !  Oh,  the  worlds  of 
hypocrites  who  cant  about  the  divinity  of  Scriptural 
morality,  and  yet  would  never  see  any  lustre  at  all  in 
the  most  resplendent  of  Christian  jewels,  provided  the 
pagan  thief  had  a  little  disguised  their  setting.  The 
thing  has  been  tried  long  before  the  case  of  the  Essenes  ; 
and  it  takes  more  than  a  scholar  to  detect  the  impos- 
ture. A  philosopher,  who  must  also  be  a  scholar,  is 
wanted.  The  eye  that  suspects  and  watches,  is 
needed.  Dark  seas  were  those  over  which  the  ark  of 
Christianity  tilted  for  the  first  four  centuries ;  evil  men 
and  enemies  were  cruising,  and  an  Alexandrian  Pha- 
ros is  required  to  throw  back  a  light  broad  enough  to 
search  and  sweep  the  guilty  secrets  of  those  times. 
The  Church  of  Rome  has  always  thrown  a  backward 
telescopic  glance  of  question  and  uneasy  suspicion 
upon  these  ridiculous  Essenes^  and  has  repeatedly 
come  to  the  right  practical  conclusion  —  that  they 
were,  and  must  have  been.  Christians  under  some  mask 
or  other ;  but  the  failure  of  Rome  has  been  in  carrying 
the  Ariadne's  thread  through  the  whole  labyrinth  from 
centre  to  circumference.  Rome  has  given  the  ultimate 
it)olution  rightly,  but  has  not  (in  geometrical  language) 
raised  the  construction  of  the  problem  with  its  condi- 
tions and  steps  of  evolution.  Shall  I  tell  you,  reader, 
m  a  briet,  rememberable  form,  what  was  the  crime  of 
the  hound  Josephus,  through  this  fable  of  the  Essenes 
m  relation  to  Christ  ?    It  was  the  very  same  crime  as 


182 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


that  of  the  hound  Lauder  in  relation  to  Milton.  Lau- 
der, about  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  bearing  deadly 
malic-e  to  the  memory  of  Milton,  conceived  the  idea  of 
charging  the  great  poet  with  plagiarism.  He  would 
greatly  have  preferred  denying  the  value  in  toto  of  the 
'  Paradise  Lost.'  But,  as  this  was  hopeless,  the  next 
best  course  was  to  say  —  Well,  let  it  be  as  grand  a? 
you  please,  it  is  none  of  Milton's.  And,  to  prepare  the 
w^ay  for  this,  he  proceeded  to  translate  into  Latin  (but 
with  plausible  variations  in  the  expression  or  arrange- 
ment) some  of  the  most  memorable  passages  in  the 
poem.  By  this  means  he  had,  as  it  were,  melted 
down  or  broken  up  the  golden  sacramental  plate,  and 
might  now  apply  it  to  his  own  felonious  purposes. 
The  false  swindling  travesty  of  the  Miltonic  passage 
he  produced  as  the  undoubted  original,  professing  to 
have  found  it  in  some  rare  or  obscure  author,  not 
easily  within  reach,  and  then  saying  —  Judge  (I  be- 
seech you)  for  yourself,  whether  Milton  were  indebted 
to  this  passage  or  not.  Now,  reader,  a  falsehood  is  a 
falsehood,  though  uttered  under  circumstances  of  hurry 
and  sudden  trepidation ;  but  certainly  it  becomes, 
though  not  more  a  falsehood,  yet  more  criminally, 
and  hatefully  a  falsehood,  when  prepared  from  afai 
and  elaborately  supported  by  fraud,  and  dovetailing 
into  fraud,  and  having  no  palliation  from  pressure  and 
haste.  A  man  is  a  knave  who  falsely,  but  in  the  panic 
of  turning  all  suspicion  from  himself,  charges  you  oi 
me  with  having  appropriated  another  man's  jewel. 
But  how  much  more  odiously  is  he  a  knave,  if  with  no 
such  motive  of  screening  himself,  if  out  of  pure  devil- 
i\sh  malice  to  us,  he  has  contrived  in  preparation  for 
his  own  lie  to  conceal  the  jewel  about  our  persons ! 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


188 


This  was  wliat  the  wretch  Lauder  tried  hard  to  do  foi 
Milton.  This  was  what  the  wretch  Josephus  tried  hard 
to  do "  for  Christ.  Josephus  grew  up  to  be  a  mature 
man,  about  thirty-five  years  old,  during  that  earliest 
stage  of  Christianity,  when  the  divine  morality  of  its 
founder  was  producing  its  first  profound  impression, 
through  the  advantage  of  a  dim  religious  one,  still 
brooding  over  the  East,  from  the  mysterious  death  of 
that  founder.  I  wish  that  the  reader  would  attend  to 
a  thing  which  I  am  going  to  say.  In  1839-40  and  '41, 
it  was  found  by  our  force  in  Afighanistan  that,  in  a 
degree  much  beyond  any  of  the  Hindoo  races,  the 
AfFghan  Sirdars  and  officers  of  rank  vv^-ere  profoundly 
struck  by  the  beauty  of  the  Evangelists  ;  especially 
in  five  or  six  passages,  amongst  which  were  the  Lord's 
Prayer,  and  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  with  one  or 
two  Parables.  The  reason  of  this  was,  that  the  Afi*- 
ghans,  though  more  simple  and  unpolished  than  the 
Hindoos,  were  also  in  a  far  more  natural  condition  of 
moral  feeling  being  Mahometans,  they  were  much 
more  advanced  in  their  conceptions  of  Deity  ;  and 
they  had  never  been  polluted  by  the  fearful  distrac- 
tions of  the  Hindoo  polytheism.  Now,  I  am  far  from 
insinuating  that  the  Romans  of  that  first  Christian 
era  were  no  further  advanced  in  culture  than  the 
Affghans,  yet  still  I  affirm  that,  in  many  features,  both 
moral  and  intellectual,  these  two  martial  races  resem- 
bled each  other.  Both  were  slow  and  tenacious  (that 
s  adhesive)  in  their  feelings.  Both  had  a  tendency  to 
dulness,  but  for  that  very  reason  to  the  sublime. 
Mercurial  races  are  never  sublime.  Ther^)  were  two 
channels  through  whom  the  Palestine  of  Christ's  day 
communicated  with  the  world  outside,  viz.  the  Komans 


184 


SECEET  SOCIETIES. 


of  the  Roman  armies,  and  the  Greek  colonists.  Syria, 
under  the  Syro-Macedonian  dynasty  ;  Palestine,  under 
the  house  of  Antipater  ;  and  Egypt,  under  the  Ptole- 
mies —  were  all  deluged  with  Greek  emigrants  and 
settlers.  Of  these  two  races,  the  subtle,  agile  Greek, 
unprincipled,  full  of  change  and  levity,  was  compara- 
tively of  little  use  to  Christianity  as  a  centre,  waiting 
and  seeking  for  means  of  diffusion.  Not  only  were 
the  deeper  conscientious  instincts  of  the  Romans  more 
suited  to  a  profound  religion,  as  instruments  for  the 
radiation  of  light,  but  also  it  is  certain  that  the  military 
condition  per  se  supplies  some  advantages  towards  a 
meditative  apprehension  of  vast  eternal  problems  be- 
yond what  can  be  supplied  by  the  fractionary  life  of 
petty  brokerage  or  commerce.  This  is  also  certain, 
that  Rome  itself — the  idea  which  predominated  in 
Roman  camps  —  cherished  amongst  her  soldiery,  from 
the  very  enormities  of  her  state,  and  from  the  chaos 
of  her  internal  life,  a  tendency  to  vast  fermentations 
of  thought  favorable  to  revolutions  in  man's  internal 
worlds  of  feeling  and  aspirations.  Hence  it  will  be 
found,  if  once  a  man's  eye  is  directed  into  that  current, 
that  no  classes  of  people  did  so  much  for  the  propaga- 
tion of  Christianity  as  the  ofEicers^^of  the  Roman  army, 
centurions,  tribunes,  prefects,  legates,  &c.,  or  as  the 
aulic  officers,  the  great  ceremonial  officers  of  the  im- 
perial court  —  or  as  the  aulic  ladies,  the  great  leading 
ladies  that  had  practically  much  influence  on  the  ear 
of  Caesar.  The  utter  dying  av/ay  of  the  Roman 
paganism,  which  had  become  quite  as  powerless  to  all 
the  accomplished  men  and  women  of  Rome  for  any 
purpose  of  terror  or  of  momentary  consolation  as  to  us 
English  at  present  the  mythology  of  Faries,  left  a 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


185 


frightful  vacuum  in  the  mind  of  Roman  grandees  —  a 
tiorror  as  of  voyagers  upon  some  world  floating  away 
without  helmsman  or  governor.  In  this  unhappy  agi- 
tation of  spirit,  and  permanent  posture  of  clamorou. 
demand  fcr  light,  a  nidus  was  already  forming  for  a 
deep  brooding  interest  in  any  great  spiritual  phenom- 
ena of  breadth  and  power  that  might  anywhere  arise 
amongst  men.  Athens  was  too  windy,  too  conceited, 
loo  shallow  in  feeling,  to  have  been  much  impressed 
by  the  deepest  revolutionary  movements  in  religion. 
But  in  Rome,  besides  the  far  different  character  of  the 
national  mind,  there  were  what  may  be  called  spiritual 
horrors  arising,  which  (like  dreadful  nervous  diseases) 
unfolded  terrifically  to  the  experience  spiritual  capaci- 
ties and  openings  beyond  what  had  been  suspected. 
The  great  domestic  convulsions  of  Rome,  the  poison- 
ings and  assassinations,  that  gleam  so  fearfully  from 
the  pictures  of  Juvenal,  were  beginning  about  this 
period.  It  was  not  that  by  any  coarse,  palpable  logic, 
as  dull  people  understood  the  case,  women  or  men 
said  —  '  Accountability  there  is  none  ;  and  we  will  no 
longer  act  as  if  there  were.'  Accountability  there 
never  had  been  any  ;  but  the  obscure  scene  of  an 
order  with  which  all  things  sympathized,  men  not  less 
than  the  wheels  of  society  —  this  had  blindly  produced 
an  instinct  of  corresponding  self-control.  At  present, 
when  the  Pagan  religion  had  virtually  died  out,  all 
secret  restraints  were  breaking  up  ;  a  general  delirium 
carried,  and  was  felt  to  carry,  a  license  into  all  ranks ; 
it  was  not  a  negative  merely,  but  a  positive  change. 

religion  had  collapsed  —  that  was  negative  ;  a  mock- 
ery had  been  exposed  —  that  was  positive.  It  was  not 
(hat  restraints  were  resisted;  there  were  none  to  resist; 


186 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


they  had  crumbled  away  spontaneously.  What  powei 
still  acted  upon  society  ?  Terror  from  police,  and  still 
as  ever,  the  Divine  restraints  of  love  and  pity,  honor^ 
and  domestic  affections.  But  the  conscience  spoke  no 
longer  through  any  spiritual  organs.  Just  at  this  mo- 
ment it  was  when  the  confusions  of  Roman  society, 
the  vast  expansion  of  the  empire,  the  sea-like  expan- 
sion of  the  mighty  capital,  the  political  tendencies  of 
the  whole  system,  were  all  moving  together  towards 
grandeur  and  distraction  of  feeling,  that  the  doctrine 
of  apotheosis^  applied  to  a  man  and  often  to  a  monster, 
towered  up  to  cause  still  greater  distraction.^^  The 
Pagan  Pantheon  had  just  sunk  away  from  the  support 
of  the  Roman  mind.  It  was  not  only  that  the  Pagan 
gods  were  individually  too  base  and  polluted  to  sustain 
the  spiritual  feelings  of  an  expanding  national  intellect, 
but  the  whole  collective  idea  of  Deity  was  too  feebly 
conceived  by  Paganism.  Had  the  individuals  of  the 
Pantheon  been  purer  and  nobler,  their  doom  was 
sealed,  nevertheless,  by  their  abstract  deficiencies  as 
modes  of  spiritual  life  for  a  race  so  growing  as  that  of 
man.  How  unfortunate,  therefore,  that  at  this  crisis, 
when  ancient  religions  were  crumbling  into  ruins,  new 
gods  should  be  arising  from  the  veriest  beasts  amongst 
men  —  utterly  repelled  and  rejected  by  the  spiritual 
instinct  in  man,  but  suggested  by  a  necessity  of  polit- 
ical convenience. 

But  oftentimes  the  excess  of  an  evil  is  its  cure,  or 
the  first  impulse  in  that  direction.  From  the  connec- 
tion of  the  great  Augustan^^  and  Claudian  houses  with 
the  family  of  Herod,  much  knowledge  of  Jewish  pe- 
culiarities had  been  diffused  in  Rome.  Agrippa,  the 
grandson  of  Herod,  Bernice,  and  others  of  the  reigning 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


187 


house  ill  Judea,  had  been  long  resident  —  had  been 
loved  and  admired  —  in  the  imperial  famil3\  The 
tragical  events  in  Herod's  own  household^^  had  drawn 
the  attention  of  the  Roman  grandees  and  senate  to 
Jewish  affairs.  The  migrations  to  Kome  of  Jewish 
settlers,  since  the  era  of  Pharsalia,  had  strengthened 
the  interest,  by  keeping  the  enigma  of  the  Jewish,  his- 
tory and  character  constantly  before  the  Roman  eye. 
The  upper  and  more  intellectual  circles  in  Rome  of 
inquiring  men  and  women  kept  up  this  interest  through 
their  military  friends  in  the  legions  quartered  upon 
Syria  and  Lower  Egypt,  many  of  whom  must  have 
read  the  Septuagint  version  of  the  Law  and  the  Pro- 
phets. Some  whispers,  though  dim  and  scarcely 
intelligible,  would  have  made  their  way  to  Rome  as  to 
the  scenes  of  the  Crucifixion,  able  at  least  to  increase 
the  attraction  of  mystery.  But  a  much  broader  and 
steadier  interest  would  have  been  diffused  by  the 
accounts  transmitted  of  the  Temple,  so  mysterious 
from  the  absence  of  all  idol,  so  magnificent  to  the  eye 
and  the  ear  from  its  glorious  service.  By  the  time 
when  Vespasian  and  his  son  commanded  in  the  East, 
and  when  the  great  insurrection  of  the  Jewish  race 
in  Jerusalem  was  commencing,  Josephus  must  have 
been  well  aware  of  this  deep  attention  to  his  own 
people  gathering  in  the  highest  quarters  ;  and  he  must 
have  been  aware  that  what  was  now  creeping  into 
the  subject  of  profoundest  inquiry  amongst  the  Jews 
themselves,  viz.  the  true  pretensions,  the  history,  doc- 
trines, and  new  morals,  of  those  Nazarene  revolution* 
ists,  would,  by  a  natural  transfer,  soon  become  the 
capital  object  of  attention  to  all  Romans  interested  in 
Jud(^a.    The  game  was  up  for  the  separate  glory  of 


188 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


Judaism,  the  honor  of  the  Mosaic  legislation  wa^ 
becoming  a  superannuated  thing,  if  he  suffered  the 
grandeur  of  Christianity,  as  such,  and  recognised  for 
Christianity,  to  force  its  way  upon  the  fermenting 
intellect  of  Rome.  His  discernment  told  him  that  the 
new  Christian  ethics  never  would  be  put  down.  That 
was  impossible ;  but  he  fancied  that  it  might  be  possi- 
ble to  disconnect  the  system  of  moral  truth  from  the 
new  but  still  obscure  Christian  sect,  and  to  transfer  its 
glory  upon  a  pretended  race  of  Hebrew  recluses  or 
immemorial  eremites.  As  Lauder  meant  to  say,  '  This 
may  be  grand,  but  it  is  not  Milton's  ;  '  so  did  Josephus 
jnean  to  say,  '  This  may  be  very  fine  and  very  new, 
but  take  notice  it  is  not  Christ's.'  During  his  captivity 
in  Roman  hands  and  in  Rome,  being  one  of  the  few 
cowards  who  had  spiritedly  volunteered  as  a  traitor, 
and  being  a  good  scholar  for  a  Jew,  as  well  as  a  good 
traitor  and  the  best  of  cowards,  he  enjoyed  the  finest 
opportunities  of  insinuating  his  ridiculous  legend  about 
the  Essenes  into  the  foremost  literary  heads  of  the 
universal  metropolis.  Imperial  favor,  and  the  increas- 
ing curiosity  of  Rome,  secured  him  access  to  the  most 
intellectual  circles.  His  legend  was  adopted  by  the 
ruling  authority  in  the  literature  of  the  earth  ;  and  an 
impossible  lie  became  signed  and  countersigned  for 
many  centuries  to  come. 

But  how  did  this  particular  form  arise  for  the  lie  ? 
Were  there  no  such  people  as  the  Essenes  ?  Why, 
no  ;  not  as  Josephus  described  them :  if  there  were, 
or  could  be,  then  there  were  Christians  without  Christ ; 
there  was  Christianity  invented  by  man.  Under  Ms 
delineation,  they  existed  only  as  King  Arthur  existed,  or 
Morgan  le  Fay,  or  the  sword  Excalibur.  Considered 


SECHET  SOCIETIES. 


189 


in  tlieir  romantic  pretensions,  connected  with  the 
Iloand  Table,  these  worthy  blades  of  flesh  and  steel 
were  pure  dreams  ;  but,  as  downright  sober  realities, 
known  to  cutlers  and  others,  they  certainly  have  a 
hold  upon  history.  So  of  the  Essenes  :  nobody  could 
be  more  certain  than  Josephus  that  there  were  such 
people  ;  for  he  knew  the  very  street  of  Jerusalem  in 
which  they  met ;  and  in  fact  he  had  been  matriculated 
amongst  them  himself.  Only  all  that  moonshine  about 
remote  seclusions,  and  antique  derivations,  and  philo- 
sophic considerations,  were  fables  of  the  Hesperides, 
or  fit  for  the  future  use  of  Archbishop  Turpin.  What, 
then,  is  my  own  account  of  the  Essenes  ? 

The  earliest  great  danger  to  which  Christianity  was 
exposed,  arose  with  the  Jews.  This  was  the  danger 
that  besieged  the  cradle  of  the  religion.  From  Eome 
no  danger  arose  until  the  time  of  Trajan;  and,  as  to 
the  nature  of  this  danger,  the  very  wildest  mistake  is 
made  in  books  innumerable.  No  Roman  anger  ever 
did^  or  ever  could,  point  to  any  doctrine  of  Chris- 
tianity ;  unless,  indeed,  in  times  long  subsequent,  when 
the  Christian  doctrines,  though  otherwise  indifferent 
to  the  Roman  authorities,  would  become  exponents  or 
convertible  signs  of  the  firm  disloyalty  to  Caesar  which 
constitutes  the  one  great  offence  of  Christians.  Will 
you  burn  incense  to  Caesar  ?  No.  Well,  that  is  your 
State  crime.  Christian  ;  that,  and  neither  less  nor  more. 
With  the  Jews  the  case  was  exactly  reversed  ;  they 
cared  nothing  about  the  external  ceremonies  (or  cultus) 
of  the  (Christians,  what  it  was  they  practised,  or  what 
\t  was  they  refused  to  practise.  A  treasonable  distinc- 
tion would  even  have  been  a  recommendation  in  their 
eyes;  and  as  to  any  differences  between  their  own 


190 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


ritual  and  tlie  Christian,  for  these  (had  they  been  more 
or  greater  than  they  were)  the  ruling  Jews  wouhj 
readily  have  found  the  same  indulgence  which  they 
found  for  other  schismatics,  or  imperfect  proselytes,  oi 
doubtful  brothers,  or  known  Gentiles.  All  these  things 
were  trifles ;  what  they  cared  about  was  exactly  what 
the  Romans  did  not  care  about,  viz.  the  Christian 
doctrines  in  relation  to  Moses  and  the  Messiah.  Was 
the  Messiah  come  ?  Were  the  prophecies  accom- 
plished ?  Was  the  Mosaic  economy  of  their  nation 
self-dissolved,  as  having  reached  its  appointed  ter- 
minus, or  natural  euthanasy,  and  lost  itself  in  a  nev/ 
order  of  things  ?  This  concerned  their  existence  as  a 
separate  people.  If  tliat  were  the  Messiah,  whom  the 
Christians  gave  out  for  such,  then  all  the  fabric  of 
their  national  hopes,  their  visions  of  an  earthly  restora- 
tion, were  shattered.  Into  this  question  shot  itself  the 
whole  agony  of  their  hereditary  interest  and  pride  as 
the  children  of  Abraham.  The  Jewish  nature  was 
now  roused  in  good  earnest.  So  much  we  may  see 
sufficiently  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles ;  and  we  may 
be  assured  by  more  than  one  reflection,  that  the  Jewish 
leaders  at  that  time  were  resolved  not  again  to  commit 
the  error  of  relaxing  their  efforts  until  the  work  of 
extermination  was  perfect.  They  felt,  doubtless  not 
without  much  surprise,  but  still  with  some  self- 
reproach,  that  they  had  been  too  negligent  in  assum- 
ing the  sect  to  have  been  trampled  out  by  the  judicial 
death  of  its  leader.  Dispersion  had  not  prevented  the 
members  of  the  sect  from  recombining  ;  and  even  the 
public  death  as  a  malefactor  of  the  leader  was  so  far 
from  having  dimmed  the  eyes  or  dejected  the  hopes  oi  j 
the  body,  that^  under  the  new  coloring  given  to  it  by  ' 


SECEET  SOCIETIES 


191 


the  Christians,  this  very  death  had  become  the  most 
triumphant  of  victories.  There  was,  besides,  a  reason 
to  dread  the  construction  of  the  Romans  upon  this 
heresy,  if  it  continued  longer  to  defy  public  suppres- 
sion. And  there  was  yet  another  uneasiness  that  must 
greatly  have  been  increasing  —  an  uneasiness  of  an 
affecting  nature,  and  which  long  afterwards,  in  ages 
nearer  to  our  own,  constituted  the  most  pathetic  fea- 
ture in  Christian  martyrdoms.  Oftentimes  those  who 
resorted  to  the  fiery  spectacle  in  pure  hatred  of  the 
martyr,  or  who  were  purposely  brought  thither  to  be 
warned  by  salutary  fear,  were  observed  by .  degrees 
to  grow  thoughtful ;  instead  of  reaping  confirmation 
in  their  feelings  of  horror,  they  seemed  dealing  with 
some  interhal  struggle,  musing,  pausing,  reflecting, 
and  at  length  enamored  as  by  some  new-born  love, 
languishing  in  some  secret  fascination.  Those  that 
in  Pagan  days  caught  in  forests  a  momentary  glimpse 
of  the  nymphs  and  sylvan  goddesses,  were  struck 
with  a  hopeless  passion  ;  they  were  nympholepts  : 
the  affection,  as  well  known  as  epilepsy,  was  called 
nympholepsy.24  This  parallel  affection,  in  those  that 
caught  a  momentary  celestial  glimpse  from  the  counte- 
nances of  dying  martyrs,  by  the  side  of  their  fiery 
couches,  might  be  called  martyrolepsy.  And  many 
were  they  that  saw  the  secret  glance.  In  mountainous 
lands,  oftentimes  when  looking  down  from  eminences 
far  above  the  level  of  lakes  and  valleys,  it  has  hap- 
pened that  I  could  not  see  the  sun  :  the  sun  was  hidden 
behind  some  gloomy  mass  of  clouds  :  but  far  below  I 
beheld,  tremulously  vibrating  on  the  bosom  of  some 
half-hidden  lake,  a  golden  pillar  of  solar  splendor 
which  had  escaped  through  rifts  and  rents  in  the 


192 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


clouds  tliat  to  me  were  as  invisible  as  the  sun  himself 
So  in  the  martyrdom  of  the  proto-martyr  St.  Stephen, 
Paul  of  Tarsus,  the  learned  Jew,  could  see  no  gates  of 
heaven  that  opened,  could  see  no  solar  orb  :  to  him 
were  visible,  as  the  scenery  about  St.  Stephen,  nothing 
but  darkness  of  error  and  clouds.  Yet,  as  I  far  below 
in  the  lake,  so  he  far  below  in  the  countenance  of  St. 
Stephen,  saw,  with  consternation,  reflected  a  golden 
sunlight,  some  radiance  not  earthly,  which  ought  not 
to  have  been  there.  That  troubled  him.  Whence 
came  that  ?  The  countenance  of  Stephen,  when  the 
great  chorus  was  even  then  arising  —  '  Stone  him  to 
death ! '  shone  like  the  countenance  of  an  angel. 
That  countenance,  which  brought  dow^n  to  earth  some 
revelation  of  a  brightness  in  the  sky,  intercepted  to 
Paul,  perplexed  him  ;  haunted  him  sleeping,  troubled 
him  when  awake.  That  face  of  the  martyr  brought 
down  telegraphically  from  some  altitude  inaccessible 
to  himself,  a  handwriting  that  inust  be  authentic.  It 
carried  off  to  heaven,  in  the  very  moment  of  death,  a 
glory  that  from  heaven  it  must  have  borrowed.  Upon 
this  we  may  be  sure  that  Paul  brooded  intensely ;  that 
the  effect,  noticed  as  so  often  occurring  at  martyrdoms, 
was  already  commencing  in  him;  and  probably  that 
the  noonday  scene  on  the  road  to  Damascus  did  but 
quicken  and  ante-date  a  result  which  would  at  any  rate 
have  come.  That  very  case  of  Paul,  and  no  doubt 
others  not  recorded,  must  continually  have  been  caus- 
ing fresh  uneasiness  to  the  Jewish  leaders.  Their  own 
ministers  were  falling  off  to  the  enemy.  And  now, 
therefore,  at  last  they  were  determined,  once  for  all, 
that  it  should  be  decided  who  was  to  be  Master  in 
Jerusalem. 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


193 


The  Apostles,  on  their  side,  and  all  their  flock, 
though  not  losing  a  solemn  confidence  in  the  issue, 
could  not  fail  to  be  alarmed.  A  contest  of  life  and 
death  was  at  hand.  By  what  price  of  suffering  and 
ruins  the  victory  might  need  to  be  achieved,  they  could 
not  measure.  They  had  now  faced,  as  they  savf, 
without  power  any  more  to  evade  it,  a  fiery  trial. 
Ordinary  counsels  would  not  avail  ;  and  according  to 
the  magnitude  of  the  crisis,  it  became  the  first  of  duties 
to  watch  warily  every  step  they  should  take,  since  the 
very  fix^t  false  one  might  happen  to  prove  irretrievable. 
The  interests  of  the  youthful  church  were  confided  to 
their  hands.  Less  than  faithful  they  could  not  be  ; 
but  for  the  present  that  was  not  enough.  To  be  faith- 
ful in  extremity  was  all  that  might  remain  at  last ;  but 
for  the  present,  the  summons  was  —  to  be  wise,  so  as  to 
intercept  that  extremity,  if  possible.  In  this  exigency, 
and  with  the  sudden  illamination  which  very  perplexity 
will  sometimes  create,  which  the  mere  inspiration  of 
distress  will  sometimes  suggest,  they  devised  the  scheme 
of  a  Secret  Society. 

Armies  of  brave  men  have  often  not  only  honorably 
shut  themselves  up  into  impenetrable  squares,  or  with- 
drawn altogether  behind  walls  and  batteries,  but  have 
oven,  by  exquisite  concert,  suddenly  dispersed  over  a 
thousand  hills  ;  have  vanished  at  noon- day  on  the 
clapping  of  hands,  as  if  into  thick  shadows ;  a,nd 
again,  by  the  clapping  of  hands,  in  a  moment  have  re- 
assembled in  battle  array.  Such  was  the  magical  effect 
from  the  new  device.  The  Christians  are  seen  off 
their  guard  all  around  ;  spearmen  wheel  suddenly  into 
view,  but  every  Christian  has  vanished.  The  Chris- 
tian is  absolutely  in  the  grasp  of  the  serjeant ;  but, 
13 


194 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


unaccountably,  he  slips  away,  and  a  shadow  only  re- 
mains in  the  officer's  hand.  The  Christian  fugitive  is 
before  your  face,  he  rushes  round  a  corner,  you  see  hinx 
as  he  whirls  round  with  a  mask  upon  his  face  ;  one 
bound  throws  you  round  the  corner  upon  his  traces  ; 
and  then  you  see  no  fugitive  at  all,  no  mask,  but  a  man 
walking  in  tranquillity,  who  readily  joins  you  in  the 
pursuit. 

The  reader  must  consider  —  1  st,  what  it  was  that 
the  Christians  had  to  accomplish  ;  and  2dly,  how  it 
was  that  such  a  thing  could  be  accomplished  in  such 
almost  impracticable  circumstances.  If  the  whole 
problem  had  been  to  bend  before  the  storm,  it  was 
easy  to  do  that  by  retiring  for  a  season.  But  there 
were  two  reasons  against  so  timid  a  course  :  firsts  the 
enemy  was  prepared,  and  watching  for  all  such 
momentary  expedients,  waiting  for  the  sudden  forced 
retirement,  waiting  for  the  sudden  stealthy  attempt 
at  resuming  the  old  station  ;  secondly,  which  v/as  a 
more  solemn  reason  for  demur,  this  course  might 
secure  safety  to  the  individual  members  of  the  church, 
but,  in  the  meantime,  it  left  the  church,  as  a  spiritual 
community,  in  a  languishing  condition  —  not  only 
without  means  of  extension,  but  without  means  even 
of  repairing  its  own  casual  waste.  Safety  obtained 
on  these  terms  was  not  the  safety  that  suited  apostolic 
purposes.  It  was  necessary  with  the  protection  (and 
therefore  with  the  present  concealment)  of  the  church 
vo  connect  some  machinery  for  nursing  it  —  feeding 
it  —  expanding  it.  No  theory  could  be  conceived 
more  audacious  than  the  one  rendered  imperative  by 
circumstances.  Echo  was  not  to  babble  of  the  where- 
abouts assigned  to  the  local  stations  or  points  of  ren- 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


195 


dezvous  for  this  outcast  church  ;  and  yet  in  this  naked 
houseless  condition  she  was  to  find  shelter  for  her 
household ;  and  yet,  whilst  blood-hounds  were  on  her 
own  traces,  while  she  durst  not  look  abroad  through 
the  mighty  storm,  this  church  was  to  be  raising  a 
college  and  a  council,  de  propaganda  jide^  was  to  be 
working  all  day  long  in  the  centre  of  enemies  raging 
^for  her  blood,  and  to  declare  herself  in  permanent  ses- 
sion when  she  had  no  foot  of  ground  to  stand  upon. 

This  object,  seemingly  so  impracticable,  found  an 
opening  for  all  its  parts  in  the  community  of  field 
unavoidably  cultivated  by  the  church  and  the  enemy 
of  the  church.  Did  the  church  seek  to  demonstrate 
the  realization  of  the  promised  Messiah  in  the  charac- 
ter and  history  of  Christ  ?  This  she  must  do  by 
diligently  searching  the  prophetic  types  as  the  inner 
wards  of  the  lock,  and  then  searching  the  details  of 
Christ's  life  and  passion  as  the  corresponding  wards 
of  the  key.  Did  the  enemy  of  the  church  seek  to 
refute  and  confound  this  attempt  to  identify  the  Mes- 
siahship  with  the  person  of  Jesus  ?  This  she  could 
attempt  only  by  labors  in  the  opposite  direction  applied 
to  the  very  same  ground  of  prophecy  and  history. 
The  prophecies  and  the  traditions  current  in  Judea 
that  sometimes  w^ere  held  to  explain,  and  sometimes 
to  integrate,  the  wTitten  prophecies  about  the  mys- 
terious Messiah,  must  be  alike  important  and  alike 
commandingly  interesting  to  both  parties.  Having, 
therefore,  this  fortunate  common  ground  of  theological 
study  wdth  her  own  antagonist,  there  was  no  reason 
(it  all  why  the  Christian  charch  should  not  set  up  a 
seminary  of  laborers  for  her  own  vineyard  under  the 
mask  of  enemies  trained  against  herself.    There  v/aa 


196 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


no  sort  of  reason,  in  moral  principle  or  in  prudence, 
why  she  should  not,  under  color  of  training  learned 
and  fervent  enemies  to  the  Christian  name,  silently 
prepare  and  arm  a  succession  of  servants  for  doing 
her  own  work.  In  order  to  stamp  from  the  beginning 
a  patriotic  and  intensely  national  character  upon  her 
new  institution,  leading  men  already  by  names  and 
Bounds  into  the  impression  that  the  great  purpose  of 
this  institution  was,  to  pour  new  blood  into  the  life  of 
old  Judaic  prejudices,  and  to  build  up  again  the 
dilapidation  of  Mosaic  orthodoxy,  whether  due  to  time 
or  to  recent  assaults,  the  church  selected  the  name  of 
Essen  for  the  designation  of  the  new  society,  from 
the  name  of  an  important  gate  in  the  temple  :  so  that, 
from  the  original  use,  as  well  as  from  another  appli- 
cation to  the  religious  service  of  the  temple,  a  college 
or  fraternity  of  Essenes  became,  by  its  very  name,  a 
brief  symbolic  profession  of  religious  patriotism  and 
bigotry,  or  what  the  real  bigots  would  consider  ortho- 
doxy, from  the  first,  therefore,  carried  clear  away 
from  suspicion.  But  it  may  occur  to  the  reader  that 
the  Christian  founders  would  thus  find  themselves  in 
the  following  awkward  dilemma.  If  they  carried  out 
the  seeming  promise  of  their  Judaic  name,  then  there 
would  be  a  risk  of  giving  from  the  first  an  an ti- Chris- 
tian bias  to  the  feelings  of  the  students,  which  might 
easily  warp  their  views  for  life.  And  on  the  other 
hand,  if  by  direct  discipline  they  began  at  an  early 
Btage  to  correct  this  bias,  there  arose  a  worse  risk, 
viz.  that  their  real  purposes  might  be  suspected  or 
unmasked.  In  reality,  however,  no  such  risk  would 
ftrise  in  either  direction.  The  elementary  studies 
(that  is,  suppose  in  the  eight  first  ascending  classes) 


SECIxDT  SOCIETIES. 


197 


^'ould  be,  simply  to  accumulate  a  sufficient  fund  of 
materials,  of  the  original  documents,  with  the  com- 
mentaries of  every  kind,  and  the  verbal  illustrations 
or  glosses.  In  this  stage  of  the  studies,  at  any  rate, 
and  whether  the  first  objects  had  or  had  not  been 
Christian,  all  independent  judgments  upon  subjects 
so  difficult  and  mysterious  would  be  discouraged  as 
presumptuous  ;  so  that  no  opening  would  arise  for 
suspicion  against  the  teachers,  on  the  one  hand,  as 
unfaithful  to  the  supposed  bigotry  of  the  institution, 
nor  on  the  other  for  encouraging  an  early  pre-occupa- 
tion  of  mind  against  Christian  views.  After  passing 
No.  8  of  the  classes,  the  delicacy  of  the  footing  would 
become  more  trying.  But  until  the  very  first  or 
innermost  class  was  reached,  when  the  last  reserves 
must  be  laid  aside,  two  circum.stances  would  arise  to 
diminish  the  risk.  The  first  is  this  —  that  the  nearer 
the  student  advanced  to  the  central  and  dangerous 
circles  of  the  art,  the  more  opportunity  would  the 
governors  have  had  for  observing  and  appraising  his 
character.  Now  it  is  evident  that,  altogether  apart 
from  any  considerations  of  the  danger  to  the  society 
connected  with  falseness,  treachery,  or  generally  with 
mti-Christian  traits  of  character,  even  for  the  final 
uses  and  wants  of  the  society,  none  but  pure,  gentle, 
truthful,  and  benign  minds  would  avail  the  church 
for  Christian  ministrations.  The  very  same  causes, 
therefore,  which  would  point  out  a  student  as  danger- 
ous to  entrust  with  the  capital  secrets  of  the  institution, 
would  equally  have  taken  away  from  the  society  all 
motive  for  carrying  him  farther  in  studies  that  m^ust 
be  thrown  away  for  himself  and  others.  He  would 
be  civilly  told  that  his  vocation  did  not  seem  to  such 


198 


SECRET  SOCIETIES. 


pursuits ;  would  have  some  sort  of  degree  or  literary 
honor  conferred  upon  him,  and  would  be  turned  back 
from  the  inner  chambers,  where  he  was  beginning 
to  be  regarded  as  suspicious.  Josephus  was  turned 
adrift  in  this  way,  there  is  no  doubt.  He  fancie(? 
himself  to  have  learned  all,  whilst  in  fact  there  were 
secret  esoteric  classes  which  he  had  not  so  much  as 
suspected  to  exist.  Knaves  never  passed  into  those 
rooms.  A  second  reason,  which  diminished  the  risk, 
was,  that  undoubtedly  under  the  mask  of  scholastic 
disputation  the  student  was  exercised  in  hearing  all 
the  arguments  that  were  most  searchingly  profound 
in  behalf  of  Christ's  Messiahship.  No  danger  would 
attend  this  :  it  was  necessary  for  polemic  discipline 
and  gymnastics,  so  that  it  always  admitted  of  a  double 
explanation,  reconcilable  alike  with  the  true  end  and 
the  avowed  end.  But,  though  used  only  as  a  passage 
of  practice  and  skill,  such  a  scene  furnished  means  at 
once  to  the  Christian  teachers  in  disguise  for  observing 
the  degrees  in  which  different  minds  melted  or  froze 
before  the  evidence.  There  arose  fresh  aids  to  a  safe 
selection.  And,  finally,  whilst  the  institution  of  the 
Essenes  was  thus  accomplishing  its  first  mission  of 
training  up  a  succession  to  the  church,  and  providing 
for  her  future  growth,  it  was  also  providing  for  the 
secret  meeting  of  the  church  and  its  present  con 
eolation. 


THE  ESSENES.* 

SUPPLEMENTARY. 


At  this  point,  reader,  we  have  come  to  a  sudden 
close.  The  paper,  or  (according  to  the  phraseology 
of  modern  journals)  the  article ,  has  reached  its  ter- 
minus. And  a  very  abrupt  terminus  it  seems. 
Such  even  to  myself  it  seems  ;  much  more,  there- 
fore, in  all  probability,  to  the  reader.  But  I  believe 
that  we  must  look  for  the  true  cause  of  this  abrupt- 
ness, and  the  natural  remedy  of  the  anger,  incident 
to  so  unexpected  a  disappointment,  in  the  records 
of  my  own  literary  movements  some  twenty-five  or 
thirty  years  back  —  at  which  time  this  little  paper 
was  written.  It  is  possible  that  I  may,  concur- 
rently (or  nearly  so)  with  this  article,^'  have 
written  some  other  article  expressly  and  sepa- 
rately on  the  Essenes  —  leaving,  therefore,  to  that 
the  elucidation  of  any  obscurities  as  to  them  which 
may  have  gathered  in  this  paper  on  Secret  Socie- 
ties.And,  now  I  think  of  it,  my  belief  begins  to 

[*  Wlien  the  previous  paper  on  Secret  Societies  was  reprinted 
by  De  Quincey,  ten  years  after  its  first  publication,  he  added 
this  paper  as  a  note.] 


200 


SUPPLEMENTARY  NOTE  ON  THE  ESSENES 


boil  up  fervently  that  I  did  so.  ^'How?  Possible 
that  I  may  have  written  such  an  article  ?  Don't  I 
know?'^  Candidly,  I  do  not.  ''In  that  case,  who 
does?  Why,  perhaps  one  of  the  three  following 
New  England  States  —  Massachusetts,  or  Connecti- 
cut, or  Rhode  Island.  If  anybody,  insular  or  conti- 
nental, is  likely  to  know  anything  whatever  in  the 
concern,  it  is  one  of  these  illustrious  communities. 
But  such  is  the  extent  of  my  geographical  igno- 
rance, that  I  am  profoundly  ignorant  in  which  of  the 
three  states  it  is  proper  to  look  for  the  city  of 
Boston,  though  I  know  to  a  nicety  in  which  of  the 
three  it  is  not,  Rhode  Island,  I  am  positive,  does 
not  grow  any  huge  city,  unless,  like  Jonah's  gourd, 
it  has  rushed  into  life  by  one  night's  growth.  So 
that  I  have  eliminated  one  quantity  at  least  from  the 
algebraic  problem,  which  mast,  therefore,  be  in  a 
very  hopeful  state  towards  solution.  Boston,  mean- 
time, it  is,  w^heresoever  that  Boston  may  ultimately 
be  found,  loMch  (or  more  civilly,  perhaps,  who) 
keeps  all  my  accounts  of  papers  and  paper  asses  ^\ 
(to  borrow  a  very  useful  French  word),  all  my 
MSS.,  finished  books  —  past,  present,  or  to  come  — 
tried  at  the  public  bar,  or  to  he  tried  ;  condemned,  or 
only  condemnable.  It  is  astonishing  how  much 
more  Boston  knows  of  my  literary  acts  and  pur- 
poses than  I  do  myself.  Were  it  not  indeed  through 
Boston,  hardly  the  sixth  part  of  my  literary  under- 
takings, hurried  or  deliberate,  sound,  rotting,  or  rot- 
ten, would  ever  have  reached  posterity  :  which,  be 
it  known  to  thee,  most  sarcastic  of  future  censors, 
already  most  of  them  have  reached.    For  surely  tc 


SUPPLEMENTARY  NOTE  ON  THE  ESSENES.  201 

an  "  article  composed  in  1821,  a  corpulent  reader 
of  1858  is  posterity  in  a  most  substantial  sense. 
Everything,  in  short,  relating  to  myself  is  in  the 
keeping  of  Boston  :  and,  were  it  not  that  the  kind- 
ness of  society  in  Boston  is  as  notorious  to  us  in 
England  as  her  intellectual  distinction  and  her  high 
literary  rank  among  cities,  I  should  fear  at  times 
that  if  on  any  dark  December  morning,  say  forty  or 
fifty  years  ago,  I  might  have  committed  a  forgery 
(as  the  best  of  men  will  do  occasionally),  Boston 
could  array  against  me  all  the  documentary  evidence 
of  my  peccadillo  (such  it  is  now  esteemed)  before  I 
could  have  time  to  abscond.  But,  if  such  a  forgery 
exists,  I  rely  on  her  indulgent  sympathy  with  liter- 
ary men  for  allowing  me  six  hours^  law  (as  we  of 
old  England  call  it).  This  little  arrangement,  how- 
ever, is  private  business,  not  meant  for  public  ears. 
Returning  to  general  concerns,  I  am  sure  that 
Bostofi  will  know  whether  dmyiohere  or  emjwhen  I 
have  or  have  not  written  a  separate  article  on 
the  Essenes.  Meantime,  as  the  magnetic  cable  is 
not  3^et  laid  down  across  the  flooring  of  the  Atlan- 
tic, and  that  an  exchange  of  question  and  answer 
between  myself  and  my  friends  Messrs.  Ticknor  and 
Fields  will  require  an  extra  month  of  time  (of 
irreparabile  ternpus^^  ),  1  will  suppose  myself  ??o^ 
to  have  written  such  a  paper ;  and  in  that  case  of  so 
faulty  an  omission,  will  hold  myself  debtor,  and  will 
on  the  spot  discharge  my  debt,  for  a  few  preliminary 
explanations  that  ought  to  have  been  made  already 
upon  a  problem  which  very  few  men  of  letters  have 
had  any  special  motive  for  investigating.    Let  me 


202         SUPPLEMENTARY  NOTE  ON  THE  ESSENES. 

quicken  the  reader's  interest  in  the  question  at 
issue,  by  warning  him  of  two  important  factS; 
namely  : 

First,  that  the  Church  of  Rome,  in  the  persons  of 
some  amongst  her  greatest  scholars,  has  repeatedly 
made  known  her  dissatisfaction  with  the  romance  of 
Josephus.  It  is  dimly  apparent,  that,  so  far  as  she 
had  been  able  to  see  her  way,  this  most  learned 
church  had  found  cause  to  adopt  the  same  conclu- 
sion practically  as  myself  —  namely,  that  under 
some  course  of  masquerading,  hard  to  decipher 
the  Essenes  were  neither  more  nor  less  than  early 
Christians. 

But,  secondly,  although  evidently  aware  that  the 
account  of  the  Essenes  by  Josephus  was,  and  must 
have  been,  an  intolerable  romance,  she  had  failed  to 
detect  the  fraudulent  motive  of  Josephus  underly- 
ing that  elaborate  fiction  ;  or  the  fraudulent  tactics 
by  which,  throughout  that  fiction,  he  had  conclucted 
his  warfare  against  the  Christians  ;  or  the  counter 
system  of  tactics  by  which,  were  it  only  for  immedi- 
ate safety,  but  also  with  a  separate  view  to  self- 
propagation  and  continual  proselytism,  the  infant 
Christian  church  must  have  fought  under  a  mask 
against  Josephus  and  his  army  of  partisans  in  Jeru- 
salem. It  is  inexplicable  to  me  how  the  Church  of 
Rome  could  for  one  moment  overlook  the  fierce 
internecine  hostility  borne  by  the  Jewish  national 
faction  to  the  Christians,  and  doubtless  most  of  all 
to  the  Judaizing  Christians  ;  of  whom,  as  we  know, 
there  were  some  eminent  champions  amongst  the 
Christian  apostles  themselves.     Good  reason  the 


SUPPLEMENTARY  NOTE  ON  THE  ESSENES.  203 

Jew  bigot  really  had  for  hating,  persecuting  and 
calumniating  the  Christian  revolutionist  more  rancor- 
ously  even  than  the  Roman  avowed  enemy.  How 
Btood  the  separate  purposes  of  these  two  embattled 
antagonists  —  jSrst,  Rome  Imperial  ;  secondly,  the 
new-born  sect  of  Christians  ?  Of  these  two  armies, 
by  far  the  deadliest  was  the  last.  Rome  fought 
against  the  Jewish  nation  simply  as  a  little  faction, 
mad  with  arrogance,  that  would  not  by  any  milder 
chastisement  be  taught  to  know  its  own  place  ;  and 
the  captives,  netted  in  the  great  haul  at  Jerusalem, 
being  looked  upon  not  as  honorable  prisoners  of 
war,  but  as  rebels  —  obstinate  and  incorrigible  — 
were  consigned  to  the  stone-quarries  of  Upper 
Egypt :  a  sort  of  dungeons  in  which  a  threefold 
advantage  was  gained  to  the  Roman, — namely,  1, 
that  the  unhappy  captives  were  held  up  to  the 
nations  as  monuments  of  the  ruin  consequent  on 
resistance  to  Rome  ;  2,  were  made  profitable  to  the 
general  exchequer ;  3,  were  watched  and  guarded  at 
a  cost  unusually  trivial.  But  Rome,  though  stern 
and  harsh,  was  uniform  in  her  policy  ;  never  capri- 
cious ;  and  habitually  too  magnanimous  to  be  vindic- 
tive. Even  amongst  these  criminals,  though  so 
nearly  withdrawn  from  notice,  it  was  not  quite 
impossible  that  select  victims  might  still  win  their 
way  back  to  the  regions  of  hope  and  light.  But, 
setting  these  aside,  through  Rome  it  was  —  in  Rome 
and  hy  Rome  —  that  vast  stratifications  of  this  most 
headstrong  and  turbulent  of  eastern  tribes  cropped 
out  upon  many  a  western  soil  ;  nor  was  any  memo- 
rial of  the  past  allowed  to  speak  or  to  whisper 


204         SUPPLEMENTARY  NOTE  ON  THE  ESSENES. 


against  them,  if  only  (as  children  express  it)  ^'they 
would  be  good/'  Rome  was  singularly  wise  in  that 
matter ;  and  knew  that  obstinate  rebellion,  though 
inconvenient  and  needing  sharp  coercion,  argued  a 
strong  and  aspiring  nature.  Even  now,  even 
already,  when  as  yet  the  vast  wounds  were  raw 
and  uncicatrized,  Eome,  the  mighty  mother,  sat  in 
genial  incubation  upon  generations  of  the  old 
Hebrew  blood,  destined  to  reappear  up  and  down 
distant  centuries  in  Poland  and  Russia,  in  Spain  and 
Portugal ;  in  the  Barbary  States  and  other  western 
lands,  not  to  speak  of  their  Asiatic  settlements  as 
far  east  as  China.  Rome,  therefore,  was  no  ulti- 
mate or  uncompromising,  enemy  to  the  tribe  of 
Judah. 

But  the  rising  sect  of  Christians  brought  simple 
destruction  to  the  name  and  pretensions  of  the  Jew. 
The  Temple  and  sacrificial  service  of  the  Temple 
had  become  an  abomination,  and  the  one  capital 
obstacle  to  the  progress  of  the  true  religion ;  and 
Rome,  in  destroying  this  Temple,  had  been  uncon- 
sciously doing  the  work  of  Christianity.  Jews  and 
Jewish  usages,  and  Judaic  bigotry,  would  continue 
(it  is  true)  to  maintain  themselves  for  thousands  of 
years  ;  Jewish  fanaticism  would  even  reveal  itself 
again  in  formidable  rebellions.  But  the  combina- 
tion of  power  and  a  national  name  with  the  Jewish 
religion  and  principles  had  disappeared  from  the 
earth  forever  with  the  final  destruction  of  El  Koda 
And  the  hostility  of  the  Christians  was  even  more 
absolute  than  that  of  Rome  ;  since  Christianity 
denied  the  whole  pretensions  and  visionary  pros- 


SUPPLEMENTARY  NOTE  ON  THE  ESSENES.  205 


pects  upon  which  Judaism  founded  any  title  to  a 
separate  name  or  nationality.  Even  without  that 
bitter  exasperation  of  the  feud,  the  quarrels  of 
brothers  are  almost  proverbially  the  deadliest  as 
regards  the  chance  of  reconciliation  or  compromise  ; 
and  in  the  infancy  of  the  Christian  faith  nearly  all 
the  proselytes  were  naturally  Jews  ;  so  that  for  a 
long  period  the  Christians  were  known  in  Eome  and 
foreign  quarters  simply  as  a  variety  of  provincial 
Jews,  —  namely,  Nazarenes,  or  Galileans.  In  these 
circumstances  the  siege  of  Jerusalem  must  thus  far 
have  widened  the  schism,  that  everywhere  the 
enlightened  Christian  would  doubtless  have  seceded 
from  the  faction  of  those  who  stood  forward  as 
champions  of  the  Jewish  independence.  This  is  an 
aspect  of  the  general  history  which  has  not  received 
any  special  investigation.  But  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that,  for  the  Christians  generally,  all  narrow 
and  too  manifestly  hopeless  calls  of  patriotismx  would 
be  regarded  as  swallowed  up  in  the  transcendent 
duties  of  their  militant  religion.  Christian  captives 
may  have  been  found  amongst  the  convicts  of  the 
stone-quarries  ;  but  they  must  have  been  few,  and 
those  only  whom  some  casual  separation  from  their 
own  Christian  fraternity  had  thrown  in  a  state  of 
ignorant  perplexity  upon  their  own  blind  guidance. 
This  consequence,  therefore,  must  have  arisen  from 
the  siege  of  Jerusalem,  that  the  Jewish  acharnemeni 
against  the  Christians,  henceforth  regarded  as  politi- 
cal and  anti-national  enemies,  would  be  inflamed  to 
a  frantic  excess.  And  Josephus,  suddenly  exalted 
by  an  act  of  the  viiCst  adulation  to  Vespasian  (who 


206  SUPPLEMENTAK^    NOTE  ON  THE  ESSENES. 


was  in  effect;  through  his  success  in  Palestine  and 
through  his  popularity  with  the  army,  already  the 
Tmperator  elect),  instead  of  visiting  the  Egyptian 
quarries  as  a  felon,  most  unmeritoriously  found  him- 
self in  one  hour  translated  into  the  meridian  sun- 
shine of  court  favor ;  and  equally  through  that 
romantic  revolution,  and  through  his  own  previous 
dedication  to  literature,  qualified  beyond  any  con- 
temporary for  giving  effect  to  his  party  malice.  He 
would  be  aware  that  in  the  circumstantial  accidents 
of  Christianity  there  was  a  good  deal  to  attract 
favor  at  Kome.  Their  moral  system,  and  their 
eleemosynary  system  of  vigilant  aid  to  all  their  pau- 
pers, would  inevitably  conciliate  regard.  Even  the 
Jewish  theological  system  was  every  way  fitted  to 
challenge  veneration  and  awe,  except  in  so  far  as  it 
was  associated  with  the  unparalleled  and  hateful 
arrogance  of  Judaism.  Now,  here  for  the  first  time, 
by  the  new-born  sect  of  Christians,  this  grandeur  of 
theologic  speculation  was  exhibited  in  a  state  of 
insulation  from  that  repulsive  arrogance.  The  Jews 
talked  as  if  the  earth  existed  only  for  them;  and  as  if 
God  took  notice  only  of  Jewish  service  as  having  any 
value  or  meaning.  But  here  were  the  Christians 
opening  their  gates,  and  proclaiming  a  welcome  to 
all  the  children  of  man.  These  things  were  in  their 
favor.  And  the  malignant  faction  of  mere  Jewish 
bigots  felt  a  call  to  preoccupy  the  Roman  mind  with 
some  bold  fictions  that  should  forever  stop  the 
mouth  of  the  Christian,  wheiiBoever  or  ^/soever  any 
opening  dawned  for  uttering  a  gleam  of  truth. 
Josephus,  followed  and  supported  by  Alexandrian 


SUPPLEMENTARY  NOTE  ON  THE  ESSENES.  207 


Jews,  was  evidently  the  man  for  this  enterprise  ; 
not  so  much,  or  not  so  exclusively,  by  his  literary 
talent  (for,  doubtless,  many  in  Alexandria,  and  some 
in  Rome,  could  have  matched  him)  ;  but  he  was  the 
man  born  with  the  golden  spoon  in  his  mouth  ;  he 
was  the  second  Joseph  that  should  be  carried  cap- 
tive from  Palestine  to  Egypt ;  and  on  the  banks  of 
that  ancient  Nile  should  find  a  Pharaoh,  calling  him- 
self Caesar  Vespasian,  that,  upon  hearing  Joe's 
interpretation  of  a  dream,  should  bid  him  rise  up 
from  his  prostration  as  a  despairing  felon  fresh  from 
bearing  arms  against  S.  P.  Q.  R.,  and  take  his  seat 
amongst  the  men  whom  the  king  delighted  to  honor. 

Seated  there,  Joe  was  equal  to  a  world  of  mis- 
chief; and  he  was  not  the  man  to  let  his  talent  lie 
idle.  In  what  w^ay  he  would  be  likely  to  use  his 
experience,  gained  amongst  the  secret  society  of 
the  Essenes,  we  may  guess.  But,  to  move  by 
orderly  steps,  let  us  ask  after  Mr.  Joe^s  own 
account  of  that  mysterious  body.  How  and  when 
does  he  represent  the  Essenes  as  arising  ?  I  have 
no  book,  no  vouchers,  as  generally  happens  to  me  ; 
and,  moreover,  Joseph  is  not  strong  in  chronology. 
But  I  rely  on  my  memory  as  enabling  me  to  guar- 
antee this  general  fact  —  that,  at  the  date  of  the 
Josephan  record,  our  shy  friends,  the  Essenes,  must, 
by  Joe's  reckoning,  have  existed  at  least  seventy 
years  since  Christ's  nativity.  The  reader  knows 
already  that  I,  who  make  these  Essenes  the  product 
of  Christianity  under  its  earliest  storms,  cannot  pos- 
sibly submit  to  such  a  registration.  But  for  the 
present  assume  it  as  true.    Under  such  an  assump- 


208         SUPPLEMENTARY  NOTE  ON  THE  ESSENE3 


lion,  it  must  have  been,  that  many  writers,  in  giving 
an  account  of  the  Jewish  philosophic  sects,  have 
numbered  them  as  three,  —  namely,  1,  the  Phari 
sees  ;  2,  the  Sadducees  ;  3,  the  Essenes.  And  in  my 
childhood  there  was  an  authorized  Bible,  — and  it  must 
have  been  a  common  one,  because  I  remember  it  as 
belonging  to  a  female  servant,  and  bearing  a  writ- 
ten memorandum  that  it  was  a  gift  from  her  father,  — 
which  boldly  ranked  the  Essenes  as  assessors  of  the 
undeniable  Pharisees  and  Sadducees,  on  that  pre- 
fatory leaf  which  assigns  the  value  of  a  shekel,  the 
measures  of  capacity,  of  weight,  of  distance,  &c. 
Now,  then,  I  would  demand  of  Josephus  why  it  was 
that  Christ,  who  took  such  reiterated  notice  of  the 
elder  sects,  never  once  by  word  or  act  recognized 
the  Essenes  even  as  existing.  Considering  their 
pretensions  to  a  higher  purity,  or  the  pretensions  in 
this  direction  ascribed  to  them,  is  it  conceivable  that 
Christ  should  not  by  one  word  have  countersigned 
these  pretensions  if  sound,  or  exposed  them  if  hol- 
low ?  Or,  again,  if  He  for  any  reason  had  neglected 
them,  would  not  some  of  his  disciples,  or  of  his 
many  occasional  visitors,  have  drawn  his  attention 
to  their  code  of  rules  and  their  reputed  habits  —  to 
what  they  professed,  and  what  they  were  said  to 
have  accomplished  ?  Or,  finally,  if  all  these  chances 
had  failed  to  secure  an  evangelical  record,  can  we 
suppose  it  possible  that  no  solitary  member  of 
that  large  monastic  body,  counting  (I  think,  by 
the  report  of  Josephus)  eight  thousand  breth- 
ren, should  have  been  moved  sufiSciently  by  the 
rumoi's  gathering  like  a  cloud  up  and  down  Pales- 


SUPPLEMENTARY  NOTE  ON  THE  ESSENES. 


209 


tine  through  three  consecutive  years,  about  the 
steps  of  Christ  and  his  followers,  to  present  himself 
for  a  personal  interview  —  so  as  to  form  a  judgment 
of  Christ,  if  Christ  were  even  careless  of  Mm  and 
his  brotherhood  ?  We  know  that  Christ  was  not 
w^ithout  interest  in  the  two  elder  sects  —  though 
absolutely  sold  to  worldly  interests  and  intrigues. 
He  himself  pointed  out  a  strong  argument  for  allow- 
ing weight  and  consideration  to  the  Pharisees,  — 
namely,  that  they,  so  long  as  the  Mosaic  economy 
lasted,  were  to  be  regarded  with  respect  as  tlie 
depositaries  of  his  authority,  and  the  representa- 
tives of  his  system.  And  it  is  remarkable  enough 
that  here,  as  elsewhere,  at  the  very  moment  of 
heavily  blaming  the  Pharisees,  not  the  less  he  exacts 
for  them  —  as  a  legal  due  —  the  popular  respect ; 
and  this,  though  perfectly  aware  that  they  and  the 
ancient  system  to  which  they  were  attached  (a  sys- 
tem fifteen  hundred  years  old)  would  simultaneously 
receive  their  doom  from  that  great  revolution  which 
he  was  himself  destined  to  accomplish.  The  blame 
which  he  imputes  to  them  in  this  place  is,  that  they 
required  others  to  carry  burdens  which  they  them- 
selves would  not  touch.  That  was-  a  vice  of  habit 
and  self  indulgence,  more  venial  as  a*  natural  con- 
cession to  selfishness  that  might  have  grown  upon 
them  imperceptibly;  but,  in  the  second  case,  the 
blame  strikes  deeper,  for  it  respects  a  defect  of 
principle,  that  must  have  been  conscious  and  wilful. 
Moses,  we  are  told,  had  laid  down  express  laws  for 
the  regulation  of  special  emergencies  ;  and  these 
laws,  when  affecting  their  own  separate  interests, 

14 


210         SUPPLEMENTARY  NOTE  ON  THE  ESSENES. 

the  Pharisees  were  in  the  habit  of  evading  under 
some  plea  of  traditional  immunity  or  professional 
privilege  secured  to  themselves. 

Now,  let  the  reader  sternly  note  down  this  state 
of  Christ's  relations  to  the  great  leading  sect  of  the 
Pharisees.  He  had  high  matter  of  impeachment 
against  them  ;  and  yet,  for  all  that,  so  profound  was 
his  loyalty  to  the  Mosaic  system,  as  a  divine  revela- 
tion, so  long  as  it  was  not  divinely  superseded,  that 
he  would  not  lend  his  sanction  to  any  failure  of 
respect  towards  the  representatives  of  this  system 
in  the  fickle  populace.  On  the  contrary,  he  bade 
them  hearken  to  their  instructions,  because  in  doing 
that  they  were  hearkening  to  the  words  of  Moses, 
which  were  the  words  of  God.  The'  words  of  the 
Pharisees  were  consecrated,  but  not  their  deeds ; 
those  furnished  a  false  and  perilous  rule  of  conduct. 
Next,  as  to  the  Sadducees.  This  sect,  bearing  far  less 
of  a  national  and  representative  character,  is  less 
conspicuously  brought  forward  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment. But  it  is  probable  that  Christ,  though  having 
no  motive  for  the  same  interest  in  them  as  in  the 
Pharisees,  who  might  be  regarded  as  heraldic  sup- 
porters on  one  side  of  the  national  armorial  shield, 
nevertheless  maintained  a  friendly  or  fraternal  inter- 
course with  their  leading  men  as  men  who  laid 
open  one  avenue  to  the  central  circles  of  the  more 
aristocratic  society  in  Jerusalem.  But  had  not  Christ 
a  special  reason  for  recoiling  from  the  Sadducees,  as 
from  those  who  say  that  there  is  no  resurrection 
of  the  dead  ?  If  they  really  said  any  such  thing, 
he  would  have  had  one  reason  more  than  we  are  cer. 


SUPPLEMENTARY  NOTE  ON  THE  ESSENES.  211 

tain  of  his  having  had,  for  calling  upon  them  to  make 
open  profession  of  their  presumed  faith,  and  the 
unknown  grounds  of  that  faith.  If  the  Sadducees, 
as  a  sect,  really  did  hold  the  doctrine  ascribed  to 
them,  it  would  have  been  very  easy  to  silence  them 
(that  is,  in  a  partial  sense  to  refute  them),  by 
forcing  them  to  the  conclusion  that  they  had  no 
grounds  for  holding  the  negative  upon  the  problem 
of  Resurrection,  beyond  what  corresponded  to  the 
counter  weakness  on  the  side  of  the  affirmative.  On 
either  side  there  was  confessedly  an  absolute  blank 
as  regarded  even  the  show  of  reasonable  grounds  for 
taking  a  single  step  in  advance.  Guess  you  might ; 
but  as  to  any  durable  conquest  of  ground,  forward  or 
backward  —  to  the  right  or  the  left —  "  to  the  shield 
or  to  the  spear  —  nobody  could  contradict  you,  but 
then  (though  uncontradicted)  you  did  not  entirely 
believe  yourself.  So  that,  at  the  worst,  the  Saddu- 
cees  could  not  plausibly  have  denied  the  Resurrection, 
though  they  might  have  chosen  to  favor  those  who 
doubted  it.  Meantime,  is  it  at  all  certain  that  the 
Sadducees  did  hold  the  imputed  opinion?  I,  for  my 
part,  exceedingly  hesitate  in  believing  this  ;  and  for 
the  following  reasons  :  First,  it  is  most  annoying  to 
a  man  of  delicate  feelings,  that  he  should  find  him- 
self pledged  to  a  speculative  thesis,  and  engaged  in 
honor  to  undertake  its  defence  against  all  comers, 
when  there  happens  to  be  no  argument  whatsoever 
on  its  behalf — not  even  an  absurd  one.  Secondly, 
I  doubt  much  whether  it  would  have  been  safe  to 
avow  this  doctrine  in  Judea.  And,  thirdly,  whether 
in  any  circles  at  Jerusalem,  even  such  as  might  secure 


212 


SUPPLEMENTARY  NOTE  ON  THE  ESSENES. 


it  a  toleration,  this  doctrine  would  not  have  been 
most  unwelcome.  For  whose  favor,  therefore,  or 
towards  what  final  object,  should  such  a  speculation 
originally  have  been  introduced,  or  subsequently 
have  maintained  itself?  We  are  told,  indeed,  that 
it  won  no  favor,  and  courted  none,  from  those  work- 
ing classes  amongst  whom  lay  the  strength  of  the 
nationality.  This  is  a  clear  case.  Active  support,  of 
course,  it  could  not  find  amongst  those  who,  in  my 
opinion,  would  have  been  vainly  invoked  for  passive 
acquiescence  or  gloomy  toleration.  But  in  this  case 
there  seems  to  have  been  too  precipitate  a  conclu- 
sion. Because  the  natural  favorers  of  scepticism  and 
an  irreligious  philosophy  will  be  found  (if  at  all) 
exclusively  almost  in  aristocratic  circles,  it  does  not 
follow  that,  inversely,  aristocratic  circles  will  be  found 
generally  to  be  tainted  with  such  a  philosophy.  Infi- 
dels may  belong  chiefly  to  the  aristocracy,  but  not 
the  aristocracy  to  infidels.  It  is  true  that  in  the 
luxurious  capitals  of  great  kingdoms  there  are 
usually  found  all  shapes  of  licentious  speculation  ; 
yet,  even  in -the  most  latitudinarian  habits  of  think 
ingv  such  excesses  tend  in  many  ways  to  limit  them 
selves.  And  in  Judea,  at  that  period,  the  state  of 
society  and  of  social  intercourse  had  not,  apparently, 
travelled  beyond  the  boundaries  of  a  semi-barbarous 
simplicity.  A  craving  for  bold  thinking  supervenes 
naturally  upon  a  high  civilization,  but  not  upon  the 
elementary  civilization  of  the  Jews.  A  man  who 
should  have  professed  openly  so  audacious  a  creed 
as  that  ascribed  to  the  Sadducees  must  have  been 
prepared  for  lapidation.    That  tumultuary  court  —  a 


SUPPLEMENTARY  NOTE  ON  THE  ESSENES.  213 

Jewish  mob,  always  ready  for  action,  always  rich  in 
munitions  of  war,  so  long  as  paving-stones  were 
reasonable  in  price  —  made  it  dangerous  for  any  man 
in  Judea,  Jew  or  Gentile,  to  wade  out  of  his  depth 
in  theologic  waters.  But  how,  then,  did  the  Saddu- 
cees  come  by  their  ugly  reputation  ?  I  understand 
it  thus :  what  the  scandalous  part  of  the  public 
charged  against  them  was,  not  openly  and  defy- 
ingly  that  they  held  such  an  irreligious  creed,  but 
that  such  a  creed  would  naturally  flow  as  a  conse- 
quence from  their  materialistic  tendencies,  however 
much  the  Sadducees  might  disavow  that  consequence. 
Whatever  might  be  said,  fancied,  or  proved  by  Bishop 
Warburton,  it  is  certain  that  the  dominant  body  of 
the  nation,  at  the  era  of  Christ,  believed  in  a  Eesur- 
rection  as  preliminary  to  a  Final  Judgment.  And 
so  intense  was  the  Jewish  bigotry,  since  their  return 
from  captivity,  that  assuredly  they  would  have 
handled  any  freethinker  on  such  questions  very 
roughly.  But,  in  fact,  the  counter  sect  of  Pharisees 
hold  up  a  mirror  for  showing  us  by  reflection  the  true 
popular  estimate  of  the  Sadducees.  .  The  Pharisees 
were  denounced  by  Christ,  and  no  doubt  were  pri- 
vately condemned  in  the  judgment  of  all  the  pious 
amongst  their  countrymen,  as  making  void  (virtually 
cancelling)  much  in  the  institutions  of  Moses  by 
their  own  peculiar  (sometimes  pretended)  traditions  : 
this  was  their  secret  character  among  the  devout  and 
the  sternly  orthodox.  But  do  we  imagine  that  the 
Pharisees  openly  accepted  such  a  character  ?  By  no 
oaeans  :  that  would  have  been  to  court  an  open  feud 
ftnd  schism  with  the  great  body  of  the  people.  And, 


214  SUPPLEMENTARY  NOTE  ON  THE  ESSENES. 


iu  like  manner,  the  Sadducees  had  their  dark  side^ 
from  which  an  answering  character  was  abstracted 
by  their  enemies  ;  but  doubtless  they  themselves 
treated  this  character  as  an  odious  calumny. 

These  things  premised,  the  reader  is  prepared  to 
understand  that  the  reproach  of  Christ  fastened 
itself  upon  the  offence,  not  upon  the  offenders  in 
any  single  generation,  far  less  upon  the  individual 
offenders,  who,  separately  and  personally,  oftentimes 
were  unconscious  parties  to  a  trespass,  which,  deep 
though  it  were  as  the  hidden  fountains  of  life,  yet 
also  was  ancient  and  hereditary  as  the  stings  of 
death.  The  quarrel  of  Christ,  as  regarded  the  unholy 
frauds  of  Phariseeism,  had  no  bearing  upon  those 
individually  whom  education  and  elaborate  discipline 
had  conducted  to  the  vestibule  of  that  learned  col- 
lege by  whom  alone,  at  the  distance  of  a  millennium 
and  of  half  a  millennium,  the  Law  and  the  Propliets 
were  still  kept  alive  in  the  understanding  and  in  the 
reverence  of  the  unlettered  multitude. 

Apart  from  their  old  hereditary  crime  of  relaxing 
and  favoring  the  relaxation  of  the  Mosaic  law,  the 
Pharisees  especially,  but  in  some  degree  both  sects, 
were  depositaries  of  all  the  erudition  —  archaeologic, 
historic,  and  philologic  —  by  which  a  hidden  clue 
could  be  sought,  or  a  lost  clue  could  be  recovered, 
through  the  mazes  of  the  ancient  prophecies,  in  times 
which  drew  near,  by  all  likelihood,  to  their  gradual 
accomplishment  and  consummation.  Supposing  that 
the  one  sect  was  even  truly  and  not  calumniously 
reproached  with  undervaluing  the  spiritual  Future, 
can  we  imagine  them  so  superfluously  to  have  courted 


SUPPLEMENTARY  NOTE  ON  THE  ESSENES.  215 


popular  odium,  as  by  carrying  before  them  a  procla- 
mation of  the  gloomy  creed,  which  must  for  any  pur- 
pose be  useless  ?  The  answer  is  found  precisely  in 
the  parallel  case  of  the  counter  sect.  Because  Christ 
reproached  them  with  virtually  neutralizing  the 
whole  rigor  of  the  law  by  their  private  traditions, 
are  we  to  suppose  the  Pharisees  to  have  sent  before 
them  a  banner,  making  proclamation  that  We  are 
the  sect  who  make  void  the  Law  of  Moses  by  human 
devices  of  false,  counterfeit  traditions  ?  So  far 
from  this,  even  the  undeniable  abuses  and  corrup- 
tions had  probably  grown  up  and  strengthened 
through  successive  ages  of  negligence  and  accumu- 
lated contributions  of  unintentional  error.  The  special 
authors  of  the  corruptions  and  dangerous  innovations 
were  doubtless  generations,  and  not  individuals.  The 
individual  members  of  both  sects  must  have  embodied 
the  whole  available  learning  of  the  nation.  They 
jointly  were  for  the  Hebrew  race  what  the  Brahmins 
were,  and  locally  are,  for  the  Hindoos  ;  what  the 
childish  literati  of  China  are  to  the  childish  race 
of  the  Chinese  ;  what  the  three  learned  professions 
of  Law,  Medicine,  and  the  Church,  are  in  Christian 
lands.  For  many  purposes,  the  Pharisees  and  Sad- 
ducees  were  indispensable  associates  ;  and,  accord- 
ing to  their  personal  merits  of  integrity,  sincerity, 
and  goodn^^ss  of  heart,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that 
Christ  honored  multitudes  amongst  them  with  marks 
of  his  personal  regard. 

Now,  then,  under  such  circumstances,  can  we  sup- 
pose it  possible  that  a  sect,  approaching  by  traits  of 
resemblance  far  deeper  and  more  conspicuous  to  the 


216 


SUPPLEMENTARY  NOTE  ON  THE  ESSENES. 


coming  sect  of  Christians  which  Christ  was  laboring 
to  build  up;  should  have  gone  unnoticed  by  Him,  or 
should  themselves  have  left  Christ  unnoticed  and 
unapproached  ?  Chronology  of  itself  overwhelm- 
ingly confounds  Josephus.  According  to  him, '  a 
sect,  whose  origin  is  altogether  unaccounted  for, 
suddenly  walks  forward  out  of  darkness  ;  and  when 
called  upon  to  unfold  the  characteristics  of  this  sect, 
which  nobody  had  ever  named  before  himself,  he 
presents  you  with  such  a  coarse  travesty  of  the 
Christians  as  to  usages  and  doctrines, —  whom,  doubt- 
less, he  knew  by  having  helped  to  persecute  them, — 
that  we  read  at  once  the  full-blown  knavery  of  a 
scoundrel  who  had  motives  more  than  one  or  two  for 
suborning,  as  the  anticipators  of  every  feature  that 
could  fascinate  men  in  Christianity,  a  secret  society 
really  of  Christians,  but  to  him  and  other  members, 
not  trustworthy,  masking  itself  as  a  society  of  Jews. 
It  would  too  much  lengthen  a  note  already  too  long, 
if  I  were  to  expose  circumstantially  the  false  color- 
ing impressed  upon  the  Christian  scheme  by  one  who 
was  too  unprincipled  and  worldly  even  to  compre- 
hend the  Christian  elements.  Enough,  however, 
remains  of  the  archetype  in  the  report  of  Josephus; 
to  reveal,  as  lurking  beneath  the  disguise,  and  gleam- 
ing through  it,  an  undeniable  Christian  original  ;  so 
that  here,  as  I  have  said  previously,  we  are  faced 
suddenly  by  a  Christianity  before  Christ,  and  a  Chris- 
tianity without  Christ.* 


*  0,  no,  will  be  the  reply  of  some  critics  ;  not  without  Christ 
But  I  answer— if  before  Christ,  then  necessarily  without  Christ 


SUPPLEMENTARY   NOTE  ON  THE  ESSENES.  217 

In  conclusion;  I  will  confess  to  the  reader,  in  the 
foolish  excess  of  my  candor,  that  amongst  those  who 
have  most  inclined  to  express  dissatisfaction  (yet  as 
a  final,  not  as  an  initiatory  feeling)  with  my  hypoth- 
esis accounting  for  the  Essenes,  are  several  of  my 
own  oldest  friends  —  men  distinguished  (for  on(3 
moment  I  wish  they  were  not)  by  searching  judg- 
ment and  by  extensive  learning.  Does  n't  the  reader 
think  that  perhaps  much  learning  may  have  made 
them  mad?  Certainly  they  demand  unreasonable 
proofs,  considering  that  time  (not  to  mention  other 
agencies)  upon  many  a  topic  has  made  us  all  bank- 


And  besides  the  profound  objection  from  the  whole  flagrant  pla- 
giarism of  the  moral  scheme,  the  other  capital  objection  remains  : 
How  did  these  men,  if  chronologically  anterior  to  Christ,  miss  an 
interview  with  Christ  ;  or,  if  not  a  personal  interview,  at  least 
a  judgment  of  Christ  sealing  their  pretensions,  or  a  judgment  of 
Christ  sealing  their  condemnation  ?  My  Essenes  escaped  this  per- 
sonal interview  and  this  judgment  approving  or  condemning, 
simply  because,  chronologically,  they  were  not  contemporaries 
of  Christ,  but  by  twenty  or  twenty-five  years  younger  than  the 
Crucifixion.  They  were,  in  fact,  a  masquerading  body  of  Chris- 
tians —  an  offshoot  of  Christians  that  happened  to  be  resident  in 
Judea  at  a  crisis  of  fiery  persecution.  Fortunately  for  thejn,  one 
great  advantage  befell  them,  which  in  subsequent  Roman  persecu- 
tions they  wanted,  namely,  that  they  and  their  persecutors  occu- 
pied common  ground  in  much  of  their  several  creeds,  which 
facilitated  the  deep  disguise.  Both  alike  adopted  the  Jewish 
Prophets  into  the  basis  of  their  faith  ;  both  alike  held  the  truth 
of  all  the  other  Scriptures  —  for  instance,  of  the  Law  itself, 
though  differing  as  to  its  practical  validity  for  the  future. 
Hence,  by  confining  themselves  to  those  parts  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment which  both  adopted,  the  Christians,  masked  as  Essenes, 
were  able  to  deceive  and  evade  the  most  cruel  of  their  enemies. 

I 


218         SUPPLEMENTARY  NOTE  ON  THE  ESSENES. 

rupt  in  satisfactory  argument,  Mr.  Joe,  I  presume^ 
not  at  all  less  than  myself.  A  little  daughter  of 
mine,  when  about  two  years  old,  used  sometimes  to 
say  at  the  dinner-table,  Please  give  me  too  much/' 
My  learned  friends,  it  sometimes  strikes  me,  are 
borrowing  her  sentiment,  and,  with  no  less  gravity 
than  hers,  are  insisting  on  having  ''too  much''  of 
certainty  in  this  delicate  case  —  too  much,  in  fact,  and 
too  complex  evidence  for  the  why  and  the  hoio,  for 
the  where  and  the  when,  of  a  masonic  brotherhood, 
that  was,  by  the  very  tenure  and  primary  motive  of 
its  existence,  confessedly  a  secret  brotherhood.  In 
the  spirit  of  honest  Sancho's  Andalusian  proverb,  it 
seems  to  me  that  my  too  learned  friends  are  seeking 
for  ''better  bread  than  is  made  of  wheat."  Since, 
really,  when  you  subpoena  a  witness  out  of  the  great 
deeps  of  time,  divided  from  yourself  by  fifty-five 
generations,  you  are  obliged  to  humor  him,  and 
to  show  him  special  indulgence ;  else  he  grows 
"crusty"  on  your  hands,  and  keeps  back  even  that 
which  by  gentler  solicitation  might  have  been  won 
from  him. 

Meantime,  I  have  retouched  the  evidence  a  little, 
so  that  he  who  was  restive  formerly  may  now  be 
tractable  ;  and  have  attempted  to  coax  the  witnesses 
in  a  way  which  is  but  fair,  as  no  more  than  balancing 
and  corresponding  to  those  gross  tamperings  prac- 
tised (we  may  be  sure)  by  the  Jew  courtier.  Mr. 
Joe,  we  may  rely  upon  it,  when  packing  the  jury, 
did  his  best.  I  may  have  an  equal  right  to  do  my 
worst.  It  happens  that  my  theory  and  Mr.  Joe's 
are  involved  alternatively  in  each  other.    If  you 


SUPPLEMENTARY  NOTE  ON  THE  ESSENES.  219 

reject  Joe's,  —  a  thing  that  I  suppose  inevitable,  — 
this  throws  you  by  rebound  upon  mine  ;  if  you  are 
uiclined  to  reject  mine, —  a  case  that  is  supportable 
by  human  fortitude, —  then  you  find  yourself  pitched 
violently  into  Mr.  Joe's  ;  a  case  that  is  not  sup- 
portable by  any  fortitude,  armed  with  any  philos- 
ophy. In  taking  leave,  I  add,  as  an  extra  argument 
against  the  possibility  that  Essenism  could  have  been 
contemporary  with  the  birth  of  Christianity,  this 
ugly  objection.  We  may  suppose  that  a  Jew,  in 
maintaining  the  historic  truth  of  Essenism,  would 
endeavor  to  evade  the  arguments  so  naturally 
emerging  from  the  internal  relations  of  this  secret 
sect  to  those  of  the  avowed  sect  called  Christians, 
and  at  the  same  time  to  ignore  the  vast  improbability 
that  two  sects  wearing  features  so  sisterly  should 
have  sailed  past  each  other  silently,  and  exchanging 
no  salutes,  no  questions  of  reciprocal  interest,  no 
mutual  recognitions,  no  interchange  of  gratulation 
in  the  midst  of  departing  storms,  or  of  solemn  vale- 
diction amongst  perilous  mists  that  were  slowly 
gathering.  The  Jew  might  argue,  in  explanation, 
that  the  Essenes,  under  the  form  of  ascetic  moralists, 
would  from  this  single  element  of  their  system 
derive  a  prejudice  against  the  founder  of  Christianity, 
as  one  who  in  his  own  person  had  deemed  it  advisa- 
ble, for  the  attainment  of  social  influence  in  the 
Judea  of  that  day,  and  for  the  readier  propagation 
of  truth,  to  adopt  a  more  liberal  and  genial  mode  of 
living.  For  the  stern  ascetic  may  win  reverence, 
but  never  wins  confidence,  so  that  the  heart  of  his 
hearer  is  still  for  Mm  under  a  mask.    My  argument 


220         SUPPLEMENTARY  NOTE  ON  THE  ESSENES. 


Doing  —  that  the  Essenes  could  not  have  been  con- 
temporary with  the  great  moral  teacher  (in  fact,  the 
revolutionary  teacher)  of  their  own  century,  without 
seeking  Him,  or  His  seeking  them  —  we  may  sup- 
pose the  Jew  taking  his  stand  plausibly  enough  on 
a  primal  alienation  of  the  Essenes,  through  incon- 
gruities of  social  habits,  such  (let  us  suppose,  by 
way  of  illustration)  as  would  naturally  repel  Quakers 
or  Moravians  in  our  own  day  from  any  great  moral 
teacher  wearing  a  brilliant  exterior,  and  familiar  with 
courts  and  princes.  Such  an  estrangement  would 
be  matter  of  regret  to  all  the  wise  and  liberal  even 
of  those  two  sects,  but  it  would  be  natural;  audit 
would  sufficiently  explain  the  non-intercourse  ob- 
jected, without  any  call  for  resorting  to  the  plea  of 
anachronism,  as  the  true  bar  of  separation. 

Answer:  —  It  is  true  that  any  deep  schism  in 
social  habits  would  tend  to  divide  the  two  parties  — 
the  great  moral  teacher  on  the  one  side,  from  the 
great  monastic  fraternity  on  the  other,  that  stood 
aloof  from  the  world,  and  the  temptations  of  the 
world.  Pro  tanto,  such  a  schism  would  pull  in  that 
direction  ;  though  I  am  of  opinion  that  the  least 
magnanimous  of  dissenting  bodies  would  allow  a 
transcendent  weight  (adequate  to  the  crushing  of 
any  conceivable  resistance)  to  the  conspicuous  orig- 
inality and  searching  pathos  of  Christ's  moral  doc- 
trine. Four  great  cases,  or  memorable  cartoons,  in  the 
series  of  Christ's  doctrinal  ''shows''  (to  borrow  the 
Eleusinian  term),  in  1839-40,  powerfully  affected  the 
Mahometan  AfFghan  Sirdars,  — namely,  1,  the  model 


SUPPLEMENTARY  NOTE  ON  THE  EtJSENES.  221 

3f  prayer  which  he  first  and  last,  among  all  teachers^ 
[eft  as  a  guiding  legacy  to  infinite  generations  ;  2, 
the  model  of  purity  which  he  raised  aloft  in  the  little 
infant  suddenly  made  the  centre  of  his  moral  system 
as  the  normal  form  of  innocence  and  simplicity  of 
heart ;  3,  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  which,  by  one 
sudden  illumination,  opened  a  new  world  in  man's 
secret  heart ;  4,  the  translation  of  moral  tests  from 
the  old  and  gross  one  of  palpable  acts  to  thoughts, 
and  the  most  aerial  of  purposes,  as  laid  down  in  the 
passage,  ^'He  that  looketh  upon  a  woman, &c. 
These  four  revelations  of  the  Christian  Founder 
being  once  reported  to  the  pretended  monastic  body, 
must  have  caught  the  affections,  and  have  prompted 
an  insurmountable  craving  for  personal  intercourse 
with  such  a  ''Prophet;''  that  is,  in  the  Hebrew 
sense  of  Prophet,  such  a  revealer  out  of  darkness.  In 
Affghanistan,  amongst  blind,  prejudiced,  sometimes 
fanatical,  Mahometans,  these  extraordinary  moral 
revelations  had  power  deeply  to  shake  and  move  ; 
could  they  have  had  less  in  J udea  ?  But,  finally, 
suppose  they  had,  and  that  an  ascetic  brotherhood 
refused  all  intercourse  with  a  teacher  not  ascetic,  so 
much  the  more  zealously  would  they  have  courted 
such  intercourse  with  a  teacher  memorably  and  in 
an  ultimate  degree  ascetic.  Such  a  teacher  was  John 
the  Baptist.  Here,  then,  stands  the  case :  in  an  age 
which  Josephus  would  have  us  believe  to  have  been 
the  flourishing  age  of  the  Essenes,  there  arise  two 
great  revolutionary  powers,  who  are  also  great 
teachers  and  legislators  in  the  world  of  ethics.  The 


222         SUPPLEMENTARY  NOTE  ON  THE  ESSENES. 

first,  by  a  short  space  of  time,  was  the  Baptist ;  * 
the  second  was  Christ.  The  one  was  uniquely 
ascetic,  declining  not  only  the  luxuries,  but  the 
slenderest  physical  appliances  against  the  wrath  of 
the  elements,  or  the  changes  of  the  seasons.  The 
other  described  himself  as  one  who  came  eating  ajid 
drinking,  in  conformity  to  the  common  usages  of 
men.  With  neither  of  these  great  authorities  is 
there  any  record  of  the  Essenes  having  had  the  most 
trivial  intercourse.  Is  that  reconcilable  with  their 
alleged  existence  on  a  large  scale  in  an  age  of  deep 
agitation  and  fervent  inquiry  ? 


*  That  John  the  Baptist  was  a  moral  teacher,  as  well  as  a 
herald  of  coming  changes,  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  (noticed 
by  the  Evangelists),  that  the  military  body  applied  to  him  for 
moral  instruction,  which  appeal  must  have  grown  out  of  the  gen- 
eral invitation  to  do  so  involved  in  the  ordinary  course  of  his 
ministrations,  and  in  the  terms  of  his  public  preaching.  In  what 
sense  he  was  to  be  held  the  harbinger  of  Christ,  over  and  above 
his  avowed  mission  for  announcing  the  fast  approaching  advent 
of  the  Messiah,  I  have  elsewhere  suggested,  in  a  short  comment 
on  the  word  usTaroia ;  which  word,  as  I  contend,  cannot  properly 
be  translated  repentance ;  for  it  would  have  been  pure  cant  to 
suppose  that  age,  or  any  age,  as  more  under  a  summons  to 
repentance  than  any  other  assignable.  I  understand  by  inraroux 
a  revolution  of  thought  —  a  great  intellectual  change  —  in  the 
accepting  a  new  centre  for  all  moral  truth  from  Christ ;  which 
centre  it  was  that  subsequently  caused  all  the  offence  of  Chris- 
tianity to  the  Roman  peopla 


JUDAS  ISCAKIOT. 


EYERYTHi-pfG  Connected  with,  our  ordinary  concep- 
tions of  this  man,  of  his  real  purposes,  and  of  hia 
Bcriptural  doom,  apparently  is  erroneous.  Not  one 
thing,  but  all  things,  must  ra...5:  as  false  which 
traditionally  we  accept  about  him.  That  neither  any 
motive  of  his,  nor  any  ruling  impulse,  was  tainted 
with  the  vulgar  treachery  imputed  to  him,  appears 
probable  from  the  strength  of  his  remorse.  And  this 
view  of  his  case  comes  recommended  by  so  much  of 
internal  plausibility,  that  in  Germany  it  has  long  since 
shaped  itself  into  the  following  distinct  hypothesis : 
—  Judas  Iscariot,  it  is  alleged,  participated  in  the 
common  delusion  of  the  apostles  as  to  that  earthly 
kingdom  which,  under  the  sanction  and  auspices  of 
Christ,  they  supposed  to  be  waiting  and  ripening  for 
the  Jewish  people.  So  far  there  was  nothing  in  Judas 
to  warrant  any  special  wonder  or  any  separate  blame. 

he  erred,  so  did  the  other  apostles.  But  in  one 
point  Judas  went  further  than  his  brethren  —  viz.,  in 
speculating  upon  the  reasons  of  Christ  for  delaying  the 
inauguration  of  this  kingdom.  All  things  were  ap- 
parently ripe  for  it ;  all  things  pointed  to  it ;  the 
expectation  and  languishing  desires  of  many  Hebrew 
saints  —  viz.,  the  warning  from  signs  ;  the  prophetic 


224 


JUDAS  ISCARIOT. 


alarms  propagated  by  heralds  like  the  Baptist;  the 
riiysterious  interchange  of  kindling  signals  rising  sud- 
denly out  of  darkness  as  secret  words  between  distant 
parties  —  secret  question,  or  secret  answer;  the  fermen- 
tation of  revolutionary  doctrines  all  over  Judea  ;  the  pas- 
sionate impatience  of  the  Roman  yoke  ;  the  continual 
openings  of  new  convulsions  at  the  great  centre  of 
Rome  ;  the  insurrectionary  temper  of  Jewish  society, 
as  indicated  by  the  continual  rise  of  robber  leaders, 
that  drew  off  multitudes  into  the  neighboring  deserts ; 
and,  universally,  the  unsettled  mind  of  the  Jewish 
nation,  their  deep  unrest,  and  the  anarchy  of  their  ex- 
pectations. These  explosive  materials  had  long  been 
accumulated  ;  they  needed  only  a  kindling  spark. 
Heavenly  citations  to  war,  divine  summonses  to  resist 
ance,  had  long  been  read  in  the  insults  and  aggressions 
of  paganism  ;  there  wanted  only  a  leader.  And  such 
a  leader,  if  he  would  but  consent  to  assume  that  office, 
stood  ready  in  the  founder  of  Christianity.  The 
supreme  qualifications  for  leadership,  manifested  and 
emblazoned  in  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ,  were  evident 
to  all  parties  in  the  Jewish  community,  and  not  merely 
the  religious  body  of  his  own  immediate  followers. 
These  qualifications  were  published  and  expounded  to 
the  world  in  the  facility  with  which  everywhere  he 
drew  crowds  about  himself,*  in  the  extraordinary  depth 

*  **  Drew  crowds  about  himself'.  " — As  connected  with  these 
crowds,  I  have  elsewhere  noticed,  many  years  ago,  the  secret 
reason  which  probably  governed  our  Saviour  in  cultivating  the 
character  and  functions  of  a  hakim,  or  physician.  Throughout 
the  whole  world  of  civilization  at  that  era  (/)  oty.ov^ierii)i 
whatever  might  be  otherwise  the  varieties  of  the  government, 


JUDAS  ISOARIOT. 


225 


of  impression  which  attended  his  teaching,  and  in  the 
fear  as  well  as  hatred  which  possessed  the  Jewish  rulers 
against  him.  Indeed,  so  great  was  this  fear,  so  great 
was  this  hatred,  that  had  it  not  been  for  the  predomi- 
nance of  the  Roman  element  in  the  government  of 
Judea,  it  is  pretty  certain  that  Christ  would  have  been 
crushed  in  an  earlier  stage  of  his  career. 

Believing,  therefore,  as  Judas  did,  and  perhaps  had 
reason  to  do,  that  Christ  contemplated  the  establishment 
of  a  temporal  kingdom  —  the  restoration,  in  fact,  of 
David's  throne ;  believing  also  that  all  the  conditions 
towards  the  realization  of  such  a  scheme  met  and 
centred  in  the  person  of  Christ,  what  was  it  that,  upon 
any  solution  intelligible  to  Judas,  neutralized  so  grand 

there  was  amongst  the  ruling  authorities  a  great  jealousy  of  mobs 
and  popular  gatherings.  To  a  grand  revolutionary  teacher,  no 
obstacle  so  fatal  as  this  initial  prejudice  could  have  offered  itself. 
Already,  in  the  first  place,  a  new  and  mysterious  body  of  truth, 
having  vast  and  illimitable  relations  to  human  duties  and  pros- 
pects, presented  a  field  of  indefinite  alarm.  That  this  truth 
should,  in  the  second  place,  publish  itself,  not  through  books  and 
written  discourses,  but  orally,  by  word  of  mouth,  and  by  personal 
communication  between  vast  mobs  and  the  divine  teacher  — 
already  that,  as  furnishing  a  handle  of  influence  to  a  mob  leader, 
'ustified  a  preliminary  alarm.  But  then,  thirdly,  as  furnishing 
VI  plea  for  bringing  crowds  together,  such  a  mode  of  teaching 
must  have  crowned  the  suspicious  presumptions  against  itself. 
One  peril  there  was  at  any  rate  to  begin  with  —  the  peril  of  a 
mob  :  that  was  certain.  And,  secondly,  there  was  the  doctrine 
taught :  which  doctrine  was  mysterious  ;  and  in  that  uncertainty 
lay  another  peril.  Thirdly,  beside  the  opening  to  a  mob  interest, 
there  was  a  mob  connection  actually  formed.  So  that,  equally 
through  what  was  fixed  and  what  was  doubtful,  there  arose  that 
'fear  of  change  "  which  "perplexes  monarchs.  " 
15 


226 


JUDAS  ISCARIOT. 


a  scheme  of  promise?  Simply  and  obviously,  to  a  man 
with  the  views  of  Judas,  it  was  the  character  of  Christ 
himself,  sublimely  over-gifted  for  purposes  of  specula- 
tion, but,  like  Shakspeare's  great  creation  of  Prince 
Hamlet,  not  correspondingly  endowed  for  the  busi- 
ness of  action  and  the  clamorous  emergencies  of  life. 
Indecision  and  doubt  (such  was  the  interpretation  of 
Judas)  crept  over  the  faculties  of  the  Divine  Man  as 
often  as  he  was  summoned  away  from  his  own  natural 
Sabbath  of  heavenly  contemplation  to  the  gross  neces- 
sities of  action.  It  became  important,  therefore,  ac- 
cording to  the  views  adopted  by  Judas,  that  his  Master 
should  be  precipitated  into  action  by  a  force  from  with- 
out, and  thrown  into  the  centre  of  some  popular  move- 
ment, such  as,  once  beginning  to  revolve,  could  not 
afterwards  be  suspended  or  checked.  Christ  must  be 
compromised  before  doubts  could  have  time  to  form. 
It  is  by  no  means  improbable  that  this  may  have  been 
the  theory  of  Judas.  Nor  is  it  at  all  necessary  to  seek 
for  the  justification  of  such  a  theory,  considered  as  a 
matter  of  prudential  policy,  in  Jewish  fanaticism.  The 
Jews  of  that  day  were  distracted  by  internal  schisms. 
Else,  and  with  any  benefit  from  national  unity,  the 
headlong  rapture  of  Jewish  zeal,  when  combined  in 
vindication  of  their  insulted  temple  and  temple-wor- 
ship, would  have  been  equal  to  the  effort  of  dislodging 
the  Roman  legionary  force  for  the  moment  from  the 
military  possession  of  Palestine.  After  which,  although 
the  restoration  of  the  Roman  supremacy  could  not  ul- 
timately have  been  evaded,  it  is  by  no  means  certain 
that  a  teraper amentum  or  reciprocal  scheme  of  conces- 
sions might  not  have  been  welcome  at  Rome,  such  as 


JUDAS  ISCARIOT. 


227 


had,  in  fact,  existed  under  Herod  the  Great  and  his 
father.^''  The  radical  power,  under  such  a  scheme, 
would  have  been  lodged  in  Rome  ;  hut  with  such  ex- 
ternal concessions  to  Jewish  nationality  as  might  have 
consulted  the  real  interests  of  both  parties.  Admin- 
istered under  Jewish  names,  the  land  would  have 
yielded  a  larger  revenue  than,  as  a  refractory  nest  of 
insurgents,  it  ever  did  yield  to  the  Roman  exchequer ; 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  a  ferocious  bigotry,  which  was 
really  sublime  in  its  indomitable  obstinacy,  might  have 
been  humored  without  prejudice  to  the  grandeur  of  the 
imperial  claims.    Even  little  Palmyra  in  later  times 

*  "  Under  Herod  the  Great  and  his  father  ;  "  —  It  was  a  tra- 
dition which  circulated  at  Rome  down  to  the  days  of  the  Flavian 
family  {i.  e.,  Vespasian  the  tenth  CaBsar,  and  his  two  sons —  Titus 
the  eleventh,  and  Domitian  the  twelfth),  that  the  indulgence 
conceded  to  Judea  by  the  imperial  policy  from  Augustus  down- 
wards, arose  out  of  the  following  little  diplomatic  secret :  —  On 
the  rise  of  the  Parthian  power,  ambassadors  had  been  sent  to 
Antipater,  the  father  of  Herod,  offering  the  Parthian  alliance  and 
support.  At  the  same  moment  there  happened  to  be  in  Judea 
a  Roman  agent,  charged  with  a  mission  from  the  Roman  Govern- 
ment, having  exactly  the  same  objects.  The  question  was  most 
solemnly  debated,  for  it  was  obvious,  that  ultimately  this  ques- 
tion touched  the  salvation  of  the  kingdom;  since  to  accept  an 
alliance  with  either  empire  would  be  to  insure  the  bitter  hostility 
of  the  other.  With  that  knowledge  fully  before  his  mind,  Anti- 
pater made  his  definitive  election  for  Rome.  The  case  transpired 
at  Rome  —  the  debate,  and  the  issue  of  the  debate  —  and  eventu- 
ally proved  worth  a  throne  to  the  Herodian  family;  for  the  honoi 
of  Rome  seemed  to  be  concerned  in  supporting  that  oriental  man 
who,  in  this  sort  of  judgment  of  Paris,  had  solemnly  awarded 
the  prize  of  superiority  {Detur  meliori)  to  the  western  po- 
tentate. 


228 


JUDAS  ISCARIOT. 


was  indulged  to  a  greater  extent,  without  serious  in- 
jury in  any  quarter,  had  it  not  been  for  the  feminine 
arrogance  in  little  insolent  Zenobia  that  misinterpreted 
and  abused  that  indulgence. 

The  ruiscalculation,  in  fact,  of  Judas  Iscariot  —  sup- 
posing him  really  to  have  entertained  the  views  as- 
cribed to  him — did  not  hinge  at  all  upon  political 
oversights,  but  upon  a  total  spiritual  blindness ;  in 
which  blindness,  however,  he  went  no  farther  than  at 
that  time  did  probably  most  of  his  brethren.  Upon 
them,  quite  as  little  as  upon  him^  had  yet  dawned 
the  true  grandeur  of  the  Christian  scheme.  In  this 
only  he  outran  his  brethren  —  that,  sharing  in  their 
blindness,  he  greatly  exceeded  them  in  presumption. 
All  alike  had  imputed  to  their  Master  views  utterly 
irreconcilable  with  the  grandeur  of  his  new  and  heav- 
enly religion.  It  was  no  religion  at  all  which  they, 
previously  to  the  crucifixion,  supposed  to  be  the  object 
of  Christ's  teaching ;  it  was  a  mere  preparation  for  a 
pitiably  vulgar  scheme  of  earthly  aggrandisement. 
But,  whilst  the  other  apostles  had  simply  failed  to 
comprehend  their  Master,  Judas  had  presumptuously 
assumed  that  he  did  comprehend  him  ;  and  understood 
his  purposes  better  than  Christ  himself.  His  object 
was  audacious  in  a  high  degree,  but  (according  to  the 
theory  which  I  am  explaining)  for  that  very  reason  not 
treacherous  at  all.  The  more  that  he  was  liable  to 
the  approach  of  audacity,  the  less  can  he  be  suspected 
of  perfidy.  He  supposed  himself  executing  the  very 
.nnermost  purposes  of  Christ,  but  with  an  energy  which 
it  was  the  characteristic  infirmity  of  Christ  to  want. 
He  fancied  that  by  his  vigor  of  action  were  fulfilled 


JUDAS  ISCATIIOT. 


229 


Lliose  great  political  changes  which  Christ  approved, 
but  wanted  audacity  to  realize.  His  hope  was,  that, 
when  at  length  actually  arrested  by  the  Jewish  author- 
ities, Christ  would  no  longer  vacillate ;  he  would  be 
forced  into  giving  the  signal  to  the  populace  of  Jeru- 
salem, who  would  then  rise  unanimously,  for  the 
double  purpose  of  placing  Christ  at  the  head  of  an 
insurrectionary  movement,  and  of  throwing  off  the 
Roman  yoke.  As  regards  the  worldly  prospects  of 
this  scheme,  it  is  by  no  means  improbable  that  Iscariot 
was  right.  It  seems,  indeed,  altogether  impossible  that 
he,  who  (as  the  treasurer  of  the  apostolic  fraternity) 
had  in  all  likelihood  the  most  of  worldly  wisdom,  and 
was  best  acquainted  with  the  temper  of  the  times, 
could  have  made  any  gross  blunder  as  to  the  wishes 
and  secret  designs  of  the  populace  in  Jerusalem. 

*  O/*  the  populace  in  Jerusalem  ;  "  — Judas,  not  less  than 
the  other  apostles,  had  doubtless  been  originally  chosen,  upon 
the  apparent  ground  of  superior  simplicity  and  unworldliness, 
or  else  of  superior  zeal  in  testifying  obedience  to  the  wishes  of 
his  Master.  But  the  other  eleven  were  probably  exposed  to  no 
special  temptation  :  Judas,  as  the  purse-bearer,  was.  His  offi- 
cial duty  must  have  brought  him  every  day  into  minute  and  cir- 
cumstantial communication  with  an  important  order  of  men  — 
viz.,  petty  shopkeepers;  what  in  modern  Scotland  are  called  mer- 
chaiits.  In  all  countries  alike,  these  men  fulfil  a  great  political 
function.  Beyond  all  others,  they  are  brought  into  the  most 
extensive  connection  with  the  largest  stratum  by  far  in  the  com- 
position of  society.  They  receive,  and  with  dreadful  fidelity  they 
give  back,  all  Jacobinical  impulses.  They  know  thoroughly  in 
what  channels,  under  any  call  arising  for  insurrectionary  action, 
\hese  impulses  are  at  any  time  moving.  In  times  of  fierce  politi- 
cal agitation .  these  are  the  men  who  most  of  all  are  kept  up  au 
courant  of  the  interior  counsels  and  policy  amongst  the  great 


230 


.TTTDAS  ISCARIOT. 


This  populace^  however,  not  being  backed  by  and 
strong  section  of  the  aristocracy,  having  no  confidence 
again  in  any  of  the  learned  bodies  connected  with  the 
great  service  of  their  national  temple,  neither  in  Scribes 
nor  Pharisees,  neither  in  Sadducees  nor  Levites,  and 
having  no  leaders,  were  apparently  dejected,  and  with- 
out nnity.  The  probability  meantime  is,  that  some 
popular  demonstration  would  have  been  made  on  be- 
half of  Christ,  had  he  himself  offered  it  any  encourage- 
ment. But  we,  who  know  the  incompatibility  of  and 
such  encouragement  with  the  primary  purpose  of 
Christ's  mission  upon  earth,  know  of  necessity  that 
Judas,  and  the  populace  on  which  he  relied,  must 
equally  and  simultaneously  have  found  themselves  un- 
deceived forever.    In  an  instant  of  time  one  grand 

body  of  acting  conspirators.  Consciousness,  which  such  men 
always  have,  of  deep  incorruptible  fidelity  to  their  mother-land, 
and  to  her  interests,  however  ill  understood,  ennobles  their 
politics,  even  when  otherwise  base.  They  are  corrupters  in  a 
service  that  never  can  be  utterly  corrupt.  Traitors  to  the  gov- 
ernment, they  cannot  be  traitors  to  the  country.  They  have, 
therefore,  a  power  to  win  attention  from  virtuous  men;  and, 
being  known  to  speak  a  representative  language  (known,  I  mean, 
to  speak  the  thoughts  of  the  national  majority),  they  would 
easily,  in  a  land  so  agitated  and  unreconciled,  so  wild,  stormy, 
and  desperately  ignorant  as  Judea,  kindle  in  stirring  minds  the 
most  fiery  contagions  of  principle  and  purpose.  Judas,  being 
thus,  on  the  one  hand,  kept  through  these  men  in  vital  sympa- 
thy with  the  restless  politics  of  the  insurrectionist  populace;  on 
the  other  hand,  hearing  daily  from  his  Master  a  sublime  phi- 
losophy that  rested  for  its  key-note  upon  the  advent  of  vast 
revolutions  among  men  —  what  wonder  that  he  should  connect 
these  contradictory  but  parallel  currents  of  his  hourly  expe- 
rience by  a  visionary  synthesis? 


JUDAS  ISCARIOT. 


231 


decisive  word  and  gesture  of  Christ  must  have  pi:t  an 
end  peremptorily  to  all  hopes  of  that  kind.  In  that 
brief  instant,  enough  was  made  known  to  Judas  for 
final  despair.  Whether  he  had  ever  drunk  profoundly- 
enough  from  the  cup  of  spiritual  religion  to  understand 
the  full  meaning  of  Christ's  refusal,  not  only  the  fact 
of  this  refusal,  but  also  the  infinity  of  what  secretly  it 
involved  ;  whether  he  still  adhered  to  his  worldly  inter- 
pretation of  Christ's  mission,  and  simply  translated  the 
refusal  into  a  confession  that  all  was  lost,  whilst  in  very 
fact  all  was  on  the  brink  of  absolute  and  triumphant 
consummation,  it  is  impossible  for  us,  without  docu- 
ments or  hints,  to  conjecture.  Enough  is  apparent  to 
show  that,  in  reference  to  any  hopes  that  could  be 
consolatory  for  Mm,  all  was  indeed  lost.  The  kingdom 
of  this  world  had  melted  away  in  a  moment  like  a 
cloud;  and  it  mattered  little  to  a  man  of  his  nature 
that  a  spiritual  kingdom  survived,  if  in  his  heart  there 
were  no  spiritual  organ  by  which  he  could  appropriate 
the  new  and  stunning  revelation.  Equally  he  might 
be  swallowed  up  by  despair  in  the  case  of  retaining 
his  old  worldly  delusions,  and  finding  the  ground  of 
his  old  anticipations  suddenly  giving  way  below  his 
feet,  or  again,  in  the  opposite  case  of  suddenly  correct- 
ing his  own  false  constructions  of  Christ's  mission,  and 
cf  suddenly  apprehending  a  far  higher  purpose  ;  but 
which  purpose,  in  the  very  moment  of  becoming  intel- 
ligible, rose  into  a  region  far  beyond  his  own  frail 
fleshly  sympathies.  He  might  read  more  truly ;  but 
what  of  that,  if  the  new  truth,  suddenly  made  known 
as  a  letter,  were  in  spirHt  absolutely  nothing  at  all  to 
^he  inner  sense  of  his  heart  ?    The  despondency  of 


232 


JUDAS  ISCARIOT. 


Judas  miglit  be  of  two  different  qualities,  more  or  less 
selfish ;  indeed,  I  would  go  so  far  as  to  say,  selfish  or 
altogether  unselfish.  And  it  is  with  a  view  to  this 
question,  and  under  a  persuasion  of  a  wrong  done  to 
Judas  by  gross  mistranslation  disturbing  the  Greek 
text,  that  I  entered  at  all  upon  this  little  memoran- 
dum Else  what  J  have  hitherto  been  attempting  to 
explain  (excepting,  however,  the  part  relating  to  the 
hakim,  which  is  entirely  my  own  suggestion)  belongs 
in  part  to  German  writers.  The  whole  construction  of 
the  Iscariot's  conduct,  as  arising,  not  out  of  perfidy^ 
but  out  of  his  sincere  belief  that  some  quickening  im- 
pulse was  called  for  by  a  morbid  feature  in  Christ's 
temperament  —  all  this,  I  believe,  was  originally  due 
to  the  Germans  ;  and  it  is  an  important  correction  ;  for 
it  must  always  be  important  to  recall  within  the  fold 
of  Christian  forgiveness  any  one  who  has  long  been 
sequestered  from  human  charity,  and  has  tenanted  a 
Pariah  grave.  In  the  greatest  and  most  memorable  of 
earthly  tragedies,  Judas  is  a  prominent  figure.  So 
long  as  the  earth  revolves,  he  cannot  be  forgotten.  If, 
therefore,  there  is  a  doubt  affecting  his  case,  he  is 
entitled  to  the  benefit  of  that  doubt ;  and  if  he  has 
suffered  to  any  extent  —  if  simply  to  the  extent  of 
losing  a  palliation,  or  the  shadow  of  a  palliation  —  by 
means  of  a  false  translation  from  the  Greek,  we  ought 
not  to  revise  merely,  or  simply  to  mitigate  his  sentence, 
but  to  dismiss  him  from  the  bar.  The  Germans  make 
it  a  question  —  in  what  spirit  the  Iscariot  lived  ?  My 
question  is  —  in  what  spirit  he  died  ?  If  he  were  a 
traitor  at  last,  in  that  case  he  was  virtually  a  traitor 
always.    If  in  the  last  hours  of  his  connection  with 


JUDAS  ISCARIOT. 


233 


Christ  he  perpetrated  a  treason,  and  even  (which  is  our 
vulgar  reading  of  the  case)  a  mercenary  treason,  then 
he  must  have  been  dallying  with  purposes  of  treason 
during  all  the  hours  of  his  apostleship.  If,  in  reality, 
when  selling  his  Master  for  money,  he  meant  to  betray 
him,  and  regarded  the  money  as  the  commensurate 
motive  for  betraying  him,  then  his  case  will  assume  a 
very  different  aspect  from  that  impressed  upon  it  by 
the  German  construction  of  the  circumstances. 

The  life  of  Judas,  and  the  death  of  Judas,  taken 
apart  or  taken  jointly,  each  separately  upon  indepen- 
dent grounds,  or  both  together  upon  common  grounds, 
are  open  to  doubts  and  perplexities.  And  possibly  the 
double  perplexities,  if  fully  before  us,  might  turn  out 
each  to  neutralize  the  other.  Taking  them  jointly,  we 
might  ask  —  Were  they,  this  life  and  this  death,  to  be 
regarded  as  a  common  movement  on  behalf  of  a  deep 
and  heart-fretting  Hebrew  patriotism,  which  was  not 
the  less  sincere,  because  it  ran  headlong  into  the  un- 
amiable  form  of  rancorous  nationality  and  inhuman 
bigotry  ?  Were  they  a  wild  degeneration  from  a  prin- 
ciple originally  noble?  Or,  on  the  contrary,  this  life 
and  this  death,  were  they  alike,  the  expression  of  a 
base,  mercenary  selfishness,  caught  and  baffled  in  the 
meshes  of  its  own  chicanery  ?  The  life,  if  it  could  be 
appreciated  in  its  secret  -principles,  might  go  far  to  il- 
lustrate the  probable  character  of  the  death.  The 
death,  if  its  circumstances  were  recoverable,  and  could 
be  liberated  from  the  self-contradictory  details  in  the 
received  report,  might  do  something  to  indicate  retro- 
spectively the  character  and  tenor  of  that  life.  The 
\ife  of  Judas,  under  a  German  construction  of  it,  as 


234 


;UDAS  ISCARIOT. 


a  spasmodic  effort  of  vindictive  patriotism  and  of  re- 
bellious ambition,  noble  by  possibility  in  its  grand 
central  motive,  though  erring  and  worldly-minded  of 
necessity  in  the  potential  circumstances  of  its  evolu- 
tion, when  measured  by  a  standard  so  exalted  as  thac 
of  Christianity,  would  infer  (as  its  natural  sequel)  a 
death  of  fierce  despair.  Read  under  the  ordinary  con- 
struction as  a  life  exposed  to  temptations  that  were 
petty,  and  frauds  that  were  always  mercenary,  it  could 
not  reasonably  be  supposed  to  furnish  any  occasion  for 
passions  upon  so  great  a  scale  as  those  which  seem  to 
have  been  concerned  in  the  tragical  end  of  Judas, 
vv^hether  the  passions  were  those  of  remorse  and  peni- 
tential anguish,  or  of  frantic  wrath  and  patriotic  dis- 
appointment. Leaving,  however,  to  others  the  task  of 
conjecturally  restoring  its  faded  lineaments  to  this 
mysterious  record  of  a  crime  that  never  came  before 
any  human  tribunal,  I  separately  pursue  a  purpose  that 
is  narrower.  I  seek  to  recall  and  to  recombine  the 
elements,  not  of  the  Iscariot's  life,  nor  of  his  particular 
offence,  but  simply  of  his  death  —  which  final  event 
in  his  career,  as  a  death  marked  by  singular  circum- 
stances, might,  if  once  truly  deciphered,  throw  back 
some  faint  illustrative  light,  both  upon  the  life,  and 
upon  the  offence. 

The  reader  is  probably  aware  that  there  has  always 
been  an  obscurity,  or  even  a  perplexity  connected  with 
the  death  of  Judas.  Two  only  out  of  the  entire  five 
documents,  which  record  the  rise  and  early  history  of 
Christianity,  have  circumstantially  noticed  this  event. 
The  evangelists,  Mark,  Luke,  and  John,  leave  it  unde- 
Bcribed.    St.  Matthew  and  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles 


JUDAS  ISCABTOT. 


235 


have  bequeathed  to  us  a  picturesque  account  of  it, 
which,  to  my  own  belief,  has  been  thoroughly  mis- 
understood ;  and,  once  being  misunderstood,  naturally 
enough  has  been  interpreted  as  something  fearfully 
preternatural.  The  crime,  though  great,  of  the  Iscariot, 
has  probably  been  much  exaggerated.  It  was,  under 
my  interpretation,  the  crime  of  signal  and  earthly  pre- 
sumption, seeking  not  to  thwart  the  purposes  of  Christ, 
still  less  to  betray  them  —  on  the  contrary,  to  pro- 
mote them  ;  but  how  ?  — by  means  utterly  at  war  with 
their  central  spirit.  As  far  as  can  be  judged,  it  was 
an  attempt  to  forward  the  counsels  of  God  by  weapons 
borrowed  from  the  armory  of  darkness.  The  crime 
being  once  misapprehended  (as  a  crime  without  a  name 
or  a  precedent),  it  was  inevitable  that  the  punishment, 
so  far  as  it  was  expounded  by  the  death  of  the  crimi- 
nal, should,  in  obedience  to  this  first  erroneous  pre- 
conception, be  translated  into  something  preternatural. 
To  a  mode  of  guilt  which  seemed  to  have  no  parallel, 
it  was  reasonable  enough  that  there  should  be  appor- 
tioned a  death  which  allowed  of  no  medical  explana- 
tion.-^' 

*  JVo  medical  explanation ;  "  —  In  neutral  points,  having 
no  relation  to  morals  or  religious  philosophy,  it  is  not  concealed 
by  the  Scriptural  records  themselves,  that  even  inspired  persons 
made  grave  mistakes.  All  the  Apostles,  it  is  probable,  or  with 
the  single  exception  of  St.  John  (which  single  exception  I  make 
in  deference  to  many  parts  of  the  Apocalypse  arguing  too  evi- 
dently an  immunity  from  this  error) ,  shared  in  the  mistake 
about  the  second  coming  of  Christ,  as  an  event  immediately  to 
be  looked  for.  With  respect  to  diseases,  again,  it  is  evident  that 
the  Apostles,  in  common  with  all  Jews,  were  habitually  disposed 
to  read  in  them  distinct  manifestations  of  heavenly  wrath.  In 


236 


JUDAS  ISCARIOT. 


This  demur,  moreover,  of  obscurity  was  not  the  only  * 
one  raised  against  the  death  of  Judas :  there  was  a 
separate  objection — that  it  was  inconsistent  with  it- 
self.   He  was  represented,  in  the  ordinary  modern 
versions,  as  dying  by  a  double  death  —  viz.  (1.),  by  a 

blindness,  for  instance,  or,  again,  in  death  from  the  fall  of  a 
tower,  they  read,  as  a  matter  of  course,  a  plain  expression  of  the 
Divine  displeasure  pointed  at  an  individual.  That  they  should 
even  so  far  pause  as  to  doubt  whether  the  individual  or  his 
parents  had  been  the  object  of  this  displeasure,  arose  only 
out  of  those  cases  where  innocent  infants  were  the  sufferers. 
This,  in  ffict,  was  a  prejudice  inalienable  from  their  Jewish  train- 
ing; and  as  it  would  unavoidably  lead  oftentimes  to  judgments 
not  only  false,  but  also  uncharitable,  it  received,  on  more  occa- 
sions than  one,  a  stern  rebuke  from  Christ  himself.  In  the  same 
spirit,  it  is  probable  that  the  symptoms  attending  death  were 
sometimes  erroneously  reported  as  preternatural,  when,  in  fact, 
such  as  every  hospital  could  match.  The  death  of  the  first  Herod 
was  regarded  by  the  early  Christians  universally  as  a  judicial 
expression  of  God's  wrath  to  the  author  of  the  massacre  at  Beth- 
lehem, though  in  reality  the  symptoms  were  such  as  often  occur 
in  obstinate  derangements  of  the  nervous  system.  Indeed,  as  to 
many  features,  the  malady  of  the  French  king,  Charles  IX.,  whose 
nervous  system  had  been  shattered  by  the  horrors  of  the  St.  Bar- 
tholomew massacre,  very  nearly  resembled  it,  with  such  differ- 
ences as  might  be  looked  for  between  an  old,  ruined  constitution, 
such  as  Herod's,  and  one  so  full  of  youthful  blood  as  that  of 
Charles.  In  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  again,  the  grandson  of 
Herod  the  Great  — viz.,  Herod  Agrippa  —  is  evidently  supposed 
to  have  died  by  a  judicial  and  preternatural  death,  whereas, 
apparently,  one  part  of  his  malady  was  the  morbus  pedicular  is 
—  cases  of  which  I  have  myself  circumstantially  known  in 
persons  of  all  ranks;  one,  for  instance,  being  that  of  an  English 
countess,  rich  beyond  the  scale  of  oriental  Sultans,  and  the  other 
a  female  upper  servant  in  my  mother's  household.  Both  died. 
Sylla ,  the  great  Roman  leader,  died  of  the  same  disease. 


JUDAS  ISCAEIOT. 


237 


suicidal  death  :  ''he  went  and  hanged  himself —  thia 
is  the  brief  account  of  his  death  given  by  St.  Matthew ; 
but  (2.)  by  a  death  not  suicidal  :  in  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles  we  have  a  very  different  account  of  his  death, 
not  suggesting  suicide  at  all,  and  otherwise  describing 
it  as  mysteriously  complex  ;  that  is,  presenting  us  with 
various  sircumstances  of  the  case,  none  of  which,  in 
the  common  vernacular  versions  (whether  English  or 
continental),  is  at  all  intelligible.  The  elements  in 
the  case  are  three  :  that  he  "  fell  down  headlong  ;  " 
that  he  "  burst  asunder  in  the  middle  ;  "  and  that 
"  his  bowels  gushed  out  —  the  first  of  these  elements 
being  unintelligible,  as  regards  any  previous  circum- 
stances stated  in  the  report ;  and  the  two  others  being 
purely  and  blankly  impossible. 

These  objections  to  the  particular  mode  of  that  catas- 
trophe which  closed  the  career  of  Judas,  had  been  felt 
pretty  generally  in  the  Christian  church,  and  probably 
from  the  earliest  times  ;  and  the  more  so  on  account 
of  that  deep  obscurity  which  rested  upon  the  nature  of 
his  offence.  That  a  man,  who  had  been  solemnly  elect- 
ed into  the  small  band  of  the  Apostles,  should  so  far 
wander  from  his  duty  as  to  incur  forfeiture  of  his  great 
office  —  this  was  in  itself  sufficiently  dreadful,  and  a 
shocking  revival  to  the  human  imagination  of  that 
eldest  amongst  all  moral  traditions  —  a  tradition  de- 
scending to  us  from  what  date  we  know  not,  nor 
through  what  channel  of  possible  communication  — 
viz.,  the  obscure  tale  that  even  into  the  heaven  of 
heavens,  and  amongst  the  angelic  hosts,  rebellion 
^igainst  God,  long  before  man  and  human  frailty  existed, 
should  have  crept  by  some  contagion  metaphysically 


238 


JUDAS  ISCARIOT 


inconceivable.  What  search  could  be  sufficient,  where  ^ 
even  the  eye  of  Christ  had  failed  to  detect  any  germ 
of  evil  ?  Into  the  choir  of  angelic  hosts,  though  watched 
by  God  —  into  the  choir  of  apostles,  though  searched 
by  Christ  —  had  a  traik>r  crept  ?  Still,  though  the 
crime  of  Judas  had  doubtless  been  profound,^'  and 
evidently  to  me  it  had  been  the  intention  of  the  early 
church  to  throw  a  deep  pall  of  mystery  over  its  extent, 
charity  —  that  unique  charity  which  belongs  to  Chris- 
tianity, as  being  the  sole  charity  ever  preached  to  men, 
w^hich  "  hopeth  all  things  "  — inclined  through  every 
age  the  hearts  of  musing  readers  to  suspend  their 
verdict  where  the  Scriptures  had  themselves  practised 
a  noticeable  reserve,  and  where  (if  only  thro\igh  the 
extreme  perplexity  of  their  final  and  revised  expres- 
sions) they  had  left  an  opening,  or  almost  an  invitation, 
to  doubt.  The  doubt  was  left  by  the  primitive  church 
where  Scripture  had  left  it.  There  was  not  any  abso- 
lute necessity  that  this  should  ever  be  cleared  up  to 
man.  But  it  was  felt  from  the  very  first  that  some 
call  was  made  upon  the  church  to  explain  and  to  har- 
monize the  apparently  contradictory  expressions  used 
in  what  ma,y  be  viewed  as  the  official  report  of  the  one 
memorable  domestic  tragedy  in  the  infant  stage  of  the 
Christian  history.  Official  I  call  it,  as  being  in  a 
manner  countersigned  by  the  whole  confederate  church, 

*  **  Profound  :  " — In  measuring  which,  however,  the  reader 
must  not  allow  himself  to  be  too  much  biassed  by  the  English 
phrase,  **  son  of  perdition.^*  To  find  such  words  as  shall  grad- 
uate and  adjust  their  depth  of  feeling  to  the  scale  of  another 
language,  and  that  language  a  dead  language,  is  many  times 
beyond  all  reach  of  human  skill. 


JUDAS  ISCARIOT 


239 


when  proceeding  to  their  first  common  act  in  filling 
up  the  vacancy  consequent  upon  the  transgression  of 
Judas,  ^vhereas  the  account  of  St.  Matthew  pleaded 
no  authority  but  his  own.  And  domestic  I  call  the 
tragedy,  in  prosecution  of  that  beautiful  image  under 
which  a  father  of  our  English  Church  has  called  the 
twelve  apostles,  when  celebrating  the  paschal  feast, 
"      family    of  Christ." 

This  early  essay  of  the  church  to  harmonize  the 

*  "  The  family  of  Christ ;  "  —  For  the  reader  must  not  for- 
get that  the  original  meaning  of  the  Latin  word  familia  was 
not  at  all  what  we  moderns  mean  by  Si  family,  but  the  sum  total 
of  the  famuli.  To  say,  therefore,  in  speaking  of  a  Roman  noble- 
man, *'  that  his  entire  fam^ilia,  numbering  four  hundred  indi- 
viduals, had  been  crucified,"  would  not,  to  a  Roman  audience, 
convey  the  impression  that  his  children  or  grandchildren,  hia 
cognati  or  agnati,  those  of  his  affinity  or  his  consanguinity, 
could  have  entered  into  the  list  by  the  very  smallest  fraction. 
It  would  be  understood  that  his  slaves  had  perished  judicially, 
and  none  beside.  So  again,  whenever  it  is  said  in  an  ancient 
classic  that  such  or  such  a  man  had  a  large  family,  or  that  he 
was  kind  to  his  family,  or  was  loved  by  his  family,  always  we 
are  to  understand  not  at  all  his  wife  and  children,  but  the  train 
and  retinue  of  his  domestic  slaves.  Now,  the  relation  of  the 
apostles  to  their  Master,  and  the  awfulness  of  their  dependency 
upon  him,  which  represented  a  golden  chain  suspending  the 
whole  race  of  man  to  the  heavens  above,  justified,  in  the  first 
place,  that  form  of  expression  which  should  indicate  the  humility 
and  loyalty  that  is  owned  by  servants  to  a  lord;  whilst,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  tenderness  involved  in  the  relations  expressed 
by  the  English  word  family  redressed  what  might  else  have  been 
too  austere  in  the  idea,  and  recomposed  the  equilibrium  between 
the  two  forces  of  reverential  awe  and  of  child-like  love  which 
^e  equally  indispensable  in  the  orbicular  perfection  of  Christian 
fealty. 


240 


JUDAS  ISCARIOT. 


difficult  expressions  employed  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apos- 
tles —  an  essay  which,  therefore,  recognizes  at  once 
the  fact  that  these  expressions  really  were  likely  to 
perplex  the  simple-hearted,  and  not  merely  to  perplex 
such  readers  as  systematically  raised  cavils  —  was 
brought  forward  in  the  earliest  stage  of  the  church, 
and  under  the  sanction  of  the  very  highest  authority 
—  viz.,  by  one  who  sat  at  the  feet  of  the  beloved 
Apostle ;  by  one,  therefore,  who,  if  he  had  not  seen 
Christ,  had  yet  seen  familiarly  him  in  whom  Christ 
most  confided.  But  I  will  report  the  case  in  the  words 
of  that  golden-mouthed  rhetorician,  that  Chrysostom  of 
the  English  (Church,  from  whose  lips  all  truth  came 
mended,  and  who,  in  spite  of  Shakspeare  himself, 
found  it  possible 

**  To  gild  refined  gold,  to  paint  the  lily, 
And  add  another  perfume  to  the  violet.*' 

The  following  is  the  account  given  by  Jeremy  Taylor 
of  the  whole  history,  in  so  far  as  it  affects  the  Scrip- 
ture report  of  what  Judas  did,  and  what  finally  he 
suffered:  —  "Two  days  before  the  passover,  the 
Scribes  and  Pharisees  called  a  council  to  contrive 
crafty  ways    of  destroying  Jesus,  they  not  daring  to 

*  **  Crafty  ways ;  "  —  Otherwise  it  must  naturally  occur  to 
every  reader — What  powers  could  Judas  furnish  towards  the 
arrest  of  Jesus  beyond  what  the  authorities  in  Jerusalem  al- 
ready possessed  ?  But  the  bishop  suggests  that  the  dilemma  was 
this  :  —  By  day  it  was  unsafe  to  seize  him,  such  was  the  ven- 
eration of  the  populace  for  his  person.  If  done  at  all,  it  must 
be  done  during  the  darkness.  But  precisely  during  those  hours, 
Christ  withdrew  into  solitudes  known  only  to  his  disciples.  So 
that  to  corrupt  one  of  these  was  the  preliminary  step  to  the 
discovery  of  that  secret. 


JUDAS  ISCAHIOT. 


241 


do  it  by  open  violence.  Of  whicli  meeting,  when 
Judas  Iscariot  had  notice  (for  those  assemblies  were 
public  and  notorious),  he  ran  from  Bethany,  and 
offered  himself  to  betray  his  Master  to  them,  if  they 
would  give  him  a  considerable  reward.  They  agreed 
for  thirty  pieces  of  silver."  In  a  case  .so  memorable 
as  this,  nothing  is  or  can  be  trivial ;  and  even  that 
curiosity  is  not  unhallowed  which  has  descended  to 
inquire  what  sum,  at  that  era  of  Jewish  history,  this 
expression  might  indicate.  The  bishop  replies  thus : 
— "  Of  what  value  each  piece  was,  is  uncertain;  but 
their  own  nation  hath  given  a  rule,  that,  when  a  piece 
of  silver  is  named  in  the  Pentateuch,  it  signifies  a 
side  if  it  be  named  in  the  Prophets,  it  signifies  a 
yound  ;  if  in  the  other  writings  of  the  Old  Testament, 
it  signifies  a  talent.''^  For  this,  besides  other  less 
familiar  authority,  there  is  cited  the  well-known  Arius 
Montanus,  in  the  Syro-Chaldaic  dictionary.  It  is, 
however,  self-evident  that  any  service  open  to  Judas 

*  By  which  coin  I  conceive  that  the  illustrious  bishop  undei 
stood  a  Hebrew  shekel,  which  I  have  always  represented  to  my 
self  as  a  rupee ;  for  each  alike,  shekel  or  rupee,  was  —  1.  a  silver 
coin;  2.  a  most  ugly  coin;  3.  when  in  its  normal  state,  worth 
half-an-ounce  of  silver  —  i,  e.,  an  English  half-crown;  4.  liable 
to  sink  into  another  coin,  equal  in  ugliness,  but  less  in  value  — 
viz.,  the  modern  English  Jiorin.  Fifty  years  ago  (as  I  by  a 
lively  experience  remember) ,  a  sound  sicca  rupee  passed  current 
in  Bengal  for  thirty  English  pence.  But  since  then  it  has  de- 
scended into  decimal  uses,  being,  for  a  whole  generation  back, 
uniformly  accounted  the  exact  tenth  part  of  our  pound.  So 
that  a  lac  of  rupees,  which  means  a  hundred  thousand  rupees, 
in  the  ordinary  expression  all  over  India  for  ten  thousand  pounds 
sterling. 

16 


242 


JUDAS  ISCARIOT. 


would  ha^e  been  preposterously  overpaid  by  thirty 
Attic  talents,  a  sum  which  exceeded  five  thousand 
pounds  sterling.  And  since  this  particular  sum  had 
originally  rested  on  the  authority  of  a  prophet,  cited 
by  one  of  the  Evangelists,^  "  it  is  probable,"  proceeds 
the  bishop,  "  that  the  price  at  which  Judas  sold  his 
Lord  was  thirty  pounds  weight  of  silver  [that  is,  about 
ninety  guineas  sterling  in  English  money]  —  a  goodly 
price  for  the  Saviour  of  the  world  to  be  prized  at  by 
his  undiscerning  and  unworthy  countrymen."  Where, 
however,  the  learned  bishop  makes  a  slight  oversight 
in  logic,  since  it  was  not  precisely  Christ  that  was  so 
valued  —  this  prisoner  as  against  the  certain  loss  of  this 
prisoner  —  but  simply  this  particular  mode  of  contend- 
ing with  the  difficulty  attached  to  his  apprehension,  since 
in  the  very  worst  case,  this  opportunity  lost  might  be 
replaced  by  other  opportunities  ;  and  the  price,  there- 
fore, was  not  calculated  as  it  would  have  been  under 
one  solitary  chance  ;  that  is,  the  price  was  not  meas- 
ured (as  the  bishop  assumes  it  to  have  been)  against 
the  total  and  final  value  of  Christ. 

The  bishop  then  proceeds  with  the  rehearsal  of  all 
the  circumstances  connected  with  the  pretended  trial 
of  Christ ;  and  coming  in  the  process  of  his  narrative 
to  the  conduct  of  Judas  on  learning  the  dreadful  turn 

♦  Viz.,  St.  Matthew.  Upon  which  the  bishop  notices  the 
error  which  had  crept  into  the  prevailing  text  of  Jeremias  in- 
stead of  Zecharias.  But  in  the  fourth  century  some  copies  had 
ah^eady  corrected  this  reading;  which,  besides,  had  a  traditional 
excuse  in  the  proverbial  saying  that  the  spirit  of  Jeremias  had 
settled  and  found  a  resting-place  in  Zecharias. 


JUDAS  ISCARIOT. 


243 


i\'hich  things  were  taking  (conduct  which  surely  argues 
that  he  had  anticipated  a  most  opposite  catastrophe), 
be  winds  up  the  case  of  the  Iscariot  in  the  following 
passage  :  —  "  When  Judas  heard  that  they  had  passed 
the  final  and  decretory  sentence  of  death  upon  his 
Lord,  he,  who  thought  not  it  would  have  gone  so  far, 
repented  him  to  have  been  an  instrument  of  so  damna- 
ble a  machination,  and  came  and  brought  the  silver 
which  they  gave  him  for  hire,  and  threw  it  in  amongst 
them,  and  said,  '  I  have  sinned  in  betraying  the  in- 
nocent blood/  But  they,  incurious  of  those  hell- 
torments  Judas  felt  within  him,  because  their  own 
fires  burned  not  yet,  dismissed  him."  I  pause  for  a 
moment  to  observe  that,  in  the  expression  "  repented 
him  to  have  been  an  instrument,''  the  context  shows 
the  bishop  intending  to  represent  Judas  as  recoiling 
from  the  issue  of  his  own  acts,  and  from  so  damnable 
a  machination,  not  because  his  better  feelings  were 
evoked,  as  the  prospect  of  ruin  to  his  Master  drew 
near,  and  that  he  shrank  from  that  same  thing  when 
taking  a  definite  shape  of  fulfilment,  which  he  had 
faced  cheerfully  when  at  a  distance.  Not  at  all:  the 
bishop's  meaning  is,  that  Judas  recoiled  from  his  own 
acts  at  the  very  instant  when  he  began  to  understand 
their  real  consequences  now  solemnly  opening  upon  his 
horror-stricken  understanding  ;  not  (understand  me)  as 
consequences  to  which  he  could  no  longer  reconcile 
himself,  now  that  they  drew  nearer,  but  as  conse- 
quences to  which  he  never  had  reconciled  himself  for  a 
moment  —  consequences,  in  fact,  to  which  he  had  never 
Vdverted  as  possibilities.    He  had  hoped,  probably 


JUDAS  ISCARIOT. 


much  from  the  Roman  interference;  and  the  history 
itself  shows  that  in  this  he  had  not  been  at  all  too 
sanguine.  Justice  has  never  yet  been  done  to  the 
conduct  of  Pilate.  That  man  has  little  comprehended 
the  style  and  manner  of  the  New  Testament  who  does 
not  perceive  the  demoniac  earnestness  of  Pilate  to  effect 
the  liberation  of  Christ,  or  who  fails  to  read  the 
anxiety  of  the  several  Evangelists  to  put  on  record  his 
profound  sympathy  with  the  prisoner.  The  falsest 
word  that  ever  yet  was  uttered  upon  any  part  of  the 
New  Testament,  is  that  sneer  of  Lord  Bacon's  at 
''jesting  Pilate."  Pilate  was  in  deadly  earnest  from 
first  to  last;  never  for  a  moment  had  he  "jested  ; 
and  he  retired  from  his  frantic  effort  on  behalf  of 
Christ,  only  when  his  own  safety  began  to  be  seriously 
compromised.  Do  the  thoughtless  accusers  of  Pilate 
fancy  that  he  was  a  Christian,  or  under  the  moral 
obligations  of  a  Christian  ?  If  not,  why,  or  on  what 
principle,  was  he  to  ruin  himself  at  Rome,  in  order  to 
favor  one  whom  he  could  not  save  at  Jerusalem? 
How  reasonably  Judas  had  relied  upon  the  Roman 
interference,  is  evident  from  what  actually  took  place. 
Judas  relied,  secondly,  upon  the  Jewish  mob  ;  and  that 
this  reliance  also  was  well  warranted,  appears  from 
lepeated  instances  of  the  fear  with  which  the  Jewish 
rulers  contemplated  Christ.  Why  did  they  fear  him  at 
all  ?  Why  did  they  fear  him  in  the  very  lowest  de- 
gree ?  Simply  as  he  was  backed  by  the  people  :  had 
it  not  been  for  their  support,  Christ  was  no  more  an 
object  of  terror  to  them  than  his  herald,  the  Baptist. 
But  what  I  here  insist  on  is  (which  else,  from  some 


J'UDAS  ISCARIOT. 


245 


sxpresfdons,  the  reader  might  fail  to  understand),  that 
Jeremy  Taylor  nowhere  makes  the  mistake  of  sup- 
posing Judas  to  have  originally  designed  the  ruin  of 
his  Master,  and  nowhere  understands  by  his  repent- 
ance "  that  he  I'elt  remorse  on  coming  near  to  conse- 
quences which  from  a  distance  he  had  tolerated  or 
even  desired.  He  admits  clearly  that  Judas  was  a 
traitor  only  in  the  sense  of  seeking  his  Master's  ag- 
grandizement by  methods  which  placed  him  in  revolt 
against  that  Master,  methods  which  not  only  involved 
express  and  formal  disobedience  to  that  Master,  but 
which  ran  into  headlong  hostility  against  the  spirit  of 
all  that  he  came  on  earth  to  effect.  It  was  the  revolt, 
not  of  perfidious  malignity,  but  of  arrogant  and  carnal 
llindness.  It  was  the  revolt  (as  Jeremy  Taylor  rightly 
views  it)  of  one  who  sought  to  the  last  the  fulfilment 
of  his  Master's  will,  but  by  methods  running  counter 
to  that  Master's  will.  In  respect  to  the  gloomy  ter- 
mination of  the  Iscariot's  career,  and  to  the  perplexing 
account  of  it  given  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  the 
bishop  closes  his  account  thus  :  —  "  And  Judas  went 
And  hanged  himself;  and  the  judgment  was  made 
more  notorious  and  eminent  by  an  unusual  accident  at 
such  deaths  ;  for  he  so  swelled,  that  he  burst,  and  his 
bowels  gushed  out.  But  the  Greek  scholiast  and 
some  others  report  out  of  Papias,  St.  John's  scholar, 
that  Judas  fell  from  the  fig-tree  on  which  he  hanged 
before  he  was  quite  dead,  and  survived  his  attempt 
some  while ;  being  so  sad  a  spectacle  of  deformity  and 
pain,  and  a  prodigious  tumor,  that  his  plague  was 
deplorable  and  highly  miserable;  till  at  last  he  burst 


246 


JUDAS  ISCARIOT. 


in  tlie  very  substance  of  his  trunk,  as  being  extended 
beyond  the  possibibties  ^'  and  capacities  of  nature." 

In  this  corrected  version  of  Papias,  we  certainly 
gain  an  intelligible  account  of  what  otherwise  is  far 
from  intelligible —  viz.,  the  falling  headlong.  But  all 
the  rest  is  a  dismal  heap  of  irrationalities  ;  and  the 
single  ray  of  light  which  is  obtained  —  viz.,  the  sugges- 
tion of  the  fig-tree  as  an  elevation,  which  explains  the 
possibility  of  a  headlong  fall,  or  any  fall  whatever  —  is 
of  itself  an  argument  that  some  great  disturbance  must 
have  happened  to  the  text  at  this  point ;  else  how 
could  so  material  a  circumstance  have  silently  dropped 
out  of  the  narrative?  There  are  passages  in  every 
separate  book  of  the  canon,  into  which  accident,  or  the 
somnolence  of  copyists,  or  their  blind  stupidity,  or 
rash  self-conceit,  has  introduced  errors  seriously  dis- 
turbing the  sense  and  the  coherence.  Many  of  these 
have  been  rectified  in  the  happiest  manner  by  ingeni- 
ous suggestions;  and  a  considerable  proportion  of 
these  suggestions  has  been  since  verified  and  approved 
by  the  discovery  of  new  manuscripts,  or  the  more  ac- 
curate collation  of  old  ones.  In  the  present  case,  a 
much  slighter  change  than  might  be  supposed  requisite 
will  suffice  to  elicit  a  new  and  perfect  sense  from  the 
general  outline  of  that  text  which  still  survives.  First, 
as  to  the  phrase  fell  headlong^^'  I  do  not  understand 
it  of  any  fall  from  a  fig-tree,  or  from  any  tree  whatever. 
This  fig-tree  I  regard  as  a  purely  fanciful  and  innovat- 
ing resource  ;  and  evidently  any  innovation  ranks  to 
this  extent  amongst  those  conjectural  audacities  which 

*  **  Possibilities ; "  —  Queer e  —  whether  the  true  reading  is  not 
more  probably  **passibilities;  "  i.  e.,  liabilities  to  suffering. 


JUDAS  ISCAHIOT. 


247 


shock  the  discreet  reader,  as  unsatisfactory  and  licen- 
tious, because  purely  gratuitous,  when  they  rest  upon 
no  traces  that  can  be  indicated  as  still  lurking  in  the 
present  text.  Fell  headlong  may  stand  as  at  present : 
it  needs  no  change,  for  it  discloses  a  very  good  and 
sufficient  sense,  if  we  understand  it  figuratively  as 
meaning  that  he  came  to  utter  and  unmitigated  ruin ; 
that  his  wreck  was  total ;  for  that,  instead  of  dedicat- 
ing himself  to  a  life  of  penitential  sorrow,  such  as 
would  assuredly  have  conciliated  the  Divine  forgiveness, 
the  unhappy  criminal  had  rushed  out  of  life  by  suicide. 
So  far,  at  least,  all  is  coherent,  and  under  no  further 
obligations  to  change,  small  or  great,  beyond  the  read- 
ing in  a  metaphorical  sense  that  which,  if  read  (as 
hitherto)  in  a  literal  sense,  would  require  the  very 
serious  interpolation  of  an  imaginary  fig-tree. 

What  remains  is  equally  simple :  the  change  in- 
volves as  little  violence,  and  the  result  from  this  change 
will  appear  not  at  all  less  natural.  But  a  brief  pre- 
liminary explanation  is  requisite,  in  order  to  place  it 
advantageously  before  the  reader.  The  ancients  use 
the  term  bowels  with  a  latitude  unknown  generally  to 
modern  literature,  but  especially  to  English  literature. 
In  the  midst  of  the  far  profounder  passion  which  dis- 
Unguishes  the  English  from  all  literatures  on  the 
modern  European  continent,  it  is  singular  that  a  fas- 
tidious decorum  never  sleeps  for  a  moment.  It  might 
be  imagined,  that  this  fastidiousness  would  be  in  the 
inverse  ratio  of  the  passion  :  but  it  is  not  so.  In 
particular,  the  French,  certainly  the  literature  which 
ranges  at  the  lowest  elevation  upon  the  scale  of  pas- 
sion, nevertheless  is  often  homely,  and  even  gross,  in 


248 


JUDAS  ISCARIOT. 


its  recurrences  to  frank  elementary  nature.  For  a 
lady  to  describe  herself  as  laughing  d  gorge  deployee, 
a  grossness  which  with  us,  equally  on  the  stage  or  in 
real  life,  would  be  regarded  with  horror,  amongst  the 
French  attracts  no  particular  attention.  Again,  amidst 
the  supposed  refinements  of  French  tragedy,  and  not 
the  coarser  (because  earlier)  tragedy  of  Corneille,  but 
amidst  the  more  feminine  and  polished  tragedy  of  Ra- 
cine, there  is  no  recoil  at  all  from  saying  of  such  or 
such  a  sentiment,  "II  me  perce  les  entrailles  ("it  pene- 
trates my  bowels").  The  Greeks  and  Romans  still 
more  extensively  use  the  several  varieties  of  expression 
for  the  intestines^  as  a  symbolic  phraseology  for  the 
domestic  and  social  affections.  We  English  even,  fas- 
tidious as  we  are,  employ  the  term  bowels  as  a  natural 
symbolization  for  the  affections  of  pity,  mercy,  or  pa- 
rental and  brotherly  affection.  At  least  we  do  so  in 
recurring  to  the  simplicities  of  the  Scriptural  style. 
But,  amongst  the  Romans,  the  word  viscera  is  so 
naturally  representative  of  the  household  affections, 
that  at  length  it  becomes  necessary  to  recall  an  Eng- 
lish reader  to  the  true  meaning  of  this  word.  Through 
some  prejudice,  originating  in  the  absurd  physiology 
of  our  worshipful  Pagan  masters,  Greek  and  Roman, - 
it  is  true  that  the  bowels  have  always  been  regarded 
IS  the  seat  of  the  more  tender  and  sorrowing  sympa- 
thies. But  the  viscera  comprehended  all  the  intes- 
tines, or  (as  the  French  term  them)  les  entrailles.  The 
heart  even  is  a  viscus ;  perhaps,  in  a  very  large  accep- 
tation, the  brain  might  be  regarded  as  a  co- viscus  with 
the  heart.  There  is  very  slight  ground  for  holding 
ihe  brain  to  be  the  organ  of  thinking,  or  the  heart  of 


JUDAS  TSCARIOT. 


249 


moral  sensibilities,  more  tlian  the  stomach,  or  the 
bowels,  or  the  intestines  generally.  But  waive  all  this : 
the  Romans  designated  the  seat  of  the  larger  and 
nobler  (i.  e.,  the  moral)  sensibilities  indifferently  by 
these  three  terms  —  the  pectus,  the  pr  ^ecordia,  and  the 
visce>^a  ;  as  to  the  cor,  it  seems  to  me  that  it  denoted 
the  heart  in  its  grosser  and  more  animal  capacities  : 
"  MoUe  meum  levibus  cor  est  violabile  telis  ;  "  the  cor 
was  the  seat  of  sexual  passion ;  but  nobler  and  more  re- 
flective sensibilities  inhabited  the  pectus  or  prcecordia  ; 
and  naturally  out  of  these  physiologic  preconceptions 
arose  corresponding  expressions  for  wounded  or  ruined 
sensibilities.  We  English,  for  instance,  insist  on  the 
disease  of  broken  heart,  which  Sterne,  in  a  well-known 
passage,  postulates  as  a  malady  not  at  all  the  less  de- 
finite than  phthisis  or  podagra,  because  it  is  not  form- 
ally recognized  in  the  bills  of  mortality.  But  it  is 
evident  that  a  theory  which  should  represent  the  vis- 
cera as  occupied  by  those  functions  of  the  moral  sensi- 
bilities which  we  place  in  the  central  viscus  of  the 
heart,  must,  in  following  out  that  hypothesis,  figure 
the  case  of  these  sensibilities  when  utterly  ruined 
under  corresponding  images.  Our  "  broken  heart  " 
will  therefore  to  them  become  ruptured  viscera,  or  prce- 
^ordia  that  have  burst.  To  burst  in  the  middle,  is 
timply  to  be  shattered  and  ruined  in  the  central 
organ  of  our  sensibilities,  which  is  the  heart ;  and  in 
.raying  that  the  viscera  of  Iscariot,  or  his  middle,  had 
burst  and  gushed  out,  the  original  reporter  meant 
simply  that  his  heart  had  broke.  That  was  precisely 
his  case.  Out  of  pure  anguish  that  the  scheme  which 
he  meant  for  the  sudden  glorification  of  his  master 


250 


JUDAS  ISCAEIOT. 


had  recoiled  (according  to  all  worldly  interpretation) 
in  his  utter  ruin ;  that  the  sudden  revolution,  through 
a  democratic  movement,  which  was  to  raise  himself  and 
his  brother  Apostles  into  Hebrew  princes,  had  scattered 
them  like  sheep  without  a  shepherd  ;  and  that,  super- 
added to  this  common  burden  of  ruin,  he  personally 
had  to  bear  a  separate  load  of  conscious  disobedience 
to  God,  and  insupportable  responsibility ;  naturally 
enough,  out  of  all  this  he  fell  into  fierce  despair  ;  his 
heart  Iroke ;  and  under  that  storm  of  affliction  he 
hanged  himself.  Here,  again,  all  clears  itself  up  by 
the  simple  substitution  of  a  figurative  interpretation 
for  one  grossly  and  ludicrously  physical.  All  contra- 
diction disappears  ;  not  three  deaths  assault  him — viz., 
suicide,  and  also  a  rupture  of  the  intestines,  and  also 
an  unintelligible  effusion  of  the  viscera  —  but  simply 
suicide,  and  suicide  as  the  result  of  that  despondency 
which  was  figured  under  the  natural  idea  of  a  broken 
heart  or  ruptured  prsecordia.  The  incoherences  are 
gone  ;  the  contradictions  have  vanished  ;  and  the  gross 
ph^^sical  absurdities,  which  under  mistranslation  had 
perplexed  the  confiding  student,  no  longer  disfigure 
the  Scriptures. 

Looking  back  to  the  foot-note  on  the  oriental  idea 
of  the  hakim^  or  itinerating  Therapeuta  —  i.  e,  (if  ex- 
pressed by  a  modern  idea),  missionary  physician —  as 
a  mask  politically  assumed  by  Christ  and  the  Evangel- 
ists, under  the  conviction  of  its  indispensableness  to 
the  propagation  of  Christian  philosophy,  I  am  induced, 
for  the  sake  of  detaining  the  reader's  eye  a  little 
longer  upon  a  matter  so  deeply  intertwisted  with  the 
birth-throes  of  dawning  Christianity,  to  subjoin  an 


JUDAS  ISCARIOT.  251 

extract  from  a  little  paper  written  by  myself  hereto- 
fore, bnt  not  published.  I  may  add  these  two  remarks 
—  viz.,  first,  that  the  attribution  to  St.  Luke,  speci- 
ally or  exclusively,  of  this  medical  character,  probably 
had  its  origin  in  the  simple  fact,  that  an  assumption 
made  by  all  the  Evangelists,  and  perhaps  by  all  the 
Apostles,  attracted  a  more  fixed  attention  in  him,  and  a 
more  abiding  remembrance  under  causes  merely  local 
and  accidental.  One  or  two  of  the  other  Apostles 
having  pursued  their  labors  of  propagandism  under 
the  avoioed  character  of  hakims,  many  others  in  the 
same  region  would  escape  special  notice  in  that  char- 
acter, simply  because,  as  men  notoriously  ready  to 
plead  it,  they  had  not  been  challenged  to  do  so  by  the 
authorities ;  whilst  other  Christian  emissaries,  in  re- 
gions where  the  government  had  not  become  familiar 
with  the  readiness  to  plead  such  a  privilege  as  part  of 
the  apostolic  policy,  would  be  driven  into  the  necessity 
of  actually  advancing  the  plea,  and  would  thus  (like 
St.  Luke)  obtain  a  traditionary  claim  to  the  medical 
title  which  in  a  latent  sense  had  belonged  to  all, 
though  all  had  not  been  reduced  to  the  necessity  of 
loudly  pleading  it.  Secondly,  I  would  venture  to 
suggest  that  the  Therapeutce,  or  healers,  technically  so 
called,  who  came  forward  in  Egypt  during  the  genera- 
tion immediately  .succeeding  to  that  of  Christ,  were 
neither  more  nor  less  than  disguised  apostles  to  Chris- 
tianity, preaching  the  same  doctrines  essentially  as 
Christ,  and  under  the  very  same  protecting  character 
of  hakims,  but  putting  forward  this  character  perhaps 
aiore  prominently,  t)r  even  retreating  into  it  altogether, 
according  to  the  increasing  danger  which  everywhere 


i 


252 


JUDAS  ISCARIOT. 


awaited  them  :  for  this  danger  was  too  generally 
double  ;  first,  from  the  Pagan  natives  resenting  the 
insults  offered  to  their  own  childish  superstitions  :  sec- 
ondly, and  even  more  ferociously,  from  the  hostile 
bigotry  of  expatriated  Jews,  as  they  gradually  came 
to  understand  the  true  and  anti-national  views  of  those 
who  called  themselves,  or  in  scorn  were  by  others 
called,  Christians,  sometimes  Nazarenes,  sometimes 
Galileans. 

In  short,  abstracting  altogether  from  the  hatred  to 
Christ,  founded  on  the  eternal  enmity  between  the 
worldly  and  the  spiritual,  and  looking  only  to  the  po- 
litical uneasiness  amongst  magistrates  which  accom- 
panied the  early  footsteps  of  Christianity,  one  may 
illustrate  it  by  the  parallel  feelings  of  panic  and  official 
persecution  which  in  our  own  generation  (amongst  the 
Portuguese,  for  instance)  have  dogged  the  movements 
of  freemasonry.  We  in  England  unwarrantably  view 
this  panic  as  irrational,  because  amongst  ourselves  it 
would  be  so  ;  for  British  freemasonry  conceals  nothing 
worse  than  it  professes  and  broadly  displays.  But,  on 
the  Continent  it  became  a  mask  for  shrouding  any  or 
yvery  system  of  anti-social  doctrine,  or,  again,  at  any 
moment,  for  playing  into  the  hands  of  treason  and 
conspiracy.  There  was  always,  in  the  first  place,  a 
reasonable  fear  of  secret  and  perilous  doctrines  —  Com- 
munism, for  instance,  under  some  modification,  or  ran- 
corous Jacobinism.  And,  secondly,  suppose  that  for 
the  present,  or  in  the  existing  stage  of  the  secret  so- 
ciety, there  really  were  no  esoteric  and  mischievous 
doctrine  countenanced,  there  was  at/  any  rate  the  cus- 
tom established  of  meeting  together  in  secret,  of  cor- 


JUDAS  ISCAKrOT. 


253 


responding  by  an  alphabet  of  conventional  signals, 
and  of  acting  by  an  impenetrable  organization,  always 
applicable  to  evil  purposes,  even  where  it  might  not 
originally  have  been  so  applied  or  so  designed.  The 
machinery  which  binds  together  any  secret  society,  as 
being  always  available  for  evil  ends,  must  inevitably 
justify  a  little  uneasiness,  and  therefore  more  than  a 
little  severity,  in  all  political  authorities."^'  And, 
under  those  circumstances,  the  public  jealou.sy  must 
have  operated  strongly  against  the  free  movement  of 
early  Christianity  :  nothing  could  have  disarmed  that 
jealousy  except  some  counter-principle  so  managed  as 
to  insure  the  freedom  of  public  meetings  ;  for  such 
meetings  opened  the  sine  qua  non  channel  to  the  free 
propagation  of  religious  doctrines.  Unless  people 
could  be  brought  together  in  crowds,  and  suffered  by 
jealous  authorities  to  attend  in  tranquillity  upon  the 
oral  teachings  of  an  impassioned  (some  thought,  of  an 
inspired)  rabbi,  what  publication  was  possible  for  any 
new  truth  whatever  ?  The  fierce  dilemma  of  the  fa- 
natical Mussulmans  is  always  at  hand  —  What  new 
truth  ?  If  it  is  more  than  already  we  possess,  then  it 
is  false.  If  the  same,  then  it  is  superfluous.  And  the 
Jewish  church,  as  it  happened,  was  specially  and  re- 
dundantly armed  to  meet  such  a  crisis  —  the  crisis,  I 
mean,  of  a  new  teacher  arising  with  offers  of  new 
truth,  whether  it  were  new  in  the  sense  of  revolution- 
ary and  correcting,  or  new  in  the  humbler  sense  of 
additional  and  supplementary.    For  the  ,^ews  had  a 

*  The  Chinese  Triads^  which  for  some  generations  have  lurked 
as  the  framework  of  a  secret  society,  are  only  now  coming  into 
-uinous  action. 


254 


ISCARIOT, 


triple  organ  for  uttering  religious  doubts,  Lopes,  con- 
victions, or  sudden  illuminations.  There  was,  first  of 
all  (and  generally  by  the  sea-shore),  the  humble  Pro- 
seuche,  or  oratory  for  private  prayer.  Secondly,  in 
every  city,  domestic  or  alien,  having  any  considerable 
resort  of  Jews  (for  the  Jews  were  now  spread  all  over 
the  Mediterranean  shores  and  islands,  as  well  as  all 
over  Asia  Minor),  there  was  a  Synagogue;  and  in  this, 
duly  as  Saturday  came  —  i,  e.,  the  Sabbath  —  the  Law 
and  the  Prophets  were  read,  and  (according  to  oppor- 
tunity) were  expounded  by  some  rabbi  more  or  less 
learned.  Finally,  for  the  crown  in  all  orriamenial 
senses,  and  for  the  working  consummation  as  regarded 
truth  and  ceremonial  shadows,  points  of  law,  casuistry, 
or  personal  vows,  there  was  the  glorious  Temple  and 
the  temple  service.  In  these  circumstances,  what 
opening  was  left  to  the  prophet  of  new  truth  ?  Ap- 
parently none.  To  publish  a  truth,  to  diffuse  it  from 
an  oracular  centre  —  in  other  words,  to  diffuse  it  with 
power  and  corresponding  pathos  —  was  a  mysterious 
problem.  To  solve  this  problem  in  any  sense  answer- 
ing to  the  great  postulates  of  Christ,  seemed  hopeless. 
Books,  or  newspapers,  which  now  form  our  main  resour- 
ces for  publication,  could  not,  at  the  inaugural  stage  of 
Christianity,  be  looked  for  under  a  thousand  and  half- 
a-thousand  years.  As  yet,  to  meet  the  necessities  of 
a  new  doctrine  that  needed  to  be  set  afloat  amongst 
mankind,  but,  above  all,  of  a  doctrine  that  sought 
popularization  amongst  the  poor,  the  unluarned,  the 
abject,  the  despised,  of  earth,  what  channels  were 
there  available,  what  organs  known  and  tried,  that 
might  be  translated  to  alien  uses,  and  appropriated  by 


jrUDAS  ISCARIOT. 


255 


Christianity  ?  I  know  of  but  three  ;  and  all  moving 
within  severe  restrictions  of  their  powers,  such  as  far 
removed  them  from  any  religious  alliance.  In  Athens 
(and  derivatively  from  her,  in  other  great  cities)  had 
arisen  Theatres,  tragic  and  comic — great  organs  of 
publication  for  peculiar  modes  of  truth,  and  for  culture 
in  very  ennobling  arts,  but  controlled  by  bigotry  the 
most  ferocious.  Another  organ  of  publication,  with 
inferior  powers,  within  even  sterner  limitations,  was 
found  in  the  dignified  resources  of  the  orator,  Athe- 
nian or  Roman,  for  giving  depth  and  impressiveness  to 
such  narrow  truths  as  he  contemplated.  A  third  or- 
gan lay  in  the  position  and  sanctity  of  an  Oracle  ;  but 
of  an  oracle  well  accredited.  To  have  any  value  as 
an  organ  of  publication,  the  particular  oracle  must 
first  possess  —  what  is  so  important  for  a  speaker  in 
our  British  senate  —  " /Ae  ear''  of  its  audience:  and 
this  very  few  oracles  ever  had,  except  the  Delphic. 
Two  centuries  before  the  Christian  era,  a  favorable 
opinion  upon  a  man  or  a  family  from  the  oracle  of 
Delphi  was  almost  equal  to  a  friendly  review  at  pres- 
ent in  the  London  "  Quarterly."  Perhaps  the  Del- 
phic concern  never  rose  exactly  to  the  level  of  the 
London  "  Times."     Spenser  notices  that,  after  all, 

**  Not  to  have  been  dipp'd  in  Lethe  flood 
Could  save  the  son  of  Thetis  from  to  die  "  — 

^7to  re  dvi]<jK8iv,  And  so  neither  could  a  first-class  es  - 
timate of  Socrates  by  the  venerable  but  palsy-stricken 
oracle  of  Delphi,  save  that  cunning  and  libidinous  old 
fellow  from  to  die  by  hemlock.  Laudatur  et  alget. 
The  wicked  old  man  finds  his  vanity  tickled,  but  his 
"eet  getting  rigid  and  cold. 


256 


JUDAS  ISCAfllOT. 


Slight,  therefore,  and  most  inconsiderable,  was  the 
power  practically  of  the  very  greatest  organs  in  Greece 
for  publishing  truth  with  effect.  The  very  idol  of 
Athens  could  reap  no  aid  from  the  very  Panhcllenic 
organ  of  glorification  and  world-wide  diffusion.  All 
the  power  of  Delphi  and  her  delirious  priestess  was 
not  good  —  did  not  tell  in  practice  —  to  the  extent  of 
one  hour's  respite  from  a  public  execution.  Four 
centuries  later,  this  oracle  had  sunk  into  dotage  :  like 
Socrates,  laudalur  et  alget :  the  oracle  still  received 
gifts  and  lying  homage  from  princes,  but,  like  Socrates, 
its  feet  were  growing  rigid  and  paralytically  cold.'^' 

In  these  circumstances,  when  all  the  known  organs 
of  publication  —  stage,  bema,  or  rostrum,  and  the 
superhuman  oracle  —  had  failed  jointly,  failed  memor- 
ably and  laughably,  to  create  a  serviceable  patronage 
on  behalf  of  a  man,  a  book,  an  event,  a  public  interest, 
or  a  truth  struggling  with  the  perplexities  of  develop- 

*  One  symptom  of  increasing  dotage  had  caused  infinite  laugh- 
ter for  many  generations;  and  to  those  who  detest  the  hellish 
religious  bigotry  of  Athens,  where  free-thinking  should  rightfully 
have  prevailed,  but  where  it  was  in  reality  most  of  all  dan- 
gerous, think  with  triumphant  pleasure  of  the  deadly  mortifica- 
tion which  this  symptom  inflicted  upon  the  Athenian  bigots,  who 
could  not  deny  it  or  hide  it,  whilst  they  beyond  all  people  felt  the 
ignominy  and  the  profane  inferences  attending  so  vile  a  descent. 
The  oracles  had,  from  eldest  days,  been  published  in  verse.  In 
a  rude  age  this  verse  had  passed  unchallenged,  like  village  epi- 
taphs amongst  ourselves.  But  then  came  a  literary  age  —  a 
literary  public,  inexorable  critics,  all  wide  awake.  What  fol- 
lowed ?  Infinite  laughter,  and  finally,  on  the  part  of  the  oracle, 
/he  most  abject  retreat  into  humble  prose.  Apollo,  the  very 
divinity  that  originated  verse,  could  not  cash  a  cheque  upor 
himself  for  the  sum  of  six  hexameters;  he  was  insolvent. 


JUDAS  ISCARIOT. 


257 


ment,  what  engine,  what  machinery  could  be  set  in 
motion,  or  suggested,  having  power  to  work  as  a  co- 
agency  with  the  internal  forces  of  Christian  truth  ?  If 
there  were  none,  then,  under  all  human  likelihoods, 
Christianity  must  perish  in  its  earliest  stage  ;  or,  rather, 
must  collapse  as  a  visionary  nisus  —  as  a  spasm  of 
dreamy  yearning  —  before  ever  it  reached  such  early 
stage.  Standing  at  the  outset  of  his  career  in  this 
perplexity,  and  knowing  well  that  countenance  or 
collusion  .from  the  magistrate  was  hopeless  in  his  own 
condition  of  poverty,  Christ,  from  the  armory  of  his 
heavenly  resources,  brought  forward  a  piece  of  artil- 
lery,potent  for  his  own  purposes,  and  not  evadable 
by  any  counter  artifice  of  his  opponents.  Disease  — - 
was  that  separable  from  man  ?  He  that  worked  through 
that  ally  —  could  he  ever  need  to  shrink  or  to  cower 
before  his  enemies  in  the  gate  ?  Nothing  in  this  world 
was  so  much  the  object  of  dread  —  alike  rational  and 
groundless  —  as  crowds  and  the  gatherings  of  the 
people  to  the  magistrates  of  the  ancient  world.  Yet, 
on  the  other  hand,  without  crowds  that  he  might 
harangue,  might  instruct,  might  melt,  might  mould  to 
\iis  new  views,  how  could  the  Founder  of  a  new  and 
spiritual  faith  advance  by  a  solitary  foot? 

*  Artillery  "  is  a  Scriptural  word;  at  least  it  is  so  in  tho 
vocabulary  of  our  own  vernacular  translators.  They  were  much 
too  vigilantly  on  their  guard  against  all  real  anachronisms  not 
to  have  weighed  scrupulously  this  term  when  applied  by  Jona- 
than, the  son  of  Saul,  and  the  youthful  David,  rather  more  than 
a  thousand  years  b.  c,  to  the  systems  of  archery  (perhaps  in- 
\luding  the  cross-bow,  the  catapult,  and  other  mechanic  aids)  iu 
lihose  days  known  to  the  warlike  tribes  of  Palestine. 
17 


258 


JUDAS  ISCARIOT. 


Here,  now,  are  two  of  the  parties  interested  — 
namely,  the  magistrate  on  the  one  side,  and  the  Pro- 
phet on  the  other.  The  two  parties  were  directly 
at  issue  ;  and  thus,  in  any  ordinary  case,  no  result 
would  follow.    But  here  there  was  a  third  party  in- 

*  **The  Prophet:**  —  Make  no  mistake,  reader.  You,  ac- 
cording to  modern  slang,  understand  probably  by  a  prophet  one 
who  foretells  coming  events.  But  this  is  not  the  Scriptural  sense 
of  the  word;  nor  am  I  aware  that  it  is  once  used  in  such  a  sense 
throughout  the  entire  Bible.  A  prophet  is  that  man,  in  contra- 
distinction to  another  man,  originally  creating  and  moulding  a 
new  truth,  who  comes  forward  to  utter  and  expound  that  truth. 
The  two  co-agents  move  in  couples  —  move  dualistically.  Each 
Is  essential  to  the  other.  For  instance,  such  a  dualism  rose  like 
a  constellation  —  rose  like  the  Gemini  —  like  the  twin  brothers 
Castor  and  Pollux  —  in  two  great  Hebrew  leaders,  simulta- 
neously to  guide  the  hopes  and  the  efforts  of  Israel,  when  Israel 
first  moulded  himself  into  a  nation  —  a  nation  that  should  fur- 
nish in  a  new  sense  an  old  deliverance,  a  second  ark,  with  a 
nobler  mission  —  an  ark  in  which  might  tilt  over  the  angry  seas 
of  our  mysterious  planet  that  mighty  doctrine  of  God,  the  Trinity 
in  Unity,  which  else,  perishing  in  storms,  would  have  left  man 
himself  to  founder.  This  dualism  of  brethren  —  Aaron  the 
priest,  and  Moses  the  lawgiver  —  luminously  illustrate  the  great 
dualistic  system  of  functions.  Aaron  cannot  think;  Moses  can- 
not speak.  The  first  is  blind,  the  second  is  dumb.  But,  moving 
as  a  co-operating  duad,  they  become  the  salvation  of  Israel  :  the 
dumb  man,  dumb  as  he  is,  can  see;  the  blind  man,  blind  as  he 
is,  can  speak.  Moses  it  is  that  furnishes  the  great  ideas,  the 
vost  scheme  of  legislation  for  Israel :  Aaron  it  is  that  publishes, 
that  gives  vocal  utterance  to  these  colossal  ideas.  Failing  a 
Moses,  there  would  be  no  ideas  to  manifest:  failing  an  Aaron, 
there  would  be  no  manifestation  of  these  august  entities  —  they 
would  die,  and  be  confounded  amidst  the  clouds  of  their  al- 
mighty birth.  Now,  in  Scripture,  both  Old  and  New,  he  that 
gives  utterance  to  these  else  perishing  conceptions  is  called  a 


JUBAS  TSCARIOT. 


259 


terested  —  namely,  the  whole  world  :  after  which 
number  one  (the  magistrate)  could  no  longer  be  al- 
lowed to  neutralize  number  two  (the  Builder  of  Truth). 
It  is  noticeable,  and  accordingly  it  has  been  often 
noticed,  that  nowhere  are  mobs  more  terrific  and  per- 
emptory than  in  bloody  despotisms.  And  the  same 
truth  is  illustrated  in  the  English  history.  During 
periods  in  which  as  yet  the  multitude  enjoyed  few  abso- 
lute rights  recognized  by  the  law,  mobs,  when  once  put 
in  motion,  listened  to  no  checks  of  authority.  Seeing 
their  way  clearly  under  simple  indications  of  blank 
necessity  or  rightful  claim,  or  old  traditional  usage, 
headlong  they  went  forward,  without  fear  of  conse- 
quences, or  regard  to  collateral  results.  Pretty  nearly 
the  same  was  doubtless  the  character  of  a  Jerusalem 
mob,  and  precisely  because  it  moved  under  the  same 
elementary  laws  of  human  nature.  "I,"  would  say 
one  man,  "  am  not  going  to  weather  the  torments  of 
a  cancer."  "  Nor  will  I  suffer  my  poor  daughter  to  pine 
away  under  a  palsy,  only  because  you  are  politically 
jealous  of  this  young  man  from  Nazareth,  whom  else, 

prophet,  and  is  said  to  prophesy.  How  else  could  be  explained 
those  multiplied  passages  in  which  St.  Paul  notices  "  gifts  of 
prophecy  "  as  endowments  of  ordinary  occurrence  amongst 
his  contemporaries  ?  How  absurd,  in  the  common  accejotation 
of  the  word  prophecy  !  And  what  encouragement  would  the 
Apostle  be  thus  giving  to  false  and  blundering  enthusiasm  ! 
**  Prophesy  unto  us  who  it  is  that  struck  thee:"  —  that  is, 
reveal,  make  manifest,  as  a  thing  hidden;  not  predict  as  a  thing 
remote  from  our  present  time.  How  shameful,  amidst  the  real 
and  inevitable  difficulties  of  Scripture,  to  leave  sincere  and 
gimple-hearted  students  in  conflict  with  mere  idle,  and,  strictly 
speaking,  false,  usages  of  language  ! 


260 


JUDAS  ISCAKIOT. 


I  and  all  my  neighbors  know  equal  to  the  task  of 
relieving  her  in  one  hour."  "  Do  not  fancy,"  another 
would  exclaim,  "  that  I  will  tamely  look  on  in  patient 
acquiescence,  whilst  my  little  grand-daughter  is  shaken 
every  day  by  epileptic  fits  ;  and  why  ?  because  the 
Sanhedrim  are  afraid  of  the  Romans,  and  therefore  of 
gathering  mobs  ?  To  the  great  fiend  with  your  San- 
hedrim, if  that  is  to  be  the  excuse  from  keeping  the 
blind  from  seeing,  and  the  lame  from  walking." 

Asking  for  bread,  it  is  likely  enough  that  the  mobs 
of  Judea  would  have  received  from  their  rulers  a  stone  ; 
but  asking  for  what  seemed  a  stone,  and  by  comparison 
was  not  much  more,  indirectly  and  under  a  mask  they 
obtained  what  in  a  far  higher  and  spiritual  sense  was 
bread.  A  tumult  of  the  people  for  daily  bread,  what 
is  traditionally  known  to  all  nations  as  a  bread  riot, 
cannot  be  met  (it  is  well  understood)  by  any  remedy 
short  of  absolute  concessions  to  the  rebellious  appetite. 
So,  also,  and  in  any  land,  would  be  the  process  and  the 
result,  such  the  fury,  such  the  inexorable  demand,  such 
the  inevitable  concession,  for  the  sake  of  appropriating 
instant  and  miraculous  relief  offered  to  agonizing  dis- 
eases. 

Once  announcing  himself,  and  attesting  by  daily 
cures  his  own  mission  as  a  hakim,  Christ  could  not  ho 
rejected  as  a  public  oracle  of  truth  and  heavenly 
counsel  to  human  weakness.  This  explains  what  else 
would  have  been  very  obscure,  the  undue  emphasis 
which  Christ  allowed  men  to  place  upon  his  sanitary 
miracles.  His  very  name  in  Greek  —  namely, /j^do^ 
—  presented  him  to  men  under  the  idea  of  the  healer , 
but  then,  to  all  who  comprehended  his  secret  and  ulti- 


JUDAS  ISCARIOT. 


261 


mate  functions,  as  a  healev  of  unutterable  and  spiritual 
wounds.  That  usurpation,  by  which  a  very  trivial 
function  of  Christ's  public  ministrations  was  allowed 
to  disturb,  and  sometimes  to  eclipse,  far  grander  pre- 
tensions, carried  with  it  so  far  an  erroneous  impression. 
But  then,  on  the  other  hand,  seventy-fold  it  redeemed 
that  error,  by  securing  (which  nothing  else  could  have 
secured)  the  benefit  of  a  perpetual  passport  to  the 
religious  missionary  :  since,  once  admitted  as  a  medical 
counsellor,  the  missionary,  the  hakim,  obtained  an  un- 
limifed  right  of  intercourse.  The  public  police  did 
not  dare  to  obstruct  the  bodily  healer  ;  and  exactly 
through  that  avenue  slipped  in  the  spiritual  healer. 
And  thus,  subsequently,  the  Apostles  and  their  suc- 
cessors all  exercised  the  same  medical  powers  with  the 
same  religious  results ;  and  each  in  turn  benefitted  in 
his  spiritual  functions  by  the  same  privileged  character 
of  hakim. 


THE  TRUE  RELATIONS  OF  THE  BIBLE  TO 
MERELY  HUMAN  SCIENCE, 


It  is  sometimes  said,  that  a  religious  messenger  from 
God  does  not  come  amongst  men  for  the  sake  of  teach- 
ing truths  in  science,  or  of  correcting  errors  in  science. 
Most  justly  is  this  said  :  but  often  in  terms  far  too 
feeble.  For  generally  these  terms  are  such  as  to 
imply,  that,  although  no  direct  and  imperative  function 
of  his  mission,  it  was  yet  open  to  him,  as  a  permissible 
function  —  that,  although  not  pressing  with  the  force 
of  an  obligation  upon  the  missionary,  it  was  yet  at  his 
discretion  —  if  not  to  correct  other  men's  errors,  yet 
at  least  in  his  own  person  to  speak  with  scientific  pre- 
cision. I  contend  that  it  was  not.  I  contend,  that  to 
have  uttered  the  truths  of  astronomy,  of  geology,  &c., 
at  the  era  of  new-born  Christianity,  was  not  only 
lelow  and  beside  the  purposes  of  a  religion,  but  would 
have  been  against  them.  Even  upon  .errors  of  a  far 
more  important  class  than  errors  in  science  can  ever 
be  —  superstitions,  for  instance,  that  degraded  the  very 
idea  of  God ;  prejudices  and  false  usages,  that  laid 
waste  human  happiness  (such  as  slavery,  and  many 
hundreds  of  other  abuses  that  might  be  mentioned), 
the  rule  evidently  acted  upon  by  the  Founder  of  Chris- 
tianity was  this  —  Given  the  purification  of  the  well- 
head^ once  assumed  that  the  fountains  of  truth  are 


THE  TRUE  RELATIONS  OF  THE  BIBLE.  ETC.  263 


cleansed,  all  these  derivative  currents  of  evil  will 
cleanse  themselves.  As  a  general  rule,  the  branches 
of  error  were  disregarded,  and  the  roots  only  attacked. 
If,  then,  so  lofty  a  station  was  taken  with  regard  even 
to  such  errors  as  really  had  moral  and  spiritual  rela- 
tions, how  much  more  with  regard  to  the  comparative 
trifles  (as  in  the  ultimate  relations  of  human  nature 
they  are)'  of  merely  human  science !  But,  for  my 
part,  I  go  further,  and  assert,  that  upon  three  reasona 
it  was  impossible  for  any  messenger  from  God  (or 
offering  himself  in  that  character)  to  have  descended 
into  the  communication  of  truth  merely  scientific,  or 
economic,  or  worldly.  And  the  three  reasons  are 
these :  —  Firsts  Because  such  a  descent  would  have 
degraded  his  mission,  by  lowering  it  to  the  base  level 
of  a  collusion  with  human  curiosity,  or  (in  the  most 
favorable  case)  of  a  collusion  with  petty  and  transitory 
interests.  &condly^  Because  it  would  have  ruined  his 
mission,  by  disturbing  its  free  agency,  and  misdirecting 
its  energies,  in  two  separate  modes  :  first,  by  destroy- 
ing the  spiritual  auctoritas  (the  prestige  and  consider 
ation)  of  the  missionary ;  secondly,  by  vitiating  the 
spiritual  atmosphere  of  his  audience  —  that  is,  cor- 
rupting and  misdirecting  the  character  of  their  thoughts 
and  expectations.  He  that  in  the  early  days  of  Chris- 
tianity should  have  proclaimed  the  true  theory  of  the 
solar  system,  or  that  by  any  chance  word  or  allusion 
should  then,  in  a  condition  of  man  so  little  prepared 
to  receive  such  truths,  have  asserted  or  assumed  the 
daily  motion  of  the  earth  on  its  own  axis,  or  its  annual 
motion  round  the  sun,  would  have  found  himself  en- 
tangled at  once  and  irretrievably  in  the  following 
unmanageable  consQquences :  —  First  of  all,  and  in- 


264 


THE  TRUE  RELATIONS   OF   THE  BIBLE 


Btanlarieously,  he  would  have  been  roused  to  the  alaim- 
ing  fact,  that,  by  this  dreadful  indiscretion  he  himself, 
the  professed  deliverer  of  a  new  and  spiritual  religion, 
had  in  a  moment  untuned  the  spirituality  of  his  audi- 
ence. He  would  find  that  he  had  awakened  within 
them  the  passion  of  curiosity  —  the  most  unspiritual 
of  passions,  and  of  curiosity  in  a  fierce  polemic  shape. 
The  very  safest  step  in  so  deplorable  a  situation  would 
be,  instantly  to  recant.  Already  by  this  one  may 
estimate  the  evil,  when  such  would  be  its  readiest 
palliation.  For  in  what  condition  would  the  reputation 
of  the  teacher  be  left  for  discretion  and  wisdom  as  an 
intellectual  guide,  when  his  first  act  must  be  to  recant 
—  and  to  recant  what  to  the  whole  body  of  his  hearers 
would  wear  the  character  of  a  lunatic  proposition. 
Such  considerations  might  possibly  induce  him  not  to 
recant.  But  in  that  case  the  consequences  are  far 
worse.  Having  once  allowed  himself  to  sanction  what 
nis  hearers  regard  as  the  most  monstrous  of  paradoxes 
he  has  no  liberty  of  retreat  open  to  him.  He  must 
stand  to  the  promises  of  his  own  acts.  Uttering  the 
first  truth  of  a  science,  he  is  pledged  to  the  second  ; 
taking  the  main  step,  he  is  committed  to  all  which 
follow.  He  is  thrown  at  once  upon  the  endless  con- 
troversies which  science  in  every  stage  provokes,  and 
in  none  more  than  in  the  earliest.  Starting,  besides, 
from  the  authority  of  a  divine  mission,  he  could  not 
(as  others  might)  have  the  privilege  of  selecting  arbi 
trarily  or  partially.  If  upon  one  science,  then  upon 
all ;  if  upon  science,  then  upon  art ;  if  upon  art  and 
science,  then  upon  eve7^y  branch  of  social  economy 
his  reformations  and  advances  are  equally  due  —  due 
as  to  all,  if  due  as  to  any.    To  move  in  one  direction, 


TO   MERELY  HUMAN  SCIENCE. 


265 


is  constructively  to  undertake  for  all.  Without  power 
to  retreat,  he  has  thus  thrown  the  intellectual  interests 
of  his  followers  into  a  channel  utterly  alien  to  the 
purposes  of  a  spiritual  mission. 

The  spiritual  mission,  therefore,  the  purpose  for 
which  only  the  religious  teacher  was  sent,  has  now 
perished  altogether  —  overlaid  and  confounded  by  the 
merely  scientific  wranglings  to  which  his  own  incon- 
siderate precipitance  has  opened  the  door.  But  sup- 
pose at  this  point  that  the  teacher,  aware  at  length  of 
the  mischief  which  he  has  caused,  and  seeing  that  the 
fatal  error  of  uttering  one  solitary  novel  truth  upon  a 
matter  of  mere  science  is  by  inevitable  consequence 
to  throw  him  upon  a  road  leading  altogether  away 
from  the  proper  field  of  his  mission,  takes  the  laudable 
course  of  confessing  his  error,  and  of  attempting  a 
return  into  his  proper  spiritual  province.  This  may  be 
his  best  course  ;  yet,  after  all,  it  will  not  retrieve  his 
lost  ground.  He  returns  with  a  character  confessedly 
damaged.  His  very  excuse  rests  upon  the  blindness 
and  shortsightedness  which  forbade  his  anticipating  the 
true  and  natural  consequences.  Neither  will  his  own 
account  of  the  case  be  generally  accepted.  He  will 
not  be  supposed  to  retreat  from  further  controversy,  as 
inconsistent  with  spiritual  purposes,  but  because  he 
finds  himself  unequal  to  the  dispute.  And,  in  the 
very  best  case,  he  is,  by  his  own  acknowledgment, 
tainted  with  human  infirmity.  He  has  been  ruined  for 
a  servant  of  inspiration  ;  and  how  ?  By  a  process,  let 
it  be  remembered,  of  which  all  the  steps  are  inevitable 
under  the  same  agency :  that  is,  in  the  case  of  any 
primitive  Christian  teacher  having  attempted  to  speak 
the  language  of  scientific  truth  in  dealing  with  the 


266  THE  TRUE  RELATIONS   OF  THE  BIBLE 


phenomena  of  astronomy,  geology,  or  of  any  merely 
h  iman  knowledge. 

Now,  thirdly  and  lastly,  in  order  to  try  the  question 
in  an  extreme  form,  let  it  be  supposed  that,  aided  by 
powers  of  working  miracles,  some  early  apostle  of 
Christianity  should  actually  have  succeeded  in  carrying 
tlurough  the  Copernican  system  of  astronomy,  as  an 
article  of  blind  belief,  sixteen  centuries  before  the  pro- 
gress of  man's  intellect  had  qualified  him  for  naturally 
developing  that  system.  What,  in  such  a  case,  would 
be  the  true  estimate  and  valuation  of  the  achievement  ? 
Simply  this,  that  he  had  thus  succeeded  in  cancelling 
and  counteracting  a  determinate  scheme  of  divine  dis- 
cipline and  training  for  man.  Wherefore  did  God 
give  to  man  the  powers  for  contending  with  scientific 
difficulties  ?  Wherefore  did  he  lay  a  secret  train  of 
continual  occasions,  that  should  rise,  by  relays,  through 
scores  of  generations,  for  provoking  and  developing 
those  activities  in  man's  intellect,  if,  after  all,  he  is  to 
send  a  messenger  of  his  ow^n,  more  than  human,  to 
intercept  and  strangle  all  these  great  purposes  ?  This 
is  to  mistake  the  very  meaning  and  purposes  of  a  reve- 
lation. A  revelation  is  not  made  for  the  purpose  of 
showing  to  indolent  men  that  which,  by  faculties  al- 
ready given  to  them,  they  may  show  to  themselves  ; 
no :  but  for  the  purpose  of  showing  that  which  the 
moral  darkness  of  man  will  not,  without  supernatural 
light,  allow  him  to  perceive.  With  disdain,  therefore, 
must  every  thoughtful  person  regard  the  notion,  thai 
God  could  wilfully  interfere  with  his  own  plans,  by 
accrediting  ambassadors  to  reveal  astronomy,  or  any 
other  science,  which  he  has  commanded  men,  by 
qualifying  men,  to  reveal  for  themselves. 


TO   MERELY    HUMAN  SCIENCE. 


267 


Even  as  regards  astronomy  —  a  science  so  nearly 
ullying  itself  to  religion  by  the  loftiness  and  by  the 
purity  of  its  contemplations  —  Scripture  is  nowhere 
the  parent  of  any  doctrine,  nor  so  much  as  the  silent 
sanctioner  of  any  doctrine.  It  is  made  impossible  for 
Scripture  to  teach  falsely,  by  the  simple  fact  that 
Scripture,  on  such  subjects,  will  not  condescend  to 
teach  at  all.  The  Bible  adopts  the  erroneous  language 
of  men  (which  at  any  rate  it  must  do,  in  order  to  make 
itself  understood),  not  by  way  of  sanctioning  a  theory, 
but  by  way  of  using  a  fact.  The  Bible,  for  instance, 
uses  (postulate's)  the  phenomena  of  day  and  night,  of 
summer  and  winter ;  and,  in  relation  to  their  causes, 
speaks  by  the  same  popular  and  inaccurate  language 
which  is  current  for  ordinary  purposes,  even  amongst 
the  most  scientific  of  astronomers.  For  the  man  of 
science,  equally  with  the  populace,  talks  of  the  sun  as 
rising  and  setting,  as  having  finished  half  his  day's 
journey,  &c.,  and,  without  pedantry,  could  not  in 
many  cases  talk  otherwise.  But  the  results,  which  are 
all  that  concern  Scripture,  are  equally  true,  whether 
accounted  for  by  one  hypothesis  which  is  philosophi- 
cally just,  or  by  another  which  is  popular  and  erring. 

Now,  on  the  other  hand,  in  geology  and  cosmology, 
the  case  is  stronger.  Here  there  is  no  opening  for  a 
compliance  even  with  a  language  that  is  erroneous; 
for  no  language  at  all  is  current  upon  subjects  that 
have  never  engaged  the  popular  attention.  flere, 
where  there  is  no  such  stream  of  apparent  phenomena 
running  counter  (as  in  astronomy  there  is)  to  the  real 
phenomena,  neither  is  there  any  popular  language  op- 
posed to  the  scientific.  The  whole  are  abtruse  specu- 
'jatjons,  even  as  regards  their  objects,  nor  dreamed  of 


268 


THE  TRUE  RELATIONS   OF  THE  BIBLE 


as  possibilities,  either  in  their  true  aspects  or  their  false 
aspects,  till  modern  times.  The  Scriptures,  therefore, 
nowhere  allude  to  such  sciences,  either  as  taking  the 
shape  of  histories,  applied  to  processes  current  and  in 
movement,  or  as  taking  the  shape  of  theories  applied 
to  processes  past  and  accomplished.  The  Mosaic  cos- 
mogony, indeed,  gives  the  succession  of  natural  births ; 
and  probably  the  general  outline  of  such  a  succession 
will  be  more  and  more  confirmed  as  geology  ad- 
vances. But  as  to  the  time,  the  duration,  of  this  suc- 
cessive evolution,  it  is  the  idlest  of  notions  that  the 
Scriptures  either  have,  or  could  have,  condescended  to 
human  curiosity  upon  so  awful  a  prologue  to  the 
drama  of  this  world.  Genesis  would  no  more  have 
indulged  so  mean  a  passion  with  respect  to  the  myste- 
rious inauguration  of  the  world,  than  the  Apocalypse 
with  respect  to  its  mysterious  close.  '  Yet  the  six  days 
of  Moses ! '  Days !  But  is  it  possible  that  human 
folly  should  go  the  length  of  understanding  by  the 
Mosaical  day^  the  mysterious  day  of  that  awful  agency 
which  moulded  the  heavens  and  the  heavenly  host,  no 
more  than  the  ordinary  nychthemeron  or  cycle  of 
twenty-four  hours  ?  The  period  implied  in  a  day^ 
when  used  in  relation  to  Uie  inaugural  manifestation 
of  creative  power  in  that  vast  drama  which  introduces 
God  to  man  in  the  character  of  a  demiurgus  or  creator 
of  the  world,  indicated  one  stage  amongst  six ;  in- 
volving probably  many  millions  of  years.  The  silliest 
of  nurses,  in  her  nursery  babble,  could  hardly  suppose 
that  the  mighty  process  began  on  a  Monday  morning, 
and  ended  on  Saturday  night.  If  we  are  seriously  to 
study  the  value'  and  scriptural  acceptation  of  scriptural 
words  and  phrases,  1  presume  that  our  first  business 


TO   MERELY  HUMAN   SCIENCE.  269 


ivill  be  to  collate  the  use  of  these  words  in  one  part 
of  Scripture,  with  their  use  in  other  parts,  holding  the 
same  spiritual  relations.  The  creation,  for  instance, 
does  not  belong  to  the  earthly  or  merely  historical 
records,  but  to  the  spiritual  records  of  the  Bible  ;  to 
the  same  category,  therefore,  as  the  prophetic  sections 
of  the  Bible.  Now,  in  those,  and  in  the  Psalms,  how 
d(j  we  understand  the  word  day  7  Is  any  man  so 
little  versed  in  biblical  language  as  not  to  know,  that 
(except  in  the  merely  historical  parts  of  the  Jewish 
records)  every  section  of  time  has  a  secret  and  sepa- 
rate acceptation  in  the  Scriptures }  Does  an  ceon^ 
though  a  Grecian  word,  bear  scripturally  (either  in 
Daniel  or  in  St.  John)  any  sense  known  to  Grecian 
ears  ?  Do  the  seventy  weeks  of  the  prophet  mean 
weeks  in  the  sense  of  human  calendars  ?  Already  the 
Psalms  (xc),  already  St.  Peter  (2d  Epist.),  warn  us 
of  a  peculiar  sense  attached  to  the  word  day  in  divine 
ears.  And  who  of  the  innumerable  interpreters  un- 
derstands the  twelve  hundred  and  sixty  days  in  Dan- 
iel, or  his  two  thousand  and  odd  days,  to  mean,  by 
possibility,  periods  of  twenty-four  hours  ?  Surely  the 
theme  of  Moses  was  as  mystical,  and  as  much  entitled 
to  the  benefit  of  mystical  language,  as  that  of  the 
prophets. 

The  sum  of  this  matter  is  this:  —  God,  by  a  He- 
brew  prophet,  is  subl'mely  described  as  the  ReveaJer ; 
tind,  in  variation  of  his  own  expression,  the  same  pro- 
phet describes  him  as  the  Being  '  that  knoweth  the 
darkness.'  Under  no  idea  can  the  relations  of  God  to 
man  be  more  grandly  expressed.  But  of  what  is  he 
\he  revealer  ?  Not  surely  of  those  things  which  he  has 
enabled  man  to  reveal  for  himself,  but  of  those  things 


270       THE   TRUE   RELATIONS   OF   THE   BIBLE,  ETC, 


which,  were  it  not  through  special  light  from  heaven, 
must  eternally  remain  sealed  up  in  inaccessible 
darkness.  On  this  principle  we  should  all  laugh  at  a 
revealed  cookery.  But  essentially  the  same  ridicule, 
not  more,  and  not  less,  applies  to  a  revealed  astron- 
omy, or  a  revealed  geology.  As  a  fact,  there  is  no 
such  astronomy  or  geology  :  as  a  possibility,  by  the 
d  priori  argument  which  I  have  used  (viz.,  that  a 
revelation  on  such  fields  would  counteract  other  ma- 
chineries of  providence),  there  can  be  no  such  astro- 
nomy or  geology  in  the  Bible.  Consequently  there  is 
none.  Consequently  there  can  be  no  schism  or  feud 
upon  these  subjects  between  the  Bible  and  the  philoso- 
phies outside. 


UiN  THE  SUPPOSED  SCRIPTURAL  EX- 
PRESSION FOR  ETERNITY. 


Forty  years  ago  (or,  in  all  probability,  a  good  deal 
more,  for  we  have  already  completed  thirty-seven 
years  from  Waterloo,  and  my  remembrances  upon  this 
subject  go  back  to  a  period  lying  much  behind  that 
great  era),  I  used  to  be  annoyed  and  irritated  by  the 
false  interpretation  given  to  the  Greek  word  aidn,  and 
given  necessarily,  therefore,  to  the  adjective  aionios 
as  its  immediate  derivative.  It  was  not  so  much  the 
falsehood  of  this  interpretation,  as  the  narrowness  of 
that  falsehood,  which  disturbed  me.  There  was  a 
glimmer  of  truth  in  it;  and  precisely  that  glimmer  it 
was  which  led  the  way  to  a  general  and  obstinate 
misconception  of  the  meaning.  The  word  is  remark- 
ably situated.  It  is  a  Scriptural  word,  and  it  is  also 
a  Greek  word  ;  from  which  the  inevitable  inference  is, 
that  we  must  look  for  it  only  in  the  New  Testament. 
Upon  any  question  arising  of  deep,  aboriginal,  doc- 
trinal truth,  we  have  nothing  to  do  with  translations. 
Those  are  but  secondary  questions,  archseological  and 
critical,  upon  which  we  have  a  right  to  consult  the 
Greek  translation  of*  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  known  by 
the  name  of  the  Septuagint. 

Suffer  me  to  pause  at  this  point  for  the  sake  of 


272  ON   THE   SUPPOSED  SCRIPTURAIi 


premising  an  explanation  needful  to  the  unlearned 
reader.  As  the  reading  public  and  the  thinking  pub- 
lic is  every  year  outgrowing  more  and  more  notoriously 
the  mere  learned  public,  it  becomes  every  year  more 
and  more  the  right  of  the  former  public  to  give  the 
law  preferably  to  the  latter  public,  upon  all  points 
which  concern  its  own  separate  interests.  In  past 
generations,  no  pains  were  taken  to  make  explanations 
that  were  not  called  for  by  the  learned  public.  All 
other  readers  were  ignored.  They  formed  a  mob,  for 
whom  no  provision  was  made.  And  that  many  diffi- 
culties should  be  left  entirely  unexplained  for  Ihem^ 
was  superciliously  assumed  to  be  no  fault  at  all.  And 
yet  any  sensible  man,  let  him  be  as  supercilious  as  he 
may,  must  on  consideration  allow  that  amongst  the 
crowd  of  unlearned  or  half-learned  readers,  who  have 
had  neither  time  nor  opportunities  for  what  is  called 
"  erudition  "  or  learned  studies,  there  must  always 
lurk  a  proportion  of  men  that,  by  constitution  of  mind, 
and  by  the  bounty  of  nature,  are  much  better  fitted 
for  thinking,  originally  more  philosophic,  and  are  more 
capaciously  endowed,  than  those  who  are,  by  accident 
of  position,  more  learned.  Such  a  natural  superiority 
certainly  l;akes  precedency  of  a  merely  artificial  superi- 
ority ;  and,  therefore,  it  entitles  those  who  possess  it 
to  a  special  consideration.  Let  there  be  an  audience 
gathered  about  any  book  of  ten  thousand  one  hundred 
readers  :  it  might  be  fair  in  these  days  to  assume  that 
ten  thousand  \vould  be  in  a  partial  sense  illiterate,  and 
the  remaining  one  hundred  what  would  be  rigorously 
classed  as  "learned."  Now,  on  such  a  distribution 
of  the  readers,  it  would  be  a  matter  of  certainty  that 


EXPKESSIOIS"   POR  ETEHNITY. 


273 


tlie  most  powerful  intellects  would  lie  amongst  the 
illiterate  ten  thousand,  counting,  probably,  to  fifteen 
to  one  as  against  those  in  the  learned  minority.  The 
inference,  therefore,  would  be,  that,  in  all  equity,  the 
interest  of  the  unlearned  section  claimed  a  priority  of 
attention,  not  merely  as  the  more  numerous  section, 
but  also  as,  by  a  high  probability,  the  more  philo- 
sophic. And  in  proportion  as  this  unlearned  section 
widens  and  expands,  which  every  year  it  does,  in  that 
proportion  the  obligation  and  cogency  of  this  equity 
strengthens.  An  attention  to  the  unlearned  part  of 
an  audience,  which  fifteen  years  ago  might  have  rested 
upon  pure  courtesy,  now  rests  upon  a  basis  of  absolute 
justice.  I  make  this  preliminary  explanation,  in  order 
to  take  away  the  appearance  of  ca.price  from  such 
occasional  pauses  as  I  may  make  for  the  purpose  of 
clearing  up  obscurities  or  difficulties.  Formerly,  in  a 
case  of  that  nature,  the  learned  reader  would  have  told 
me  that  I  was  not  entitled  to  delay  him  by  elucidations 
that  in  his  case  must  be  supposed  to  be  superfluous  : 
and  in  such  a  remonstrance  there  would  once  have 
been  some  equity.  The  illiterate  section  of  the  readers 
might  then  be  fairly  assumed  as  present  only  by 
accident ;  as  no  abiding  part  of  the  audience  ;  but, 
like  the  general  public  in  the  gallery  of  the  House  of 
Commons',  as  present  only  by  sufferance  ;  and  officially 
in  any  records  of  the  House  whatever,  utterly  ignored 
as  existences.  At  present,  half  way  on  our  pilgrimage 
through  the  nineteenth  century,  I  reply  to  such  a 
learned  remonstrant  —  that  it  gives  me  pain  to  annoy 
him  by  superfluous  explanations,  but  that,  unhappily, 
this  infliction  of  tedium  upon  him  is  inseparable  from 
18 


274 


ON   THE   SUPPOSED  SCRIPTURAL 


what  has  now  become  a  duty  to  others.    This  being 
said,  I  now  go  on  to  inform  the  illiterate  reader,  that 
the  earliest  translation  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  ever 
made  was  into  Greek.    It  was  undertaken  on  the 
encouragement  of  a  learned  prince,  Ptolemy  Phila- 
delphus,  by  an  association  of  Jewish  emigrants  in 
Alexandria.    It  was,  as  the  event  has  shown  in  very 
many  instances,  an  advantage  of  a  rank  rising  to 
providential,  that  such  a  cosmopolitan  version  of  the 
Hebrew  sacred  writings  should  have  been  made  at  a 
moment  when  a  rare  concurrence  of  circumstances  hap- 
pened to  make  it  possible  ;  such  as,  for  example,  a  king 
both  learned  in  his  tastes  and  liberal  in  his  principles 
of  religious  toleration  ;  a  language  —  viz.,  the  Greek, 
which  had  already  become,  what  for  many  centuries  it 
continued  to  be,  a  common  language  of  communication 
for  the  learned  of  the  whole  oixu{i8V7]  (i.  e.,  in  effect  of 
the  civilized  world — viz.,  Greece,  the  shores  of  the 
Euxine,    the  whole  of  Asia   Minor,  Syria,  Egypt, 
Carthage,  and    all    the    dependencies    of  Carthage, 
finally,  and  above  all,  Home,  then  beginning  to  loom 
upon  the  western  horizon),  together  with    all  the 
dependencies  of  Eome,  and,  briefly,  every  state  and 
city  that  adorned  the  imperial  islands  of  the  Medi- 
terranean, or  that  glittered  like  gems  in  that  vast  belt 
of  land,  roundly  speaking,  one  thousand  miles  in 
average  breadth,  and  in  circuit  running  up  to  five 
thousand  miles.    One  thousand  multiplied  into  five 
times  one  thousand,  or,  otherwise  expressed,  a  thou- 
Band  thousand  five  times  repeated,  or  otherwise  a 
million  five  times  repeated,  briefly  a  territory  measur- 
ing five  millions  of  square  miles,  or  forty -five  times 


EXPRESSION   FOB  ETERNITY. 


275 


the  surface  of  our  two  British  islands  —  such  was  the 
boundless  domain  which  this  extraordinary  act  of 
Ptolemy  suddenly  threw  open  to  the  literature  and 
spiritual  revelation  of  a  little  obscure  race,  nestling  in 
a  little  angle  of  Asia,  scarcely  visible  as  a  fraction  of 
Syria,  buried  in  the  broad  shadows  thrown  out  on  one 
side  by  the  great  and  ancient  settlements  on  the  Nile, 
and  on  the  other  by  the  vast  empire  that  for  thousands 
of  years  occupied  the  Tigris  and  the  Euphrate£i.  In 
the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  at  a  sudden  summons,  as  it 
were  from  the  sounding  of  a  trumpet,  or  the  Oriental 
call  by  a  clapping  of  hands,  gates  are  thrown  open, 
which  have  an  effect  corresponding  in  grandeur  to  the 
effect  that  would  arise  from  the  opening  of  a  ship 
canal  across  the  Isthmus  of  Darien  —  viz.,  the  intro- 
duction to  each  other  —  face  to  face  —  of  two  separate 
infinities.  Such  a  canal  would  suddenly  lay  open  to 
each  other  the  two  great  oceans  of  our  planet,  the 
Atlantic  and  the  Pacific ;  whilst  the  act  of  trans- 
lating into  Greek  snidfrom  Hebrew,  that  is,  transfer- 
ring out  of  a  mysterious  cipher  as  little  accessible  as 
Sanscrit,  and  which  never  would  be  more  accessible 
through  any  worldly  attractions  of  alliance  with  power 
and  civic  grandeur  of  commerce,  out  of  this  darkness 
into  the  golden  light  of  a  language  the  most  beautiful, 
the  most  honored  amongst  men,  and  the  most  widely 
diffused  through  a  thousand  years  to  come,  had  the 
immeasurable  effect  of  throwing  into  the  great  crucible 
pf  human  speculation,  even  then  beginning  to  ferment, 
jo  boil,  to  overflow  —  that  mightiest  of  all  elements 
for  exalting  the  chemistry  of  philosophy  —  grand  and, 
for  the  first  time,  adequate  conceptions  of  the  Deity. 


276  ON   THE   SUPPOSED  SCmPTURAL 


For,  although  it  is  true  that,  until  Elias  should  come 
• — that  is,  until  Christianity  should  have  applied  its 
final  revelation  to  the  completion  of  this  great  idea  — 
we  could  not  possess  it  in  its  total  effulgence,  it  is, 
however,  certain  that  an  immense  advance  was  made 
a  prodigious  usurpation  across  the  realms  of  chaos,  by 
the  grand  illuminations  of  the  Hebrew  discoveries. 
Too  terrifically  austere  we  must  presume  the  Hebrew 
idea  to  have  been  :  too  undeniably  it  had  not  with- 
drawn the  veil  entirely  which  still  rested  upon  the 
Divine  countenance  ;  so  much  is  involved  in  the  sub- 
sequent revelations  of  Christianity.  But  still  the 
advance  fnade  in  reading  aright  the  Divine  lineaments 
had  been  enormous.  God  was  now  a  holy  spirit  that 
could  not  tolerate  impurity.  He  was  the  fountain  of 
justice,  and  no  longer  disfigured  by  any  mode  of  sym- 
pathy with  human  caprice  or  infirmity.  And,  if  a 
frown  too  awful  still  rested  upon  his  face,  making  the 
approach  to  him  too  fearful  for  harmonizing  with  that 
perfect  freedom  and  that  childlike  love  which  God 
seeks  in  his  worshippers,  it  was  yet  made  evident  that 
no  step  for  conciliating  his  favor  did  or  could  lie 
through  any  but  moral  graces. 

Three  centuries  after  this  great  epoch  of  the  puhli- 
cation  (for  such  it  was),  secured  so  providentially  to 
the  Hebrew  theology,  two  learned  Jews  —  viz.,  Jose- 
phus  and  Philo  Judaeus  —  had  occasion  to  seek  a  cos- 
mopolitan utterance  for  that  burden  of  truth  (or  what 
they  regarded  as  truth)  which  oppressed  the  spirit 
within  them.  Once  again  they  found  a  deliverance 
from  the  very  same  freezing  imprisonment  in  an  un- 
known language,  through  the  very  same  magical  key  — 


EXPRESSION  FOR  ETERNITY. 


277 


viz.,  the  all-pervading  language  of  Greece,  whicli  car- 
ried their  communications  to  the  four  winds  of  heaven, 
and  carried  them  precisely  amongst  the  class  of  men  — 
viz.,  the  enlightened  and  educated  class  —  which  pre- 
eminently, if  not  exclusively,  their  wish  was  to  reach. 
About  one  generation  after  Christ  it  was,  when  the 
utter  prostration,  and,  politically  speaking,  the  destruc- 
tion of  Jerusalem  and  the  Jewish  nation,  threw  these 
two  learned  Jews  upon  this  recourse  to  the  Greek 
language  as  their  final  resource,  in  a  condition  other- 
wise of  absolute  hopelessness.  Pretty  nearly  three 
centuries  before  Christ  it  was  (two  hundred  and  eighty- 
four  years,  according  to  the  common  reckoning),  when 
the  first  act  of  communication  took  place  between  the 
sealed-up  literature  of  Palestine  and  the  Greek  Catholic 
interpretation.  Altogether,  we  may  say  that  three 
hundred  and  twenty  years,  or  somewhere  about  ten 
generations  of  men,  divided  these  two  memorable  acts 
of  intercommunication.  Such  a  space  of  time  allows 
a  large  range  of  influence  and  of  silent,  unconscious 
operation  to  the  vast  and  potent  ideas  that  brooded 
over  this  awful  Hebrew  literature.  Too  little  weight 
has  been  allowed  to  the  probable  contagiousness,  and 
to  the  preternatural  shock,  of  such  a  new  and  strange 
philosophy,  acting  upon  the  jaded  and  exhausted  intel- 
lect of  the  Grecian  race.  We  must  remember,  that 
precisely  this  particular  range  of  time  was  that  in 
which  the  Greek  systems  of  philosophy,  having  thor- 
oughly completed  their  evolution,  had  suffered  some- 
thing of  a  collapse ;  and,  having  exhausted  their 
creative  energies,  began  to  gratify  the  cravings  for 
uovelty  by  remodellings  of  old  forms.    It  is  remark- 


278  ON   THE   SUPPOSED  SCKIPTUEAL 


able,  indeed,  that  this  very  city  of  Alexandria  founded 
and  matured  this  new  principle  of  remodelling  applied 
to  poetry  not  less  than  to  philosophy  and  criticism. 
And,  considering  the  activity  of  this  great  commercial 
city  and  port,  which  was  meant  to  act,  and  did  act,  as 
a  centre  of  communication  between  the  East  and  the 
West,  it  is  probable  that  a  far  greater  effect  was  pro- 
duced by  the  Greek  translation  of  the  Jewish  Scriptures, 
in  the  way  of  preparing  the  mind  of  nations  for  the 
apprehension  of  Christianity,  than  has  ever  been  dis- 
tinctly recognized.  The  silent  destruction  of  books  in 
those  centuries  has  robbed  us  of  all  means  for  tracing 
mnumerable  revolutions,  that  nevertheless,  by  the 
evidences  of  results,  must  have  existed.  Taken,  hovv- 
ever,  with  or  without  this  additional  result,  the  transla- 
tion of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  in  their  most  important 
portions  must  be  ranked  amongst  what  are  called 
"  providential  "  events.  Such  a  king  —  a  king  whose 
father  had  been  a  personal  friend  of  Alexander,  the 
mighty  civilizing  conqueror,  and  had  shared  in  the 
liberalization  connected  with  his  vast  revolutionary 
projects  for  extending  a  higher  civilization  over  the 
globe,  such  a  king,  conversing  with  such  a  language, 
having  advantages  so  absolutely  unrivalled,  and  again 
this  king  and  this  language  concurring  with  a  treasure 
so  supernatural  of  spiritual  wisdom  as  the  subject  of 
their  ministrations,  and  all  three  concurring  with  po- 
litical events  so  auspicious  —  the  founding  of  a  nevv 
and  mighty  metropolis  in  Egypt,  and  the  silent  advance 
to  supreme  power  amongst  men  of  a  new  empire, 
martial  beyond  all  precedent  as  regarded  means,  but 
not  as  regarded  ends  — working  in  all  things  towards 


EXPRESSION  EOR  ETERNITY. 


279 


the  unity  of  civilization  and  the  unity  of  law,  so  that 
any  new  impulse,  as,  for  instance,  impulse  of  a  new 
religion,  was  destined  to  find  new  facilities  for  its  own 
propagation,  resembling  electric  conductors,  under  the 
unity  of  government  and  of  law  —  concurrences  like 
these,  so  many  and  so  strange,  justly  impress  upon 
this  translation,  the  most  memorable,  because  the 
most  influential  of  all  that  have  ever  been  accomplish- 
ed, a  character  of  grandeur  that  places  it  on  the  same 
level  of  interest  as  the  building  of  the  first  or  second 
temple  at  Jerusalem. 

There  is  a  Greek  legend  which  openly  ascribes  to 
this  translation  all  the  characters  of  a  miracle.  But, 
as  usually  happens,  this  vulgarizing  form  of  the  mi- 
raculous is  far  less  impressive  than  the  plain  history 
itself,  unfolding  its  stages  with  the  most  unpretending 
historical  fidelity.  Even  the  Greek  language,  on  which, 
as  the  natural  language  of  the  new  Greek  dynasty  in 
Egypt,  the  duty  of  the  translation  devolved,  enjoyed 
a  double  advantage  :  1st,  as  being  the  only  language 
then  spoken  upon  earth  that  could  diffuse  a  book  over 
every  part  of  the  civilized  earth ;  2dly,  as  being  a 
language  of  unparalleled  power  and  compass  for  ex- 
pressing and  reproducing  effectually  all  ideas,  however 
alien  and  novel.  Even  the  city,  again,  in  which  this 
translation  was  accomplished,  had  a  double  dowery  of 
advantages  towards  such  a  labor,  not  only  as  enjoying 
a  large  literary  society,  and,  in  particular,  a  large 
Jewish  society,  together  with  unusual  provision  in  the 
Bhape  of  libraries,  on  a  scale  probably  at  that  time 
unprecedented,  but  also  as  having  the  most  extensive 
machinery  then  known  to  human  experience  for 


280 


ON  THE   SUPPOSED  SCRIPTUEAL 


lisliing^  tliat  is,  for  transmitting  to  foreign  capitals  all 
books  in  the  readiest  and  the  cheapest  fashion,  by 
means  of  its  prodigious  shipping. 

Having  thus  indicated  to  the  unlearned  reader  the 
particular  nature  of  that  interest  which  invests  this 
earliest  translation  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  —  viz., 
that  in  fact  this  translation  was  the  earliest  'publication 
to  the  human  race  of  a  revelation  which  had  previously 
been  locked  up  in  a  language  destined,  as  surely  as 
the  Welsh  language  or  the  Gaelic,  to  eternal  obscurity 
amongst  men  —  I  go  on  to  mention  that  the  learned 
Jews  selected  for  this  weighty  labor  happened  to  be  in 
number  seventy-two  ;  but,  as  the  Jews  systematically 
reject  fractions  in  such  cases  (whence  it  is  that  always, 
in  order  to  express  the  period  of  six  weeks,  they  say 
forty  days,  and  not,  as  strictly  they  should,  forty-two 
days),  popularly,  the  translators  were  called  "  the 
seventy,"  for  which  the  Latin  word  is  se/ptuaginta. 
And  thus  in  after  ages  the  translators  were  usually 
indicated  as  "The  LXX.,"  or,  if  the  work  and  not 
the  workmen  should  be  noticed,  it  was  cited  as  Tlie 
Septuagint.  In*  fact,  this  earliest  of  Scriptural  ver- 
sions, viz.,  into  Greek,  is  by  much  the  most  famous; 
or,  if  any  other  approaches  it  in  notoriety,  it  is  the 
Latin  translation  by  St.  Jerome,  which,  in  this  one 
point,  enjoys  even  a  superior  importance,  that  in  the 
Church  of  Rome  it  is  the  authorized  translation.  Evi- 
dently, in  every  church,  it  must  be  a  matter  of  primary 
importance  to  assign  the  particular  version  to  which 
that  church  appeals,  and  by  which,  in  any  controversy 
arising,  that  church  consents  to  be  governed.  Now, 
the  Jerome  version  fulfils  this  function  for  the  Romish 


EXPRESSION   FOR  ETERjS'ITY. 


281 


Churcli ;  and  accordingly,  in  the  sense  of  being  pub- 
lished (vulgata),  or  publicly  authorized  by  that  church, 
it  is  commonly  called  The  Vulgate. 

But,  in  a  large  polemic  question,  unless,  like  the 
Roman  Church,  we  uphold  a  secondary  inspiration  as 
having  secured  a  special  privileged  translation  from 
the  possibility  of  error,  we  cannot  refuse  an  appeal  to 
the  Hebrew  text  for  the  Old  Testament,  or  to  the 
Greek  text  for  the  New.  The  word  aionios  {amviog)^ 
as  purely  Grecian,  could  not  connect  itself  with  the 
Old  Testament,  unless  it  were  through  the  Septuagint 
translation  into  Greek.  Now,  with  that  version,  in 
any  case  of  controversy,  none  of  us,  Protestants  alike 
or  Roman  Catholics,  have  anything  whatever  to  do. 
Controversially,  we  can  be  concerned  only  with  the 
original  language  of  the  Scriptures,  with  its  actual 
verbal  expressions  textually  produced.  To  be  liable, 
therefore,  to  such  a  textual  citation,  any  Greek  word 
must  belong  to  the  New  Testament.  Because,  though 
the  word  might  happen  to  occur  in  the  Septuagint, 
yet,  since  that  is  merely  a  translation,  for  any  of  us 
who  occupy  a  controversial  place,  that  is,  who  are 
bound  by  the  responsibilities,  or  who  claim  the  strict 
privileges  of  controversy,  the  Septuagint  has  no  virtual 
existence.  We  should  not  be  at  liberty  to  allege  the 
Septuagint  as  any  authority,  if  it  happened  to  coun- 
tenance our  own  views  ;  and,  consequently,  we  could 
not  be  called  on  to  recognize  the  Septuagint  in  any 
case  where  it  should  happen  to  be  against  us.  I  make 
this  preliminary  caveat^  as  not  caring  whether  the 
word  aionios  does  or  does  not  occur  in  the  Septuagint. 
Either  way,  the  reader  understands  that  I  disown  the 


282 


ON  THE   SUPPOSED  SCRIPTUIIAL 


authority  of  that  version  as  in  any  degree  affecting 
myself.  The  word  which,  forty  years  ago,  moved  my 
disgust  by  its  servile  misinterpretation,  was  a  word 
proper  to  the  Neiv  Testament  ;  and  any  sense  which 
it  may  have  received  from  an  Alexandrian  Jew  in  the 
third  century  before  Christ,  is  no  more  relevant  to  any 
criticism  that  I  am  now  going  to  suggest,  than  is  the 
classical  use  of  the  word  aion  (aiojr)  familiar  to  tho 
learned  in  Sophocles  or  Euripides. 

The  reason  which  gives  to  this  word  aionian  what 
I  do  not  scruple  to  call  a  dreadful  importance,  is  the 
same  reason,  and  no  other,  which  prompted  the  dis- 
honesty concerned  in  the  ordinary  interpretation  of 
this  word.  The  word  happened  to  connect  itself — 
but  that  was  no  practical  concern  of  mine  ;  me  it  had 
not  biassed  in  the  one  direction,  nor  should  it  have 
biassed  any  just  critic  in  the  counter  direction  —  hap- 
pened, I  say,  to  connect  itself  with  the  ancient  dispute 
upon  the  duration  of  future  punishment.  What  was 
meant  by  the  aionian  punishments  in  "the  next  world? 
Was  the  proper  sense  of  the  word  eternal,  or  was  it 
not  ?  I,  for  my  part,  meddled  not,  nor  upon  any 
consideration  could  have  been  tempted  to  meddle, 
with  a  speculation  repellent  alike  by  the  horror  and 
by  the  hopeless  mystery  which  invest  it.  Secrets  of 
the  prison-house,  so  afflicting  to  contemplate  steadily, 
and  so  hopeless  of  solution,  there  could  be  no  proper 
motive  for  investigating,  unless  the  investigation  prom- 
ised a  great  deal  more  than  it  could  ever  accomplish  ; 
and  my  own  feeling  as  to  all  such  problems  is,  that 
they  vulgarize  what,  left  to  itself,  would  take  its 
natural  station   amongst  the  freezing   horrors  that 


EXPRESSION   FOR  ETERNITY. 


283 


Sliakspeare  dismisses  with  so  potent  an  expression  of 
awe,  in  a  well-known  scene  of  "Measure  for  Measure.'' 
I  reiterate  my  protest  against  being  in  any  way  de- 
coyed in  the  controversy.  Perhaps  I  may  have  a 
strong  opinion  upon  the  subject.  But,  anticipating 
the  coarse  discussions  into  which  the  slightest  enter- 
tainment of  such  a  question  would  be  every  moment 
approaching,  once  for  all,  out  of  reverential  regard  for 
the  dignity  of  human  nature,  I  beg  permission  to  de- 
cline the  controversy  altogether. 

But  does  this  declinature  involve  any  countenance 
to  a  certain  argument  which  I  began  by  rejecting  as 
abominable  ?  Most  certainly  not.  That  argument 
runs  thus  —  that  the  ordinary  construction  of  the 
term  aionian,  as  equivalent  to  everlasting,  could  not 
possibly  be  given  up  when  associated  with  penal 
misery,  because  in  that  case,  and  by  the  very  same 
act,  the  idea  of  eternity  must  be  abandoned  as  appli- 
cable to  the  counter-bliss  of  Paradise.  Torment  and 
blessedness,  it  was  argued,  punishment  and  beatifica- 
tion, stood  upon  the  same  level ;  the  same  word  it 
was,  the  word  aionian,  which  qualified  the  duration 
of  either  ;  and,  if  eternity  in  the  most  rigorous  accep- 
tation fell  away  from  the  one  idea,  it  must  equally 
fall  av/ay  from  the  other.  Well  ;  be  it  so.  But  that 
would  not  settle  the  question.  It  might  be  very 
painful  to  renounce  a  long-cherished  anticipation  ; 
but  the  necessity  of  doing  so  could  not  be  received  as 
a  sufficient  reason  for  adhering  to  the  old  uncon  iitional 
use  of  the  word  aionian.  The  argument  is  —  that  we 
must  retain  the  old  sense  of  eternal^  because  else  we 
lose  upon  one  scale  what  we  had  gained  upon  the 


284  ox   THE   SUPPOSED  SCRIPTUEAL 


other.  But  what  then?  would  be  the  reasonable 
man's  retort.  We  are  not  to  accept  or  to  reject  a 
new  construction  (if  otherwise  the  more  colorable)  of 
the  word  aionian,  simply  because  the  consequences 
might  seem  such  as  upon  the  whole  to  displease  us. 
We  may  gain  nothing  ;  for  by  the  new  interpretation 
our  loss  may  balance  our  gain  ;  and  we  may  prefer 
the  old  arrangement.  But  how  monstrous  is  all  this  ! 
We  are  not  summoned  as  to  a  choice  of  two  different 
arrangements  that  may  suit  different,  tastes,  but  to  a 
grave  question  as  to  what  is  the  sense  and  operation 
of  the  word  aionian.  Let  the  limitation  of  the  word 
disturb  our  previous  estimate  of  Paradise,  grant  that 
it  so  disturbs  that  estimate,  not  the  less  all  such  con- 
sequences leave' the  dispute  exactly  where  it  was; 

and  if  a  balance  of  reason  can  be  found  for  limiting 

o 

the  extent  of  the  word  aionian,  it  will  not  be  the  less 
true  because  it  may  happen  to  disturb  a  crotchet  of 
our  own. 

Meantime,  all  this  speculation,  first  and  last,  is  pure 
nonsense.  Aionian  does  not  mean  eternal;  neither 
does  it  mean  of  limited  duration ;  nor  would  the  un- 
settling of  aionian  in  its  old  use,  as  applied  to  punish- 
ment, to  torment,  to  misery,  &c.,  carry  with  it  any 
necessary  unsettling  of  the  idea  in  its  application  to 
the  beatitudes  of  Paradise.  Pause,  reader  ;  and  thou, 
my  favored  and  privileged  reader,  that  boastest  thyseli 
to  be  unlearned,  pause  doubly  whilst  I  communicate 
my  views  as  to  this  remarkable  word. 

What  is  an  aion  ?  In  the  use  and  acceptation  of 
Vhe  Apocalypse,  it  is  evidently  this  —  viz.,  the  dura- 
vion  or  cycle  of  existence  which  belongs  to  any  object, 


EXPKESSIOl^    FOR  ETERNITY.  285 

not  individually  for  itself,  but  universally  in  right  of 
its  genius.  Kant,  for  instance,  in  a  little  paper  which 
I  once  translated,  proposed  and  debated  the  question 
as  to  the  age  of  our  planet  the  Earth.  What  did  he 
mean?  Was  he  to  be  understood  as  asking  whether 
the  Earth  were  half  a  million,  two  millions,  or  three 
millions  of  years  old  ?  Not  at  all.  The  probabilities 
certainly  lean,  one  and  all,  to  the  assignment  of  an 
antiquity  greater  by  many  thousands  of  times  than 
that  which  we  have  most  idly  supposed  ourselves  to 
extract  from  Scripture,  which  assuredly  never  meant 
to  approach  a  question  so  profoundly  irrelevant  to  the 
great  purposes  of  Scripture  as  any  geological  specula- 
tion whatsoever.  But  this  was  not  within  the  field  of 
Kant's  inquiry.  What  he  wished  to  know  was  simply 
the  exact  stage  in  the  whole  course  of  her  development 
which  the  Earth  at  present  occupies.  Is  she  still  in 
her  infancy,  for  example,  or  in  a  stage  corresponding 
to  middle  age,  or  in  a  stage  approaching  to  superan- 
nuation ?  The  idea  of  Kant  presupposed  a  certain 
average  duration  as  belonging  to  a  planet  of  our  par- 
ticular system  ;  and  supposing  this  known,  or  discov- 
erable, and  that  a  certain  assignable  development 
belonged  to  a  planet  so  circumstanced  as  ours,  then  in 
what  particular  stage  of  that  development  may  we, 
the  tenants  of  this  respectable  little  planet  Tellus, 
reasonably  be  conceived  to  stand  ? 

Man,  again,  has  a  certain  aionian  life  ;  possibly 
langing  somewhere  about  the  period  of  seventy  years 
assigned  in  the  Psalms.  That  is,  in  a  state  as  highly 
improved  as  human  infirmity  and  the  errors  of  the 
earth  herself,  together  with  the  diseases  incident  to  our 


286 


ON  THE   SUri'OSED  SCEIPTUEAL 


atmospliere,  (Sec,  could  be  supposed  to  allow,  possibly 
tbe  human  race  might  average  seventy  years  for  each 
individual.  This  period  would  in  that  case  represent 
the  "  aion "  of  the  individual  Tellurian  ;  but  the 
"  aiori "  of  the  Tellurian  race  would  probably 
amount  to  many  millions  of  our  earthly  years  ;  and 
it  would  remain  an  unfathomable  mystery,  deriving 
no  light  at  all  from  the  septuagenarian  aion  "  of  the 
individual ;  though  between  the  two  aions  I  have  no 
doubt  that  some  secret  link  of  connection  does  and 
must  subsist,  however  undiscoverable  by  human  sa- 
gacity. 

The  crow,  the  deer,  the  eagle,  &;c.,  are  all  supposed 
to  be  long-lived.  Some  people  have  fancied  that  in 
their  normal  state  they  tended  to  a  period  of  two"^'' 
centuries.  I  myself  know  nothing  certain  for  or 
against  this  belief;  but,  supposing  the  case  to  be  as 
it  is  represented,  then  this  would  be  the  aionian  period 
of  these  animals,  considered  as  individuals.  Among 
trees,  in  like  manner,  the  oak,  the  cedar,  the  yew,  are 

*  I  have  heard  the  same  normal  duration  ascribed  to  the  tor- 
toise, and  one  case  became  imperfectly  known  to  myself  per- 
sonally. Somewhere  I  may  have  mentioned  the  case  in  print. 
These,  at  any  rate,  are  the  ^icts  of  the  case  :  A  lady  (by  birth  a 
Cowper,  of  the  whig  fcimily,  and  cousin  to  the  poet  Cowper; 
and  equally  with  him,  related  to  Dr.  Madan,  bishop  of  Peter- 
borough) ,  in  the  early  part  of  this  century,  mentioned  to  me 
that,  in  the  palace  at  Peterborough,  she  had  for  years  known  aa 
a  pet  of  the  household  a  venerable  tortoise,  who  bore  some  in- 
scription on  his  shell  indicating  that,  from  1638  to  1643,  he  had 
belonged  to  Archbishop  Laud,  who  (if  I  am  not  mistaken)  held 
^he  bishopric  of  Peterborough  before  he  was  translated  to  Lon 
don,  and  finally  to  Canterbury 


EXPRESSION   EOE,  ETERNITY. 


287 


notoriously  of  very  slow  growth,  and  their  aionian 
period  is  unusually  long  as  regards  the  individual. 
What  may  be  the  aion  of  the  whole  species  is  utterly 
unknown.  Amongst  birds,  one  species  at  least  has 
become  extinct  in  our  own  generation :  its  aion  was 
accomplished.  So  of  all  the  fossil  species  in  zoology, 
which  Paloeontology  has  revealed.  Nothing,  in  short, 
throughout  universal  nature,  can  for  a  moment  be  con- 
ceived to  have  been  resigned  to  accident  for  its  normal 
axon.  All  periods  and  dates  of  this  order  belong  to 
the  certainties  of  nature,  but  also,  at  the  same  time,  to 
the  mysteries  of  Providence.  Throughout  the  Pro- 
phets, we  are  uniformly  taught  that  nothing  is  more 
below  the  grandeur  of  Heaven  than  to  assign  earthly 
dates  in  fixing  either  the  revolutions  or  the  duration  of 
great  events  such  as  prophecy '  would  condescend  to 
notice.  A  day  has  a  prophetic  meaning,  but  what  sort 
of  day  ?  A  mysterious  expression  for  a  tim.e  which 
has  no  resemblance  to  a  natural  day  —  sometimes  com- 
prehending long  successions  of  centuries,  and  altering 
its  meaning  according  to  the  object  concerned.  "  A 
time,"  and  "  times,"  or  "  half  a  time  "  —  "  an  aion,"" 
or  "  aions  of  aions  "  —  and  other  variations  of  this 
prophetic  language  (so  full  of  dreadful  meaning,  but 
also  of  doubt  and  perplexity),  are  all  significant.  The 
peculiar  grandeur  of  such  expressions  lies  partly  in  the 
dnnness  of  the  approximation  to  any  attempt  at  settling 
their  limits,  and  still  more  in  this,  that  the  conventional 
character,  and  consequent  meanness  of  ordinary  human 
dates,  are  abandoned  in  the  celestial  chronologies, 
flours  and  days,  or  lunations  and  months,  have  no  true 
or  philosophic  relation  to  the  origin,  or  duration,  or 


288  ON   THE   SUPPOSED  SCRIPTURAL 


periods  of  return  belonging  to  great  events,  or  revolu- 
tionary  agencies,  or  vast  national  crimes ;  but  the 
normal  period  and  duration  of  all  acts  whatever,  the 
time  of  their  emergence,  of  their  agency  or  their 
reagency,  fall  into  harmony  with  the  secret  proportions 
of  a  heavenly  scale,  when  they  belong  by  mere  neces- 
sity of  their  own  internal  constitution  to  the  vital 
though  hidden  motions  that  are  at  work  in  their  own 
life  and  manifestation.  Under  the  old  and  ordinary 
view  of  the  apocalyptic  aion,  which  supposed  it  always 
to  mean  the  same  period  of  time  —  mysterious,  indeed, 
and  uncertain,  as  regards  our  knowledge,  but  fixed  and 
rigorously  certain  in  the  secret  counsels  of  God  —  it 
was  presumed  that  this  period,  if  it  lost  its  character  of 
infinity  when  applied  to  evil,  to  criminality,  or  to  pun- 
ishment, must  lose  it  by  a  corresponding  necessity 
equally  when  applied  to  happiness  and  the  golden 
aspects  of  hope.  But,  on  the  contrary,  every  object 
whatsoever,  every  mode  of  existence,  has  its  own 
separate  and  independent  aion.  The  most  thoughtless 
person  must  be  satisfied,  on  reflection,  even  apart  from 
the  express  commentary  upon  this  idea  furnished  by 
the  Apocalypse,  that  every  life  and  mode  of  being 
must  have  hidden  within  itself  the  secret  ivhy  of  its 
duration.  It  is  impossible  to  believe  of  any  duration 
whatever  that  it  is  determined  capriciously.  Always 
it  rests  upon  some  ground,  ancient  as  light  and  dark- 
ness, though  undiscoverable  by  man.  This  only  is 
discoverable,  as  a  general  tendency,  that  the  aion,  or 
generic  period  of  evil,  is  constantly  towards  a  fugitive 
duration.  The  aion,  it  is  alleged,  must  always  express 
the  same  idea,  whatever  that  may  be  ;  if  it  is  less  than 


EXPRESSION  FOR  ETERNITV'. 


289 


eternity  for  the  evil  cases,  then  it  must  be  less  for  the 
good  ones.  Doubtless  the  idea  of  an  aion  is  m  one 
sense  always  uniform,  always  the  same  —  viz.,  as  a 
tenth  or  a  twelfth  is  always  the  same.  Arithmetic 
could  not  exist  if  any  caprice  or  variation  affected 
these  ideas  —  a  tenth  is  always  more  than  an  eleventh, 
always  less  than  a  ninth.  But  this  uniformity  of  ratio 
and  proportion  does  not  hinder  but  that  a  tenth  may 
now  represent  a  guinea,  and  next  moment  represent 
a  thousand  guineas.  The  exact  amount  of  the  dura- 
tion expressed  by  an  aion  depends  altogether  upon 
the  particular  subject  which  yields  the  aion.  It  is,  as 
I  have  said,  a  radix  ;  and,  like  an  algebraic  square-root 
or  cube-root,  though  governed  by  the  most  rigorous 
laws  of  limitation,  it  must  vary  in  obedience  to  the 
nature  of  the  particular  subject  whose  radix  it  forms. 

Reader,  I  take  my  leave.  I  have  been  too  loitering. 
I  know  it,  and  will  make  such  efforts  in  future  to  cul- 
tivate the  sternest  brevity  as  nervous  distress  will  allow. 
Meantime,  as  the  upshot  of  my  speculation,  accept 
these  three  propositions  :  — 

A.  That  man  (which  is  in  effect  every  man  hitherto V 
who  allows  himself  to  infer  the  eternity  of  evil  from 
the  counter  eternity  of  good,  builds  upon  the  mistake 
of  assigning  a  stationary  and  mechanic  value  to  the 
idea  of  an  aio7i ;  whereas  the  very  purpose  of  Scrip- 
ture in  using  this  word  w^as  to  evade  such  a  value. 
The  word  is  always  varying,  for  the  very  purpose  of 
keeping  it  faithful  to  a  spiritual  identity.  The  period 
or  duration  of  every  object  would  be  an  essentially 
variable  quantity,  were  it  not  mysteriously  commen- 
surate to  the  inner  nature  of  that  object  as  laid  open  to 
19 


290    SCRIPTURAL  EXPRESSION   PGR  ETERNITY. 


the  eyes  of  God.  And  thus  it  happens,  that  every- 
thing in  this  world,  possibly  without  a  solitary  excep- 
tion, has  its  own  separate  aion :  how  many  entities,  so 
many  aions. 

B.  But  if  it  be  an  excess  of  blindness  which  can 
overlook  the  aionian  differences  amongst  even  neutral 
entities,  much  deeper  is  that  blindness  which  overlooks 
the  separate  tendencies  of  things  evil  and  things  good. 
Naturally,  all  evil  is  fugitive  and  allied  to  death. 

C.  I  separately,  speaking  for  myself  only,  profound- 
ly believe  that  the  Scriptures  ascribe  absolute  and 
metaphysical  eternity  to  one  sole  Being  —  viz.,  to  God  ; 
and  derivatively  to  all  others  according  to  the  interest 
which  they  can  plead  in  God's  favor.  Having  anchor- 
age in  God,  innumerable  entities  may  possibly  be 
admitted  to  a  participation  in  divine  aion.  But  what 
interest  in  the  favor  of  God  can  belong  to  falsehood, 
to  malignity,  to  impurity  ?  To  invest  them  with  aion- 
ian privileges,  is,  in  effect,  and  by  its  results,  to  dis- 
trust and  to  insult  the  Deity.  Evil  would  not  be  evil, 
if  it  had  that  power  of  self-subsistence  which  is  imputed 
to  it  in  supposing  its  aionian  life  to  be  co-eternal  with 
tnat  which  crowns  and  glorifies  the  good. 


ON  HUME'S  ARGUMENT  AGAINST 
MIRACLES. 


Hume's  argument  against  miracles  is  simply  this  : 
. —  Every  possible  event,  however  various  in  its  degree 
of  credibility,  must,  of  necessity,  be  more  credible 
when  it  rests  upon  a  sufficient  cause  lying  within  the 
field  of  what  is  called  nature^  than  when  it  does  not : 
more  credible  when  it  obeys  some  mechanical  cause, 
than  when  it  transcends  such  a  cause,  and  is  miracu- 
lous. 

Therefore,  assume  the  resistance  to  credibility,  in 
any  preternatural  occurrence,  as  equal  to  a?,  and  the 
very  ideal  or  possible  value  of  human  testimony  as  no 
more  than  a?,  in  that  case,  under  the  most  favorable 
circumstances  conceivable,  the  argument  for  and  against 
a  miracle  will  be  equal ;  or,  expressing  the  human 
testimony  by  x,  affected  with  the  afhrmadve  sign 
[4~  ^]  »  expressing  the  resistance  to  credibility 

on  the  other  side  of  the  equation  by  a?,  affected  with 
the  negative  sign  [ — o^],  the  two  values  will,  in  alge- 
braical language,  destroy  each  other,  and  the  result 
will  be  =  0. 

But,  inasmuch  as  this  expresses  the  value  of  human 
testimony  in  its  highest  or  ideal  form,  a  form  which  is 
uever  realized  in  experience,  the  true  result  will  be 


292 


ON  hume's  argument 


different,  —  there  will  always  be  a  negative  result  z=l 
—  y ;  much  or  little  according  to  the  circumstances, 
but  always  enough  to  turn  the  balance  against  believ- 
ing a  miracle. 

"  Or  in  other  words,"  said  Hume,  popularizing  his 
argument,  "  it  will  always  be  more  credible  that  the 
reporter  of  a  miracle  should  tell  a  falsehood,  or  should 
himself  have  been  the  dupe  of  appearances,  than  that 
a  miracle  should  have  actually  occurred  —  that  is,  an 
infraction  of  those  natural  laws  (any  or  all)  which 
compose  what  we  call  experience.  For,  assume  the 
utmost  disinterestedness,  veracity,  and  sound  judg- 
ment in  the  witness,  with  the  utmost  advantage  in  the 
circumstances  for  giving  full  play  to  those  qualities; 
even  in  such  a  case  the  value  of  affirmative  testimony 
could,  at  the  very  utmost,  be  equal  to  the  negative 
value  on  the  other  side  the  equation :  and  the  result 
would  be,  to  keep  my  faith  suspended  in  eqiiilihrio. 
But  in  any  real  case,  ever  likely  to  come  before  us, 
the  result  will  be  worse  ;  for  the  affirmative  testimony 
will  be  sure  to  fall  in  many  ways  below  its  ideal 
maximurfi;  leaving,  therefore,  for  the  final  result  a 
considerable  excess  to  the  negative  side  of  the  equa- 
tion." 

SECTION  II. 

OF  THE  ARGUMENT  AS  AFFECTED  BY  THE  COVERT  LIMITATIONS 
UNDER  WHICH  IT  IS  PRESENTED. 

Such  is  the  argument :  and,  as  the  first  step  towards 
investigating  its  sanity  and  its  degree  —  its  kind  of 
force,  and  its  quantity  of  force,  we  must  direct  oui 


AGAINST  MIRACLES. 


293 


jittention  to  the  following  fact  —  viz.,  that  amongst 
three  separate  conditions  under  which  a  miracle  (or 
any  event  whatever)  might  become  known  to  us, 
Hume's  argument  is  applied  only  to  one.  Assuming 
a  miracle  to  happen  (for  the  possibility  of  a  miracle  is 
of  course  left  open  throughout  the  discussion,  since 
any  argument  against  that  would  at  once  foreclose 
every  question  about  its  communicability),  —  then  it 
might  happen  under  three  several  sets  of  circum- 
stances, in  relation  to  our  consciousness.  1st,  It  might 
•happen  in  the- presence  of  a  single  witness  —  that 
witness  not  being  ourselves.  This  case  let  us  call 
Alpha.  2dly,  It  might  happen  in  the  presence  of 
many  witnesses,  —  w^itnesses  to  a  vast  amount,  but 
still  (as  befcL-e)  ourselves  not  being  amongst  that  mul- 
titude. This  case  det  us  call  Beta,  And  3dly,  It 
might  happen  in  our  own  presence,  and  fall  within  the 
direct  light  of  our  own  consciousness.  This  case  let 
us  call  Gamma. 

Now  these  distinctions  are  important  to  the  whole 
extent  of  the  question.  For  the  second  case,  which 
is  the  actual  case  of  many  miracles  recorded  in  the 
New  Testament,  at  once  cuts  away  a  large  body  of 
sources  in  which  either  error  or  deceit  could  lurk. 
Hume's  argument  supposes  the  reporter  of  the  miracle 
to  be  a  dupe,  or  the  maker  of  dupes  —  himself  de- 
luded, or  wishing  to  delude  others.  But,  in  the  case 
of  the  thousands  fed  from  a  few  loaves  and  small 
fishes,  the  chances  of  error,  wilful  or  not  wilful,  are 
diminished  in  proportion  to  the  number  of  observers  ;  * 

*  Z/z  proportion  to  the  number  of  observers '.""^ — Perhaps, 
howeYer,  on  the  part  of  Hume,  some  critical  apologist  will  say 


294 


ON  hume's  AUGUMENT 


and  Hume's  inference  as  to  the  declension  of  the  af- 
firmative X,  in  relation  to  the  negative  no  longer 
applies,  or,  if  at  all,  with  vastly  diminished  force. 
With  respect  to  the  third  case,  it  cuts  away  the  whole 
argument  at  once  in  its  very  radix.  For  Hume's 
argument  applies  to.  the  communication  of  a  miracle, 
and  therefore  to  a  case  of  testimony.  But,  wlierever 
the  miracle  falls  within  direct  personal  cognizance, 
there  it  follows  that  no  question  can  arise  about  the 
value  of  human  testimony.  The  affirmative  x,  ex- 
pressing the  value  of  testimony,  disappears  altogether ;  • 
and  that  side  of  the  equation  is  possessed  by  a  new 
quantity  (viz.,  ourselves  —  our  own  consciousness)  not 
at  all  concerned  in  Hume's  argument. 

Hence  it  results,  that  of  three  possible  conditions 
under  which  a  miracle  may  be  supposed  to  offer  itself 
to  our  knowledge,  two  are  excluded  from  the  view  of 
Hume's  argument. 

SECTION  ni. 

WHETHER  THE  SECOND  OP  THESE  CONDITIONS  IS  NOT  EXPRESSLY 
NOTICED  BY  HUME. 

It  may  seem  that  it  is.  But  in  fact  it  is  not.  And 
(what  is  more  to  the  purpose)  we  are  not  at  liberty  to 
consider  it  any  accident  that  it  is  not.    Hume  had  his 

**  Doubtless  he  was  aware  of  that ;  but  still  the  reporters  of 
the  miracle  were  few.  No  matter  how  many  were  present,  the 
witnesses  for  us  are  but  the  Evangelists."  Yes,  certainly,  the 
Evangelists  ;  and  let  me  add,  all  those  contemporaries  to  whom 
the  Evangelists  silently  appealed.  These  make  up  the  multi. 
.^ude  *'  contemplated  in  the  case  Beta. 


AlGatnst  miracles.  295 

reasons.  Let  us  take  all  in  proper  order:  Ist,  that  it 
seems  so  ;  2dly,  that  in  fact  it  is  not  so  ;  and  3dly, 
that  this  is  no  accident,  but  intentional. 

1st.  Hume  seems  to  contemplate  such  a  case,  —  viz., 
Beta,  the  case  of  a  miracle  witnessed  and  attested  by  a 
multitude  of  persons,  in  the  following  imaginary  miracle 
which  he  proposes  as  a  basis  for  reasoning.  Queen 
Elizabeth,  as  everybody  will  remember  who  has  hap- 
pened to  read  Lord  Monmouth's  Memoirs,  died  on  the 
night  between  the  last  day  of  1602  and  the  first  day 
of  1603  this  could  not  be  forgotten  by  the  reader, 
because,  in  fact.  Lord  M.,  who  was  one  of  Her  Majesty's 
nearest  relatives  (being  a  younger  son  of  her  first  cousin 
Lord  Hunsdon),  obtained  his  title  and  subsequent  pre- 
ferment as  a  reward  for  the  furious  ride  he  performed 
to  Edinburgh  (at  that  time  at  least  four  hundred  and 
forty  miles  distant  from  London),  without  taking  off 

*  /.  e.  ecclesiastically  :  the  queen  died  on  the  night  of  March 
24,  in  the  year  which  we  should  now  (1858)  call  1608,  but  which 
by  every  class  of  careful  writers  was  then  regarded  as  1602. 
March  24  was  the  last  day  of  1602  :  for  Lady- Day ,  or  the  day 
of  our  Lady  the  Virgin  Mary  (the  day  which  corresponds  by 
anticipation  with  December  25,  or  Christmas  Day,  so  as  to 
allow  nine  months  for  the  gestation  of  the  Holy  Child),  is  not  a 
moveable  festival,  but  fixed  unalterably  to  March  25.  This  was 
the  opening  day,  the  Jour  de  VAn  of  Paris,  the  New-year's-day 
of  England,  for  the  year  1603.  And  all  the  days  which  lie  between 
December  31  of  1602  and  March  25  of  1603,  were  written  as  a 
fraction  —  viz.,  February  10,  T^oi,  where  the  denominator  ex- 
presses the  true  year,  according  to  our  present  mode  of  reckon- 
ing. But  the  reader  must  understand  that  this  has  nothing  to 
io  with  0.  S  {Old  Style)  and  N.  S.  (JVew?  Style).  It  simply 
expresses  the  ecclesiastic  way  of  counting  opposed  to  the  civil 


296 


ON  Hume's  argument 


Lis  boots,  ill  order  to  lay  the  earliest  tidings  of  the  great 
event  at  the  feet  of  her  successor.  In  reality,  never  did 
any  death  cause  so  much  posting,  day  and  night,  over 
the  high  roads  of  Europe.  And  the  same  causes  which 
made  it  so  interesting  have  caused  it  to  be  the  best  dated 
event  in  modern  history  ;  that  one  which  could  least 
be  shaken  by  any  discordant  evidence  yet  discoverable. 
Now,  says  Hume,  imagine  the  case,  that,  in  spite  of  all 
this  chronological  precision  —  this  precision,  and  this 
notoriety  of  precision  —  Her  Majesty's  court  physi- 
cians should  have  chosen  to  propagate  a  story  of  her 
resurrection.  Imagine  that  these  learned  gentlemen 
should  have  issued  a  bulletin^  declaring  that  Queen 
Elizabeth  had  been  met  in  Greenwich  Park,  or  at 
Nonsuch,  on  May-day  of  1603,  or  in  Westminster, 
two  years  after,  by  the  Lord  Chamberlain -when  detect- 
ing Guy  Faux  —  let  them  even  swear  it  before  twenty 
justices  of  the  peace  ;  I  for  one,  says  Hume,  am  free 
to  confess  that  I  would  not  believe  them.  No,  nor,  to 
say  the  truth,  would  we ;  nor  w^ould  we  advise  our 
readers  to  believe  them. 

2dly.  Here,  therefore,  it  would  seem  as  if  Hume 
were  boldly  pressing  his  principles  to  the  very  utter- 
most —  that  is,  were  challenging  a  miracle  as  unten- 
able, though  attested  by  a  multitude.  But,  in  fact,  he 
,s  not.  He  only  seems  to  do  so  ;  for,  if  no  number 
of  witnesses  could  avail  anything  in  proof  of  a  miracle, 
w^hy  does  he  timidly  confine  himself  to  the  hypothesis 
of  the  Queen's  physicians  only  coming  forward?  Why 
not  call  in  the  whole  Privy  Council  r  —  or  the  Lord 
Mayor  and  Common  Council  of  London  —  the  Sheriffs 
of  Middlesex  —  and  the  Twelve  Judges  ?    As  to  the 


AGAIXST  MIRACLES. 


297 


tomt  plij'sicians,  thoiigli  three  or  four  nominally,  vir- 
tually they  are  but  one  man.  They  have  a  common 
interest,  and  in  two  separate  ways  they  are  liable  to  a 
suspicion  of  collusion  :  first,  because  the  same  motives 
which  act  upon  one  probably  act  upon  the  rest.  In 
this  respect  they  are  under  a  common  influence  ;  sec- 
ondly, because,  if  not  the  motives,  at  any  rate  the 
physicians  themselves,  act  upon  each  other.  In  this 
respect,  they  are  under  a  reciprocal  influence.  They 
are  to  be  reasoned  about  as  one  individual. 

3dly.  As  Hume  could  not  posbibly  fail  to  see  all 
this,  we  may  be  sure  that  his  choice  of  witnesses  was 
not  accidental.  In  fact,  his  apparent  carelessness  is 
very  discreet  management.  His  object  was,  under  the 
fiction  of  an  independent  multitude,  to  smuggle  in  a 
virtual  unity  ;  for  his  court  physicians  are  no  plural 
body  in  effect  and  virtue,  but  a  mere  pleonasm  and  a 
tautology. 

And  in  good  earnest,  Hume  had  reason  enough  for 
his  caution.  How  much  or  how  little  testimony  would 
avail  to  establish  a  resurrection  in  any  neutral^''  case, 
few  people  would  be  v/illing  to  pronounce  off-hand, 
and,  above  all,  on  a  fictitious  case.  Prudent  men,  in 
such  circumstances,  would  act  as  the  judges  in  our 
English  courts,  who  are  always  displeased  if  it  is  at- 
tempted to  elicit  their  opinions  upon  a  point  of  lav/  by 
a  proposed  fiction.    And  very  reasonably  ;  for  in  these 

*  By  a  neutral  case  is  meant,  Isi^,  one  in  which  there  is  no 
previous  reason  from  a  great  doctrine  requiring  such  an  event 
for  its  support,  to  expect  a  resurrection;  2dly,  a  case  belonging 
to  a  period  of  time  in  which  it  is  fully  believed  that  mu'aculous 
agency  has  ceased. 


298 


ON  Hume's  augument 


^ctitious  cases  all  the  little  circumstances  of  realit) 
are  wanting,  and  the  oblique  relations  to  such  circum- 
stances, out  of  which  it  is  that  any  sound  opinion  can 
be  formed.  We  all  know  very  well  what  Hume  is 
after  in  this  problem  of  a  resurrection.  And  his  case 
of  Queen  Elizabeth's  resurrection  being  a  perfectly 
fictitious  case,  we  are  at  liberty  to  do  any  one  of  three 
diflferent  things  :  —  either  simply  to  refuse  an  answer ; 
or,  2dly,  to  give  such  an  answer  as  he  looks  for  —  viz., 
to  agree  with  him  in  his  disbelief  under  the  supposed 
contingency ;  without,  therefore,  offering  the  slightest 
prejudice  to  any  Scriptural  case  of  resurreotion  :  i.  e.,  we 
might  go  along  with  him  in  his  premises,  and  yet  balk 
him  of  his  purpose  ;  or,  3dly,  we  might  even  join 
issue  with  him,  and  peremptorily  challenge  his  verdict 
upon  his  own  fiction.  For  it  is  singular  enough,  that 
a  modern  mathematician  of  eminence  (Mr.  Babbage) 
has  expressly  considered  this  very  imaginary  question 
O-f  a  resurrection,  and  he  pronounces  the  testimony  of 
seven  witnesses,  competent  and  veracious,  and  presumed 
to  have  no  bias,  as  sufiicient  to  establish  such  a  miracle. 
Strip  Huire's  case  of  the  ambiguities  already  pointed 
out  —  suppose  the  physicians  really  separate  and  inde- 
dent  witnesses  —  not  a  corporation  speaking  by  one 
organ  —  it  will  then  become  a  mere  question  of  degree 
between  the  philosopher  and  the  mathematician  — 
seven  witnesses  ?  or  fifty  ?  or  a  hundred  ?  P'or  though 
none  of  us  (not  Mr.  Babbage,  we  may  be  sure)  seri- 
ously believes  in  the  possibility  of  a  resurrection 
occurring  in  these  days,  as  little  can  any  of  us  believe 
in  the  possibility  that  seven  witnesses,  of  honor  and 
sagacity  (but  say  seven  hundred),  could  be  found  to 
attest  such  an  event  when  not  occurring. 


AGAINST  MIRACLES. 


299 


But  the  us3ful  result  from  all  this  is,  that  Mr.  Hume 
is  evidently  aware  of  the  case  Beta^  (of  last  sect.)  as 
a  distinct  case  from  Alpha  or  from  Gamma,  though 
he  affects  blindness  :  he  is  aware  that  3.  multitude  of 
competent  witnesses,  no  matter  whether  seven  or  seven 
hundred,  is  able  to  establish  that  which  a  single  wit- 
ness could  not ;  in  fact,  that  increasing  the  number  of 
witnesses  is  able  to  compensate  increasing  incredibility 
in  the  subject  of  doubt  ;  that  even  supposing  this  sub- 
ject a  resurrection  from  the  dead,  there  may  be  assigned 
a  quantity  of  evidence  (a?)  greater  than  any  resistance 
to  the  credibility.  And  he  betrays  the  fact,  that  he 
has  one  eye  open  to  his  own  Jesuitism  by  palming  upon 
us  an  apparent  multitude  for  a  real  one,  thus  draw- 
ing all  the  credit  he  can  from  the  name  of  a  multitude, 
and  yet  evading  the  force  which  he  strictly  knew  to  be 
lodged  in  the  thing :  seeking  the  reputation  of  the 
case  Beta,  but  shrinking  from  its  hostile  force. 

SECTION  IV. 

OP  THE  ARGUMENT  AS  AFFECTED  BY  A  CLASSIFICATION  O? 
MIRACLES. 

Lot  US  now  inquire  whether  Hume's  argument  would 
be  affected  by  such  differences  in  miracles  as  might 
emerge  upon  the  most  general  distribution  of  their 
kinds. 

Miracles  may  be  classed  generally  as  inner  or  outer. 

1  The  inner,  or  those  which  may  be  called  miracles 
for  the  individual,  are  such  as  go  on,  or  may  go  on, 
within  the  separate  personal  consciousness  of  each 


300 


ON  Hume's  argument 


Separate  man.  And  it  shows  how  forgetful  people  ar^ 
of  the  very  doctrines  which  they  themselves  profess 
as  Christians,  when  we  consider,  on  the  one  hand,  that 
mincles,  in  this  sense,  are  essential  to  Christianity, 
and  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  consider  how  often  it  is 
said  that  the  age  of  miracles  is  past.  Doubtless,  in  the 
sense  of  external  miracles,  all  such  agencies  are  past. 
But  in  the  other  sense,  there  are  distinct  classes  of  the 
supernatural  agency,  which  we  are  now  considering  ; 
and  these  three  are  held  by  many  Christians  ;  two  by 
most  Christians  ;  and  the  third  by  all.    They  are 

a.  —  Special  Providences :  which  class  it  is  that 
many  philosophic  Christians  doubt  or  deny. 

^. —  Grace:  both  predisposing  [by  old  theologians 
called  prevenietit  '^']  and  effectual. 

y.  —  Prayer  considered  as  ejicacious, 

*  **  Prevenient  grace  :  "  —  Memorable  it  is,  and  striking  as  a 
record  of  the  changes  worked  continually  by  time,  that  in  a 
trial  before  one  of  our  English  Ecclesiastical  Courts  some  two 
or  three  years  ago  [the  parties  to  the  suit  being  on  the  one 
sidcj  as  I  think,  the  Bishop  of  Exeter,  and  on  the  other  a 
reverend  gentleman,  of  whom  the  solitary  wreck  or  floating 
spar  that  remains  in  the  custody  of  ray  recollection  is  a  capital 
A,  as  the  initial  letter  of  his  name],  the  technical  term  jore- 
venient  grace  "  came  forward  many  a  score  of  times.  Bat  how 
completely  this  was  felt  to  be  a  resurrection  from  the  grave, 
may  be  judged  by  the  declaration  of  a  leading  .counsel^  a  most 
eminent  barrister,  who  protested  against  the  mysterious  phrase 
as  one  which,  in  the  whole  course  of  his  reading  [some  little 
being  sacred,  but  a  great  deal  profane'],  he  had  never  once 
met  (or  heard  of)  such  a  monster  :  —  was  it  something  to  drink  ? 
or  was  it  something  that  one  would  give  in  charge  to  a  police- 
man?   Now,  reader,  look  into  the  tenth  book  of  *' Paradiso 


AGAINST  MIRACLES. 


301 


Of  fcht'se  three  we  repeat,  that  the  two  last  are  held 
by  most  Christians  :  and  yet  it  is  evident  that  both 
presume  a  supernatural  agency.  But  this  agency  ex- 
ists only  where  it  is  sought.  And  even  where  it  does 
exist,  from  its  very  nature  (as  an ,  interior  experience 
for  each  separate  consciousness)  it  is  incommunicable. 
But  that  does  not  defeat  its  purpose.  It  is  of  its 
essence  to  be  incommunicable.  And,  therefore,  with 
relation  to  Hume's  great  argument,  which  was  de- 
signed to  point  out  a  vast  hiatus  or  inconsistency  in 
the  Divine  economy —  "  Here  is  a  miraculous  agency, 
perhaps,  but  it  is  incommunicable  :  it  may  exist,  but 
it  cannot  manifest  itself ;  which  defect  neutralizes  it, 
and  defeats  the  very  purpose  of  its  existence  "  —  the 
answer  is,  that  as  respects  these  interior  miracles,  there 
is  no  such  inconsistency.  They  are  meant  for  the 
private  forum  of  each  man's  consciousness  :  nor  would 
it  have  met  any  human  necessity  to  have  made  them 
communicable.  The  language  of  Scripture  is,  that  he 
who  wishes  experimentally  to  know  the  changes  that 
may  be  accomplished  by  prayer,  must  pray.  In  that 
way  only,  and  not  by  communication  of  knowledge 
from  another,  could  he  understand  it  as  a  practical 
effect.  And  to  understand  it  not  practically,  but  only 
in  a  speculative  way,  could  not  meet  any  religious 
wish,  but  merely  an  irreligious  curiosity. 

As  repects  one  great  division  of  miraculous  agency, 

Lost/'  and  you  will  find  it  within  the  first  four  or  five  lines. 
To  be  available  for  the  purposes  of  a  great  poet,  the  phrase 
must  have  been  common  at  that  day  [1667]  :  and  in  every 
theological  work  it  is  as  common  as  the  songs  of  birds  in 
^ring. 


302 


ON  Hume's  argument 


it  is  clear,  therefore,  that  Hume's  argument  does  not 
apply.  The  arrow  glances  past :  not  so  much  missing 
its  aim,  as  taking  a  false  one.  The  hiatus  which  it 
supposes,  the  insulation  and  incommunicability  which 
it  charges  upon  the  miraculous  as  a  capital  oversight, 
was  part  of  the  design  :  such  mysterious  agencies  were 
meant  to  be  incommunicable,  and  for  the  same  reason 
which  shuts  up  each  man's  consciousness  into  a  silent 
world  of  its  own  —  separate  and  inaccessible  to  all 
other  consciousnesses.  If  a  communication  is  thrown 
open  by  such  agencies  between  the  separate  spirit  of 
each  man  and  the  supreme  Spirit  of  the  universe,  then 
the  end  is  accomplished  :  and  it  is  part  of  that  end  to 
close  this  communication  against  all  other  cognizance. 
So  far  Hume  is  baffled.  The  supernatural  agency  is 
incommunicable :  it  ought  to  be  so.  That  is  its  per- 
foction. 

n.  But  now,  as  respects  the  other  great  order  of 
miracles — viz.,  the  external  —  first  of  all,  we  may  re- 
mark a  very  important  subdivision  :  miracles,  in  this 
sense,  subdivide  into  two  most  different  orders,  —  1st, 
Evidential  miracles,  which  simply  prove  Christianity ; 
2d,  Constituent  miracles,  which,  in  a  partial  sense,  are 
Christianity,  as  in  part  composing  its  substance.  And, 
perhaps,  it  may  turn  out  that  Hume's  objection,  if 
applicable  at  all,  is  here  applicable  in  a  separate  way 
and  with  a  varying  force. 

The  first  class,  the '  evidential  miracles,  are  all  those 
which  were  performed  merely  as  evidences  (whether 
simply  as  indict;tions,  or  as  absolute  demonstrations)  of 
•"he  divine  power  which  upheld  Christianity.  The 
lecond  class,  the  constituent  miracles,  are  those  which 


AGAINST  MIRACLES. 


303 


constitute  a  part  of  Christianity.  Two  of  these  are 
absolutely  indispensable  to  Christianity,  and  cannot  be 
separated  from  it  even  in  thought — viz.,  the  miracu- 
lous birth  of  our  Saviour,  and  his  miraculous  resurrec- 
tion. The  first  is  essential  upon  this  ground  —  that 
unless  Christ  had  united  the  two  natures  (divine  and 
human)  he  could  not  have  made  the  satisfaction  re- 
quired. For  try  it  both  ways :  not  being  human, 
then,  indeed,  he  might  have  had  power  to  go  through 
the  mysterious  sufferings  of  the  satisfaction  :  but  how 
would  that  have  applied  to  man  ?  It  would  have  been 
perfect,  but  how  would  it  have  been  relevant }  Now 
try  it  the  other  way :  not  being  divine,  then,  indeed, 
any  satisfaction  he  could  make  would  be  relevant :  but 
how  would  it  have  been  possible  in  a  being  himself 
tainted  with  frailty  ?  It  is  an  argument  used  by 
Christianity  itself — that  man  cannot  offer  a  satisfac- 
tion for  man.  The  mysterious  and  supernatural  birth, 
therefore,  was  essential,  as  a  capacitation  for  the  work 
to  be  performed  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  myste- 
rious death  and  consequences  were  essential,  as  the 
very  work  itself. 

Now,  therefore,  having  made  this  distinction,  we 
may  observe,  that  the  first  class  of  miracles  was  occa- 
sional and  polemic  :  it  was  meant  to  meet  a  special 
hostility  incident  to  the  birth-struggles  ot  a  new 
religion,  and  a  religion  which,  for  the  very  reason  that 
it  was  true,  stood  opposed  to  the  spirit  of  the  world ; 
of  a  religion  which,  in  its  first  stage,  had  to  fight 
against  a  civil  power  in  absolute  possession  of  the 
civilized  earth,  and  backed  by  seventy  legions.  This 
^eing  settled,  it  follows,  that  if  Hume's  argumei^t 


304 


ON  hume's  argument 


were  applicable  in  its  whole  strength  to  the  evidential 
miracles,  no  result  of  any  importance  could  follow. 
It  is  clear  that  a  Christianized  earth  naver  can  want 
polemic  miracles  again  ;  polemic  miracles  were  wanted 
for  a  transitional  state,  but  such  a  state  cannot  return. 
Polemic  miracles  were  wanted  for  a  state  of  conflict 
with  a  dominant  idolatry.  It  was  Christianity  militant, 
and  militant  with  child-like  arms,  against  Paganism 
triumphant,  that  needed  such  weapons,  and  used 
them.  But  Christianity,  in  league  with  civiliza- 
tion, and  resting  on  the  powers  of  this  earth  allied 
with  her  own,  never  again  can  speak  to  idolatrous  man 
except  from  a  station  of  infinite  superiority.  If,  there- 
fore, these  evidential  miracles  are  incommunicable  as 
respects  their  grounds  of  credibility  to  after  genera- 
tions, neither  are  they  wanted. 

Still  it  will  be  urged  —  were  not  the  miracles  meant 
for  purposes  ulterior  to  the  transitional  state  ?  Were 
they  not  meant  equally  for  the  polemic  purpose  of 
confuting  hostility  at  the  moment,  and  of  propping 
the  faith  of  Christians  in  all  after  ages  ?  '  The  growing 
opinion  amongst  reflecting  Christians  is,  that  they 
were  not  :  that  the  evidential  miracles  accomplished 
their  whole  purpose  in  their  own  age.  Something  of 
supernatural  agency,  visibly  displayed,  was  wanted 
for  the  first  establishment  of  a  new  faith.  But,  once 
established,  it  was  a  false  faith  only  that  could  need 
this  external  support.  Christianity  could  not  unroot 
itself  now,  though  every  trace  of  evidential  miracle 
should  have  vanished.  Being  a  true  religion,  once 
rooted  in  man's  knowledge  and  man's  heart,  it  is  self- 
sustained  ;  it  never  could  be  eradicated. 


AGAINST  MIBACLES. 


305 


But  waiving  that  argument,  it  is  evident,  that  what- 
ever becomes  of  the  evidential  miracles,  Christianity 
never  can  dispense  with  those  transcendent  miracles 
which  we  have  called  constituent^  —  those  which  do 
not  so  much  demonstrate  Christianity,  as  constitute 
Christianity,  and  are  Christianity  by  a  large  integral 
section.  Now  as  to  the  way  in  which  Hume's 
argument  could  apply  to  these,  we  shall  reserve 
what  v/e  have  to  say  until  a  subsequent  section. 
Meantime,  with  respect  to  the  other  class,  the 
simply  evidential  miracles,  it  is  plain,  that  if  ever 
they  should  be  called  for  again,  then,  as  to  them^ 
Hume's  argument  will  be  evaded,  or  not,  according  to 
their  purpose.  If  their  function  regards  an  individual, 
it  will  be  no  just  objection  to  them  that  they  are  in- 
communicable. If  it  regards  a  multitude  or  a  nation, 
then  the  same  po\yer  which  utters  the  miracle  can  avail 
for  its  manifestation  before  a  multitude,  as  happened  in 
the  days  of  the  New  Testament,  and  then  is  realized 
the  case  Beta  of  Sect.  IL  And  if  it  is  still  objected, 
that  even  in  that  case  there  could  be  no  sufficient  way 
of  propagating  the  miracle,  with  its  evidence,  to  othei 
tiniies  or  places,  the  answer  must  be,  — 

1st.  That  supposing  the  purpose  merely  polemic, 
that  purpose  is  answered  without  such  a  propagation. 

2dly.  That,  supposing  the  purpose,  by  possibility, 
an  ulterior  purpose,  stretching  into  distant  ages,  even 
then  our  modern  arts  of  civilization,  printing,  -dsc, 
give  us  advantages  which  place  a  remote  age  on  a  level 
with  the  present  as  to  the  force  of  evidence ;  and  that 
even  the  defect  of  autopsy  may  be  compensated  by 
sufficient  testimony  of  a  multitude,  it  is  evident  that 
20 


306 


ON  Hume's  argUxMent 


Hume  himself  felt,  by  his  evasion  in  the  case  of  the 
imaginary  Elizabethan  miracle  proposed  by  himself. 

RECAPITULATION. 

Now  let  us  recapitulate  the  steps  we  have  made  be- 
fore going  on  to  the  rest. 

1st.  We  have  drawn  into  notice  [Sect.  II.]  the  case 
Beta,  —  overlooked  by  Hume  in  his  argument,  but 
apparently  not  overlooked  in  his  consciousness,  —  the 
case  where  a  multitude  of  witnesses  overrules  the  in- 
communicability  attaching  to  a  single  witness. 

2dly.  We  have  drawn  into  notice  the  class  of  inter- 
nal miracles,  —  miracles  going  on  in  the  inner  econ- 
omy of  every  Christian's  heart  ;  for  it  is  essential  to  a 
Christian  to  allow  of  prayer.  He  cannot  he  a  Christian 
if  he  should  condemn  prayer  ;  and  prayer  cannot  hope 
to  produce  its  object  without  a  miracle.  And  to  such 
miracles  Hume's  argument,  the  argument  of  incommu- 
nicability,  is  inapplicable.  They  do  not  seek  to  trans- 
plant themselves  ;  every  man's  personal  experience  in 
this  respect  is  meant  for  himself  alone. 

3dly.  Even  amongst  miracles  not  internal,  we  have 
shown  —  that  if  one  class  (the  merely  evidential  and 
polemic)  are  incommunicable,  ^.  6.,  not  capable  of  prop- 
agation to  a  remote  age  or  place,  they  have  sufficiently 
fulfilled  their  immediate  purpose  by  their  inimediate 
effect.  But  such  miracles  are  alien  and  accidental  to 
Christianity.  Christ  himself  reproved  severely  those 
who  sought  such  signs,  as  a  wicked,  unbelieving  gen- 
-jation  ;  and  afterwards  he  reproved,  with  a  most 
pathetic  reproach,  that  one  of  his  own  disciples  who 


AGAINST  MIKACLES. 


307 


Aemanded  such  a  sign.  But  besides  these  evidentia) 
miracles,  we  noticed  also, 

4thly.  The  constituent  miracles  of  Christianity ; 
upon  which,  as  regarded  Hume's  argument,  we  reserved 
ourselves  to  the  latter  section :  and  to  these  we  now 
address  ourselves. 

But  first  we  premise  this 

Lemma :  —  That  an  a  priori  (or,  as  we  shall  show, 
an  a  posteriori)  reason  for  believing  a  miracle,  or  for 
expecting  a  miracle,  will  greatly  disturb  the  valuation 
of  X  (that  is,  the  abstract  resistance  to  credibility),  as 
assumed  in  Hume's  argument.  This  is  the  centre  in 
which  we  are  satisfied,  lurks  that  Trpuyrov  iJ/evSosy  or 
primary  falsehood,  which  Hume  himself  suspected :  and 
we  add,  that  as  a  vast  number  of  witnesses  (according 
to  a  remark  made  in  Sect.  II.)  will  virtually  operate  as 
a  reduction  of  the  value  allowed  to  x,  until  x  may  be 
made  to  vanish  altogether,  —  so  in  the  reverse  order, 
any  material  reduction  of  value  in  x  will  virtually 
operate  exactly  as  the  multiplication  of  witnesses  ;  and 
the  case  Alpha  will  be  raised  to  the  case  Beta, 

This  Lemma  being  stated  as  a  point  of  appeal  in 
what  follows,  we  proceed  to 

SECTION  V. 

ON  HUME'S  ARGUMENT,  AS  AFFECTED  BY  THE  PURPOSE. 

This  topic  is  so  impressive,  and  indeed  awful,  in  its 
relation* to  Christianity,  that  we  shall  not  violate  its 
majesty  by  doing  more  than  simply  stating  the  case. 


308 


ON  Hume's  argument 


All  the  known  or  imagined  miracles  that  ever  were 
recorded  as  flowing  from  any  Pagan  origin,  were  mira- 
cles—  1,  of  ostentation  ;  2,  of  ambition  and  rivalship ; 
3,  expressions  of  power ;  or,  4,  were  blind  accidents. 
Not  even  in  pretence  were  any  of  them  more  than  that. 
First  and  last  came  the  Christian  miracles,  on  behalf  of 
a  moral  purpose.  The  purpose  was  to  change  man's 
idea  of  his  own  nature  ;  and  to  change  his  idea  of 
God's  nature.  Many  other  purposes  might  be  stated  ; 
but  all  were  moral.  Now  to  any  other  wielder  of 
supernatural  power,  real  or  imaginary,  it  never  had 
occurred  by  way  of  pretence  even,  that  in  working 
miracles  he  had  a  moral  object.  And  here,  indeed, 
comes  in  the  argument  of  Christ  with  tremendous 
effect  —  that,  whilst  all  other  miracles  might  be  liable 
to  the  suspicion  of  having  been  effected  by  alliance 
with  darker  agencies.  His  only  (as  sublime  moral 
agencies  for  working  the  only  revolution  that  ever  was 
worked  in  man's  nature)  could  not  be  liable  to  such 
a  suspicion  ;  since,  if  an  evil  spirit  would  lend  himself 
to  the  propagation  of  good  in  its  most  transcendent 
form,  in  that  case  the  kingdom  of  darkness  would  be 
"divided  against  itself." 

Here,  then,  is  an  a  posteriori  reason,  derived  from 
the  whole  subsequent  life  and  death  of  the  miracle- 
worker,  for  diminishing  the  value  of  x  according  to  the 
Lemma. 


AGAINST  MIKACLES. 


309 


SECTION  VI. 

ON  THE  AKGUMENT  OF  HUME  AS  AFFECTED  BT  MATTERS  OP 
FACT. 

It  is  a  very  important  axiom  of  the  schoolmen  in 
kl\is  case  —  that,  a  posse  ad  esse  non  valet  consequentia  ; 
you  can  draw  no  inference  from  the  possibility  of  a 
thing  to  its  reality,  but  that,  in  the  reverse  order,  ah 
esse  ad  posse,  the  inference  is  inevitable  :  if  it  is,  or 
if  it  ever  has  been  —  then  of  necessity  it  can  be. 
Hume  himself  would  have  admitted,  that  the  proof  of 
any  one  miracle,  beyond  all  possibility  of  doubt,  at 
onee  lowered  the  —  x  of  his  argument  [i.  e.,  the  value 
of  the  Resistance  to  our  faith)  so  as  to  affect  the  whole 
force  of  that  argument,  as  applying  to  all  other  mira- 
cles whatever  having  a  rational  and  an  adequate 
purpose.  Now  it  happens  that  we  have  two  cases  of 
miracles  which  can  be  urged  in  this  view  :  one  a  pas- 
teriori,  derived  from  our  historical  experience,  and  the 
other  a  priori.    We  will  take  them  separately. 

1.  The  a  priori  miracle  we  call  such  —  not  (as  the 
unphilosophic  may  suppose)  because  it  occurred  pre- 
viously to  our  own  period,  or  from  any  consideration 
of  time  whatever,  but  in  the  logical  meaning,  as  having 
been  derived  from  our  reason  in  opposition  to  our  ex- 
perience. This  order  of  miracle  it  is  manifest  that 
Hume  overlooked  altogether,  because  he  says  express- 
ly that  we  have  nothing  to  appeal  to  in  this  dispute 
except  our  human  experience.  But  it  happens  that  we 
have ;  and  precisely  where  the  possibilities  of  experi- 
ence desert  us.  We  know  nothing  through  experience 
(whether  physical  or  historical)  of  what  preceded  or 


310 


ON  Hume's  argument 


accompanied  tlie  first  :utrodiiction  of  man  upon  this 
earth.  But  in  the  absence  of  all  expeiience,  our 
reason  informs  us  —  tliat  he  must  have  been  intio- 
duced  by  a  supernatural  agency.  Thus  far  we  are 
sure.  For  the  sole  alternative  is  one  which  would  be 
equally  mysterious,  and  besides,  contradictory  to  the 
marks  of  change  —  of  transition  —  and  of  perishable- 
ness  in  our  planet  itself — viz.,  the  hypothesis  of  an 
eternal  unoriginated  race  :  that  is  more  confound- 
ing to  the  human  intellect  than  any  miracle  whatever : 
so  that,  even  tried  merely  as  one  probability  against 
another,  the  miracle  would  have  the  advantage.  The 
miracle  supposes  a  supersensual  and  transcendgnt 
cause.  The  opposite  hypothesis  supposes  effects  with- 
out any  cause.  In  short,  upon  any  hypothesis,  we  are 
driven  to  suppose — and  compelled  to  suppose  —  a 
miraculous  state  as  introductory  to  the  earliest  state 
of  nature.  The  planet,  indeed,  might  form  itself  by 
mechanical  laws  of  motion,  repulsion,  attraction,  and 
central  forces.  But  man  could  not.  Life  could  not. 
Organization,  even  animal  organization,  might  perhaps 
be  explained  out  of  mechanical  causes.  But  life 
could  not.  Life  is  itself  a  great  miracle.  Suppose 
the  nostrils  formed  by  mechanic  agency  ;  still  the 
breath  of  life  could  not  enter  them  without  a  super- 
natural force.  And  a  fortiori,  man,  with  his  intellect- 
ual and  moral  capacities,  could  not  arise  upon  this 
planet  without  a  higher  agency  than  any  lodged  in 
that  nature  which  is  the  object  of  our  present  expe- 
rience. This  kind  of  miracle,  as  deduced  by  our 
reason,  and  not  witnessed  experimentally,  or  drawn 
from  any  past  records,  we  call  an  a  priori  miracle  { 


AGAIKST  MIRACLES. 


311 


2.  But  there  is  .anoiher  kind  of  miracle,  which 
Hume  ought  not  to  have  overlooked,  but  which  he 
has,  however,  overlooked  :  he  himself  observes,  very 
justly,  ihsit  prophecy  is  a  distinct  species  of  the  mirac- 
ulous ;  and,  no  doubt,  he  neglected  the  Scriptural 
Prophecies,  as  supposing  them  all  of  doubtful  inter* 
pretation ;  or  else  believing  with  Porphyry,  that  such 
as  are  not  doubtful,  must  have  been  posterior  to  the 
event  which  they  point  to.  It  happens,  however,  that 
there  are  some  prophecies  which  cannot  be  evaded  or 
"refused,"  some  to  which  neither  objection  will  apply. 
One  we  will  here  cite  by  way  of  example :  —  The 
prophecy  of  Isaiah,  describing  the  desolation  of  Baby- 
lon, was  delivered  about  seven  centuries  before  Christ. 
A  century  or  so  after  Christ,  comes  Porphyry,  and 
insinuates,  that  all  the  prophecies  alike  might  be 
comparatively  recent  forgeries  !  Well,  for  a  moment 
suppose  it :  but,  at  least,  they  existed  in  the  days  of 
Porphyry.  Now,  it  happens,  that  more  than  two 
centuries  after  Porphyry,  we  have  good  evidence,  as  to 
Babylon,  that  it  had  not  yet  reached  the  stage  of 
utter  desolation  predicted  by  Isaiah.  Four  centuries 
after  Christ,  we  learn  from  a  father  of  the  Christian 
Church,  who  had  good  personal  information  as  to  its 
condition,  that  it  was  then  become  a  solitude,  but  a 
solitude  in  good  preservation  as  a  royal  park.  The 
vast  city  had  disappeared,  and  the  murmur  of  myriads  : 
but  as  yet  there  were  no  signs  whatever  of  ruin  or 
desolation.  Not  until  our  own  nineteenth  century 
was  the  picture  of  Isaiah  seen  in  full  realization  — 
then  lay  the  lion  basking  at  noonday — then  crawled 
the  serpents  from  their  holes  ;  and  at  night  the  whole 


312 


OK  hume's  akgument 


region  echoed  with  the  wild  cj-ies  peculiar  to  arid 
wildernesses.  The  transformations,  therefore,  of  Baby- 
Ion,  have  been  going  on  slowly  through  a  vast  number 
of  centuries  until  the  perfect  accomplishment  of  Isaiah's 
picture.  Perhaps  they  have  travelled  through  a  course 
of  much  more  than  two  thousand  years :  and  from  the 
glimpses  we  gain  of  Babylon  at  intervals,  we  know  for 
certain  that  Isaiah  had  been  dead  for  many  centuries 
before  his  vision  could  have  even  begun  to  realize 
itself.  But  then,  says  an  objector,  the  final  ruins  of 
great  empires  and  cities  may  be  safely  assumed  on 
general  grounds  of  observation.  Hardly,  however, 
if  they  happen  to  be  seated  in  a  region  so  fertile  as 
Mesopotamia,  and  on  a  great  river  like  the  Euphrates. 
But  allow  this  possibility — allow  the  natural  disap- 
pearance of  Babylon  in  a  long  course  of  centuries. 
In  other  cases  the  disappearance  is  gradual,  and  at 
length  perfect.  No  traces  can  now  be  found  of  Car- 
thage;  none  of  Memphis;  or,  if  you  suppose  some- 
thing peculiar  to  Mesopotamia,  no  traces  can  be  found 
of  Nineveh, or  on  the  other  side  of  that  region : 
none  of  other  great  cities  —  Roman,  Parthian,  Persian, 
Median,  in  that  same  region  or  adjacent  regions. 
Babylon  only  is  circumstantially  described  by  Jewish 
prophecy  as  long  surviving  itself  in  a  state  of  visible 
and  audible  desolation  :  and  to  Babylon  only  such  a 
description  applies.  Other  prophecies  might  be  cited 
with  the  same  result.  But  this  is  enough.  And  here 
is  an  a  posteriori  miracle. 

Now,  observe  :  these  two  orders  of  miracle,  by  their 


♦  Of  late,  however,  fully  exposed  by  Layard,  Rawlinson,  &o. 


AGAINST  MIRACLES, 


313 


very  nature,  absolutely  evade  the  argument  of  Hume. 
The  incommunicability  disappears  altogether.  The 
value  of  —  X  absolutely  vanishes  and  becomes  =  0. 
The  human  reason  being  immutable,  suggests  to  every 
age,  renews  and  regenerates  forever,  the  necessary 
infercTice  of  a  miraculous  state  antecedent  to  the 
natural  state.  And,  for  the  miracles  of  prophecy, 
these  require  no  evidence,  and  depend  upon  none  : 
they  carry  their  own  evidence  along  with  them  ;  they 
utter  their  own  testimonies,  and  they  are  continually 
reinforcing  them  ;  for,  probably,  every  successive  period 
of  time  reproduces  fresh  cases  of  prophecy  completed. 
But  even  one,  like  that  of  Babylon,  realizes  the  case 
of  Beta  (Sect.  II.)  in  its  most  perfect  form.  History, 
which  attests  it,  is  the  voice  of  every  generation, 
checked  and  countersigned  in  effect  by  all  the  men 
who  compose  it. 

SECTION  VII. 

OF   THE   ARQUMENT   AS   AFFECTED  BY    THE  PARTICULAR  WORKEE 
OF  THE  MIRACLES. 

This  is  the  last  "  moment,"  to  use  the  language  of 
Mechanics,  which  we  shall  notice  in  this  discussion. 
And  here  there  is  a  remarkable  petitio  principii  in 
Hume's  management  of  his  argument.  He  says, 
roundly,  that  it  makes  no  difference  at  all  if  God  were 
connected  with  the  question  as  the  author  of  the  sup- 
posed miracles.  And  why  ?  Because,  says  he,  we 
know  God  only  by  experience  —  meaning  as  involved 
in  nature  —  and,  therefore,  that  in  so  far  as  miracles 
transcend  our  experience  of  nature,  they  transcend  bj 


314 


ON  hume's  aegument 


implication  our  experience  of  God.  But  tlie  very 
question  under  discussion  is  —  whether  God  did,  or 
did  not,  manifest  himself  to  human  experience  in  the 
miracles  of  the  New  Testament.  But  at  all  events,  the 
idea  of  God  in  itself  already  includes  the  notion  of  a 
power  to  work  miracles,  whether  that  power  were  ever 
exercised  or  not ;  and  as  Sir  Isaac  Newton  thought  that 
space  might  be  the  sensorium  of  God,  so  may  we  (and 
with  much  more  philosophical  propriety)  affirm  that  the 
miraculous  and  the  transcendent  is  the  very  nature  of 
God.  God  being  assumed,  it  is  as  easy  to  believe  in  a 
miracle  issuing  from  Him  as  in  any  operation  according 
to  the  laws  of  nature  (which,  after  all,  is  possibly  in 
many  points  only  the  nature  of  our  planet)  :  it  is  as 
easy,  because  either  mode  of  action  is  indifferent  to 
Him.  Doubtless  this  argument,  when  addressed  to  an 
atheist,  loses  its  force  ;  because  he  refuses  to  assume 
a  God.  But  then,  on  the  other  hand,  it  must  be 
remembered  that  Hume's  argument  itself  does  not 
stand  on  the  footing  of  atheism.  He  supposes  it 
binding  on  a  theist.  Now  a  theist,  in  starting  from 
the  idea  of  God,  grants,  of  necessity,  the  plenary 
power  of  miracles  as  greater  and  more  awful  than  man 
could  even  comprehend.  All  he  wants  is  a  sufficient 
motive  for  such  transcendent  agencies ;  but  this  is 
supplied  in  excess  (as  regards  what  we  have  called  the 
constituent  miracles  of  Christianity)  by  the  case  of  a 
religion  that  was  to  revolutionize  the  moral  nature  of 
man.  The  moral  nature —  the  kingdom  of  the  will  — 
is  essentially  opposed  to  the  kingdom  of  nature  even 
by  the  confession  of  irreligious  philosophers  ;  and, 
therefore,  being  itself  a  supersensual  field,  it  seems 


AGAINST  MIHACLES. 


315 


more  reasonably  adapted  to  agencies  supernatural  than 
such  as  are  natural. 

GENEEAL  RECAPITULATION. 

In  Hume's  argument, — x,  which  expresses  the  re- 
sistance to  credibility  in  a  miracle,  is  valued  as  of 
necessity  equal  to  the  very  maximum  or  ideal  of  hu- 
man testimony ;  which,  under  the  very  best  circum- 
stances, might  be  equal  to  -j-  x,  in  no  case  more,  and 
in  all  known  cases  less.  We,  on  the  other  hand,  have 
endeavored  to  show  — 

1.  That,  because  Hume  contemplates  only  the  case 
of  a  single  witness,  it  will  happen  that  the  case  Beta 
[of  Sect,  n.]  where  a  multitude  of  witnesses  exist, 
may  greatly  exceed -[-a:;  and  with  a  sufficient  multi- 
tude must  exceed  x, 

2.  That  in  the  case  of  internal  miracles  —  opera- 
tions of  divine  agency  within  the  mind  and  conscience 
of  the  individual  —  Hume's  argument  is  necessarily 
set  aside  :  the  evidence,  the  -j-  x,  is  perfect  for  the 
individual,  and  the  miraculous  agency  is  meant  for 
him  only. 

3.  That,  in  the  case  of  one  primary  miracle  —  viz., 
the  first  organization  of  man  on  this  planet,  the  evi- 
dence greatly  transcends  x  :  because  here  it  is  an 
evidence  not  derived  from  experience  at  all,  but  from 
the  reflecting  reason :  and  the  miracle  has  the  same 
advantage  over  facts  of  experience,  that  a  mathematical 
truth  has  over  the  truths  which  rest  on  induction.  It 
is  the  difference  between  must  he  and  is  —  between 
/he  inevitable  and  the  merely  actual. 

4.  That,  in  the  case  of  another  order  of  miracles  — 
viz.,  prophecies,  Hume's  argument  is  again  overruled  ; 


316      uume's  argUxMent  against  miracles. 

because  the  -f-  x  in  this  case,  the  affirmative  evidence, 
is  not  derived  from  human  testimony.  Some  prophe- 
cies are  obscure  ;  they  may  be  fulfilled  possibly  with- 
out men's  being  aware  of  the  fulfilment.  But  others, 
as  that  about  the  fate  of  Babylon  —  about  the  fate  of 
the  Arabs  (the  children  of  Ishmael)  —  about  the  fate 
of  the  Jews  —  are  not  of  a  nature  to  be  misunder- 
stood ;  and  the  evidence  which  attends  them  is  not 
alien,  but  is  intrinsic,  and  developed  by  themselves  in 
successive  stages  from  age  to  age, 

5.  That,  because  the  primary  miracle  in  No.  3, 
argues  at  least  a  power  competent  to  the  working  of  a 
miracle,  for  any  after  miracle  we  have  only  to  seek  a 
sufficient  motive.  Now,  the  objects  of  the  Christian 
revelation  were  equal  at  the  least  to  those  of  the  original 
creation.  In  fact,  Christianity  may  be  considered  as  a 
second  creation ;  and  the  justifying  cause  for  the  con- 
stituent miracles  of  Christianity  is  even  to  us  as  appa- 
rent as  any  which  could  have  operated  at  the  primary 
creation.  The  epigenesis  was,  at  least,  as  grand  an 
occasion  as  the  genesis,  the  original  birth.  Indeed,  it 
is  evident,  for  example,  that  Christianity  itself  could 
not  have  existed  without  the  constituent  miracle  of 
the  Resurrection  ;  because  without  that  there  would 
have  been  no  conquest  over  death.  And  here,  as 
in  No.  3,  is  derived  — not  from  any  experience, 
and  therefore  cannot  be  controlled  by  that  sort  of 
hostile  experience  which  Hume's  argument  relies  on ; 
but  is  derived  from  the  reason  which  transcends  all 
experience ;  that  is,  which  would  be  valid  —  I  do  not 
Bay  against  the  positive  case  of  a  hostile  experience 
but  in  the  neutral  or  negative  case,  where  all  con- 
^rmatory  experience  is  wanting. 


PROTESTANTISM.* 


The  work  whose  substance  and  theme  are  thn^ 
briefly  abstracted  is,  at  this  moment,!  making  a  noise  in 
the  world.  It  is  ascribed  by  report  to  two  bishops  — 
not  jointly,  bnt  alternatively — in  the  sense  that,  if  one 
did  not  write  the  book,  the  other  did.  The  Bishops 
of  Oxford  and  St.  David's,  Wilberforce  and  Thirl  wall, 
are  the  two  pointed  at  by  the  popular  finger  ;  and,  in 
some  quarters,  a  third  is  suggested,  viz.,  Stanley,  Bishop 
of  jN'orwich.  The  betting,  however,  is  altogether  in 
faTor  of  Oxford.  So  runs  the  current  of  jnihlic  gossip. 
But  the  public  is  a  bad  guesser,  "  stiff  in  opinion," 
and  almost  always  in  tlie  wrong."  Now  let  me 
guess.  When  I  had  read  for  ten  minutes,  I  offered  a 
bet  of  seven  to  one  (no  takers)  that  the  author's  namie 
began  with  H.  Not  out  of  any  love  for  that  amphibi- 
ous letter ;  on  the  contrary,  being  myself  what  Pro- 
fessor Wilson  calls  a  hedonist^  or  philosophical  volup- 

*  This  httle  paper,  founded  on  a  Vmdication  of  Protestanx 
Prmciples"  —  by  Phileleutheros  Anglicanus — might  perliaps 
sufficiently  justify  itself  by  the  importance  of  the  principles  dis- 
cussed, if  it  replied  to  a  mere  imagin^iry  antagonist.  But  this 
was  not  so.  **  The  Vindication"  was  a  real  book,  and,  as.  a 
startling  phenomenon,  made  a  sudden  and  deep  impression. 

t  Viz.  in  1847. 


318 


PKOTESTANTTSM. 


tuary,  murmuring,  with  good  reason,  if  a  rose  leaf  lies 
doubled  below  me,  naturally  I  murmur  at  a  letter  that 
puts  one  to  the  expense  of  an  aspiration,  forcing  into 
the  lungs  an  extra  charge  of  raw  air  on  frosty  mornings 
But  truth  is  truth,  in  spite  of  frosty  air.  And  yet, 
upon  further  reading,  doubts  gathered  upon  my  mind. 
The  H.  that  I  mean  is  an  Englishman  ;  now  it  happens 
that  here  and  there  a  word,  or  some  peculiarity  in 
using  a  word,  indicates,  in  this  author,  a  Scotchman  ; 
for  instance,  the  expletive  "just,"  which  so  much 
infests  Scottish  phraseology,  written  or  spoken,  at 
page  1  ;  elsewhere  the  word  "  shortcomings,''  which, 
being  horridly  tabernacular,  and  such  that  no  gentle- 
man could  allow  himself  to  touch  it  without  gloves,  it 
is  to  be  wished  that  our  Scottish  brethren  would  re- 
sign, together  with  "  hackslidings,''  to  the  use  of  field 
preachers.  But  worse,  by  a  great  deal,  and  not  even 
intelligible  in  England,  is  the  word  thereafter,  used  as 
an  adverb  of  time;  i.  e.,  as  the  correlative  of  hereafter. 
Thereafter,  in  pure  vernacular  English,  bears  a  totally 
different  sense.  In  "  Paradise  Lost,"  for  instance, 
having  heard  the  character  of  a  particular  angel,  you 
bire  told  that' he  spoke  thereafter,  i.  e.,  spoke  agreeably 
to  that  character.  "  How  a  score  of  sheep,  Master 
Shallow  ?  "  The  answer  is,  "  Thereafter  as  they  be." 
Again,  "  Thereafter  as  a  man  sows  shall  he  reaj) "  — 
i.e.,  conformably  or  answerably  to  what,  he  sews. 
The  objections  are  overwhelming  to  the  Scottish  use 
of  the  word  ;  first,  because  already  in  Scotland  it  is  a 
barbarism  transplanted  from  the  filthy  vocabulary  of 
attorneys,  locally  called  ivriters ;  secondly,  because  in 
England  it  is  not  even  intelligible,  and,  what  is  worse 


PROTESTANTISM. 


319 


still;  sure  to  be  m/s-intelligible.  And  yet,  after  all, 
these  exotic  forms  may  be  a  mere  blind.  The  writer 
is,  perhaps,  purposely  leading  us  astray  with  his 

thereafter s^^'  and  his  horrid  ''shortcomings,^^  Or, 
because  London  newspapers  and  Acts  of  Parliament, 
are  beginning  to  be  more  and  more  polluted  with 
these  barbarisms,  he  may  even  have  caught  them  un- 
consciously.   And,  on  looking  again  at  one  case  of 

thereafter viz.,  at  page  79,  it  seems  impossible  to 
determine  whether  he  uses  it  in  the  classical  English 
sense,  or  in  the  sense  of  leguleian  barbarism. 

This  question  of  authorship,  meantime,  may  seem 
to  the  reader  of  little  moment.  Far  from  it !  The 
weightier  part  of  the  interest  depends  upon  that  very 
point.  If  the  author  really  is  a  bishop,  or  supposing 
the  public  rumor  so  far  correct  as  that  he  is  a  man  of 
distinction  in  the  English  Church,  then,  and  by  that 
simple  fact,  this  book,  or  this  pamphlet,  interesting  at 
any  rate  for  itself,  becomes  separately  interesting 
through  its  authorship,  so  as  to  be  the  most  remark- 
able phenomenon  of  the  day  ;  and  why  ?  '  Because 
khe  most  remarkable  expression  of  a  movement,  ac- 
complished and  proceeding  in  a  quarter  that,  if  any  on 
this  earth,  might  be  thought  sacred  from  change.  O, 
fearful  are  the  motions  of  time,  when  suddenly  lighted 
up  to  a  retrospect  of  thirty  years  !  Pathetic  are  the 
ruins  of  time  in  its  slowest  advance  !  Solemn  are  the 
prospects,  so  new  and  so  incredible,  which  time  unfolds 
at  every  turn  of  its  wheeling  flight !  Is  it  come  to 
\h.is  ?  Could  any  man,  one  generation  back,  have  an- 
ticipated that  an  English  dignitary,  and  speaking  on  a 
very  delicate  religious  question,  should  deliberately 


320 


PROTESTANTISM. 


appeal  to  a  writer  confessedly  infidel,  and  proud  of 
being  an  infidel,  as  a  "  triumphant  "  settler  of  Chris- 
tian scruples  ?  But  if  the  infidel  is  right  —  a  point 
M'hich  I  do  not  here  discuss  ;  but  if  the  infidel  is  a 
man  of  genius —  a  point  which  I  do  not  deny —  was  it 
not  open  to  cite  him,  even  though  the  citer  were  a 
bishop  ?  Why,  yes  —  uneasily  one  answers,  yes  ;  but 
still  the  case  records  a  strange  alteration;  and  still  one 
could  have  wished  to  hear  such  a  doctrine,  which  as- 
(^ribes  human  infinnity  (nay,  human  criminality)  to 
every  book  of  the  Bible,  uttered  by  anybody  rather 
than  by  a  father  of  the  Church,  and  guaranteed  by 
anybody  rather  than  by  an  infidel  in  triumph,  A  boy 
may  fire  his  pistol  unnoticed  ;  but  a  sentinel,  mounting 
guard  in  the  dark,  must  remember  the  trepidation  that 
will  follow  any  shot  from  him^  and  the  certainty  that  it 
Sviil  cause  all  the  stations  within  hearing  to  get  under 
arms  immediately.  Yet  why,  if  this  bold  opinion  does 
come  from  a  prelate,  he  being  but  one  man,  should  it 
carry  so  alarming  a  sound  r  Is  the  whole  bench  of 
"bishops  bound  and  compromised  by  the  audacity  of 
any  one  amongst  its  members  ?  Certainly  not.  But 
yet  such  an  act,  though  it  should  be  that  of  a  rash  pre- 
cursor, marks  the  universal  change  of  position  ;  there 
is  ever  some  sympathy  between  the  van  and  the  reat 
of  the  same  body  at  the  same  time  ;  and  the  boldest 
could  not  have  dared  to  go  ahead  so  rashly,  if  the  rear- 
most was  not  known  to  be  pressing  forward  to  his 
support,  far  more  closely  than  thirty  years  ago  he 
could  have  done.  There  have  been,  it  is  true,  hetero- 
dox professors  of  divinity  and  free-thinfeing  bishops 
before  now.    England  can  show  a  considerable  list  of | 


PROTESTANTISM. 


321 


»uch  people  —  even  Kome  has  a  smaller  list.  Home, 
that  weeds  all  libraries,  and  is  continually  burning 
books,  in  effigy,  by  means  of  her  vast  Index  Expur- 
gatorius,'^'  which  index,  continually,  she  is  enlarging 
by  successive  supplements,  needs  also  an  Index  Expur- 
gatorius  for  the  catalogue  of  her  prelates.  Weeds 
there  are  in  the  very  flower-garden  and  conservatory  of 
the  church.  Fathers  of  the  Church  are  no  more  to  be 
rched  on,  as  safe  authorities,  than  we  rascally  lay  au^ 
thors,  that  notoriously  will  say  anything.  And  it  is  a 
striking  proof  of  this  amongst  our  English  bishops, 
that  the  very  man  who  in  the  last  generation,  most  of 
all  won  the  public  esteem  as  the  champion  of  the  Bible 
against  Tom  Paine,  was  privately  known  amongst  us 
connoisseurs  in  heresy  (that  are  always  prying  into  ugly 
secrets)  to  be  the  least  orthodox  thinker,  one  or  other, 
amongst  the  whole  brigade  of  eighteen  thousand  con- 
temporary clerks  who  had  subscribed  the  Thirty-nine 
Articles.  Saving  your  presence,  reader,  his  lordship 
was  no  better  than  a  bigoted  Socinian,  which,  in  a  petty:- 
diocese  that  he  never  visited,  and  amongst  South  Welsh- 
men^  that  are  all  incorrigible  Methodists,  mattered  little, 

Index  Expurgaiorius.'^'  —  A  question  of  some  interest 
arises  upon  the  casuistical  construction  of  this  Index.  We,  that 
are  not  by  name  included,  may  we  consider  ourselves  indirectly 
licensed  ?  Silence,  I  should  think,  gives  consent.  And  if  it 
wasn't  that  the  present  Pope,  being  a  horrid  Radical,  would  be 
«are  to  blackball  me  as  an  honest  Toiy,  I  would  send  him  a  copy 
of  my  Opera  O/nniaj  requesting  his  Holiness  to  say,  by  return 
of  post,  whether  I  ranked  amongst  the  chaff  vfinnowed  by  St. 
Peter's  flail,  or  had  his  gracious  permission  to  hold  myself 
•amongst  the  pure  wheat  gathered  into  the  Vatic/tn  garner, 
21 


322 


PROTESTANTISM. 


Dut  would  have  been  awkward  had  he  come  to  be  Arch- 
bishop oi  York  ;  and  that  he  did  noi^  turned  upon  the 
accident  uf  a  few  weeks  too  soon,  by  which  the  Fates 
cut  short  the  tliread  of  the  Whig  ministry  in  1807. 
Certainly,  for  a  Romish  or  an  English  bishop  to  be  a 
Socinian  is  un  pen  fort.  But  I  contend  that  it  is  quite 
possible  to  be  far  less  heretical,  and  yet  dangerously 
bold  ;  yes,  upon  the  free  and  spacious  latitudes,  pur- 
posely left  open  by  the  English  Thirty-nine  Articles  (ay, 
or  by  any  Protestant  Confession),  to  plant  novelties  not 
less  startling  to  religious  ears  than  Socinianism  itself. 
Besides  (which  adds  to  the  shock),  the  dignitary  now 
before  us,  whether  bishop  or  no  bishop,  does  not  write 
in  the  tone  or  a  conscious  heretic ;  or,  like  Archdeacon 
Blackburne^'  of  old,  in  a  spirit  of  hostility  to  his  own  fel- 
low churchmen  ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  in  the  tone  of 
one  relying  upon  support  from  his  clerical  brethren,  he 
stands  forward  as  expositor  and  champion  of  views 
now  prevailing  amongst  the  elite  of  the  English  Church. 
So  construed,  the  book  is,  indeed,  a  most  extraordi- 
nary one,  and  exposes  a  record  that  almost  shocks  one 
Lif  the  strides  made  in  religious  speculation.  Opinions, 
change  slowly  and  stealthily.  The  steps  of  the  changes 
are  generally  continuous  ;  but  sometimes  it  happens 
that  the  notice  of  such  steps,  the  publication  of  such 

''Archdeacon  Blackburne  —  He  was  the  author  of  The 
Confessional,  which  at  one  time  made  a  memorable  ferment 
amongst  all  those  who  loved  as  sons,  or  who  hated  as  non-con- 
formists, the  English  Establishment.  This  was  his  most  popular 
work,  but  he  wrote  many  others  in  the  same  temper,  that  fill  si^ 
or  seven  octavos.  I  fear  that  it  may  be  a  duty  to  read  him;  and 
if  it  is,  then  I  think  of  his  seven  octavos  with  holy  horror. 


PROTESTANTISM. 


823 


changes,  is  not  continuous,  that  it  comes  upon  us  per 
saltum,  and,  consequently,  with  the  stunning  effect  of 
an  apparent  treachery.  Every  thoughtful  man  raises 
his  hands  with  .an  involuntary  gesture  of  awe  at  the 
revolutions  of  so  revolutionary  an  age,  when  thus 
summoned  to  the  spectacle  of  an  English  prelate  serv- 
ing a  piece  of  artillery  against  what  once  were  fancied 
to  be  main  outworks  of  religion,  and  at  a  station  some- 
times considerably  in  advance  of  any  station  ever  oc- 
cupied by  Voltaire.^' 

It  is  this  audacity  of  speculation,  I  apprehend,  this 
efalage  of  bold  results,  rather  than  any  success  in  their 
development,  which  has  fixed  the  public  attention. 
Development,  indeed,  applied  to  philosophic  problems, 
or  research  applied  to  questions  of  erudition,  was 
hardly  possible  within  so  small  a  compass  as  one  hun- 
dred and  seventeen  pages,  for  that  is  the  extent  of  the 
work,  exeept  as  regards  the  notes,  which  amount  to 
seventy-four  pages  more.  Such  brevity,  on  such  a 
subject,  is  unseasonable,  and  almost  culpable.  On 
such  a  subject  as  the  Philosophy  of  Protestantism  — 

satius  erat  silere,  quam  parciiis  dicere.'^  Better 
were  absolute  silence,  more  respectful  as  regards  the 

*  '*  Voltaire.''^  — Let  not  the  reader  misunderstand  me;  I  <lo 
not  mean  that  the  clerical  writer  now  before  us  (bishop  or  not 
bishop)  is  more  hostile  to  rehgion  than  Voltaire,  or  is  hostile  at 
all.  On  the  contrary,  he  is,  perhaps,  profoundly  religious,  and 
be  writes  with  neither  levity  nor  insincerity.  But  this  conscien- 
tious spirit,  and  this  piety,  do  but  the  more  call  into  relief  the 
audacity  of  his  free-thinking  —  do  but  the  more  forcibly  illus- 
trate the  prodigious  changes  in  the  spirit  of  religious  philosophy, 
wrought  by  time,  and  by  the  contagion  from  secular  revolutions. 


324 


PROTESTANTISM. 


theme,  less  tantalizing  as  regards  the  reader,  than  a 
style  of  discussion  so  fragmentary  and  so  rapid. 

Bat,  before  we  go  farther,  what  are  we  to  call  this 
bold  man?  One  must  have  some  name  for  a  man 
that  one  is  reviewing  ;  and,  as  he  comes  abroad  incogs 
nito,  it  is  difficult  to  see  what  name  could  have  any 
propriety.  Let  me  consider  :  there  are  three  bishops 
in  the  field,  Mr.  H.,  and  the  Scotchman  —  that  makes 
five.  But  every  one  of  these,  you  sa}?,  is  represented 
equally  by  the  name  in  the  title  —  PhileleiUheros  An- 
glicanus.  True,  but  that's  as  long  as  a  team  of  horses. 
If  it  had  but  Esquire  at  the  end,  it  would  measure 
against  a  Latin  Hexameter  verse.  I'm  afraid  that  we 
must  come  at  last  to  Phil,  IVe  been  seeking  to  avoid 
it,  for  it's  painful  to  say  Jack  or  "  Dick either 
to  or  o/an  ecclesiastical  great  gun.  But  if  such  big 
wigs  loill  come  abroad  in  diguise,  and  with  names  as 
long  as  Fielding's  Hononchrononthononthologus,  they 
must  submit  to  be  hustled  by  pickpockets  and  critics, 
and  to  have  their  names  docked  as  well  as  profane 
authors. 

Phil.,  then,  be  it — ^ that's  settled.  Now,  let  us  in- 
quire what  it  is  that  Phil,  has  been  saying,  to  cause 
such  a  sensation  among  the  Gnostics.  And,  to  begin 
at  the  beginning,  what  is  PhiL's  capital  object?  Phil 
shall  state  it  himself —  these  are  his  opening  words  :  —  - 
'  In  the  following  pages  we  propose  to  vindicate  the 
tandamental  and  inherent  principles  of  Protestantism." 
Good  ;  but  what  are  the  fundamental  principles  of 
Protestantism?  "They  are,"  says  Phil.,  "the  sole 
snffieiency  of  Scripture,^^^  the  right  of  private  judgment 

*  *'  Sole  sufficiency  of  Sr,ri'ptureV  — This  is  much  tooellipti- 
;al  a  way  of  expressing  the  Protestant  meaning.    Sufficiency  for 


PEOTESTANTISM. 


325 


In  its  interpretation,  and  the  authority  of  individual 
conscience  in  matters  of  religion."  Errors  of  logic 
show  themselves  more  often  in  a  man's  terminology,  and 
uis  antithesis,  and  his  subdivisions,  than  anywhere  else. 
Phil,  goes  on  to  make  this  distinction,  which  brings 
out  his  imperfect  conception.  "  We,"  says  he  (and,  by 
the  way,  if  Phil,  is  ive^  then  it  must  be  my  duty  to 
call  him  they),  "  we  do  not  propose  to  defend  the  varie- 
ties of  doctrine  held  by  the  different  communities  of 
Protestants."  Why,  no  ;  that  would  be  a  sad  task  for 
the  most  skilful  of  funambulists  or  theological  tum- 
blers, seeing  that  many  of  these  varieties  stand  related 
to  each  other  as  categorical  affirmative  and  categorical 
negative  :  it's  heavy  w'ork  to  make  yes  and  no  pull 
together  in  the  same  proposition.  But  this,  fortunately 
for  himself,  Phil,  declines.  You  are  to  understand 
that  he  will  not  undertake  the  defence  of  Protestantism 
in  its  doctrines,  but  only  in  its  ^principles,  Jhat  won't 
do  ;  that  antithesis  is  as  hollow  as  a  drum  ;  and,  if  the 
objection  were  verbal  only,  I  would  not -make  it.  But 

what  7  "  Sufficiency  for  salvation  "  is  the  phrase  of  many,  and 
I  think  elsewhere  of  Phil.  But  thai  is  objectionable  on  more 
grounds  than  one;  it  is  redundant,  and  it  is  aberrant  from  the 
true  point  contemplated.  Sufficiency  for  itself,  without  alien 
helps,  is  the  thing  contemplated.  The  Greek  autarkeia  {arhao- 
xsia),  self-sufficiency,  or,  because  that  phrase,  in  English,  has 
received  a  deflexion  towards  a  bad  meaning,  the  word  self- 
mfficingness  might  answer;  sufficiency  for  the  exposition  of  its 
Dwn  most  secret  meaning,  out  of  fountains  within  itself ;  needing, 
therefore,  neither  the  supplementary  aids  of  tradition,  on  the 
one  hand,  nor  the  complementary  aids  on  the  other  (in  the  event 
of  unprovided  cases,  or  of  dilemmas  arising),  from  the  infallibility 
of  a  living  expounder 


326 


PROTESTAKTISM. 


the  contradistinction  fails  to  convey  the  real  meaning 
It  is  not  that  he  has  falsely  expressed  his  meaning,  but 
that  he  has  falsely  developed  that  meaning  to  his  own 
consciousness.  Not  the  word  only  is  wrong ;  but  the 
wrong  word  is  put  forward  for  the  sake  of  hiding  the 
mperfect  idea.  What  he  calls  principles  might  almost 
as  well  be  called  doctrines  ;  and  what  he  calls  doC' 
trines  as  well  be  called  principles.  But  of  these 
terms,  apart  from  the  rectifications  suggested  by  the 
context,  no  man  could  collect  his  drift,  which  is  simply 
this.  Protestantism,  we  must  recollect,  is  not  an  abso- 
lute and  self-dependent  idea ;  it  stands  in  relation  to 
something  antecedent,  against  which  it  protests  —  viz., 
Papal  Rome.  And  under  what  phasis  does  it  protest 
against  Rome  ?  Not  against  the  Christianity  of  Rome, 
because  every  Protestant  Church,  though  disapproving 
a  great  deal  of  that,  disapproves  also* a  great  deal  in  its 
own  sister  churches  of  the  protesting  household ;  and 
because  every  Protesjtant  Church  holds  a  great  deal  of 
Christian  truth  in  common  with  Rome.  But  what  fur- 
nishes the  matter  of  protest  is  —  the  deduction  of  the 
title  upon  which  Rome  plants  the  right  to  be  a  church 
at  all.  This  deduction  is  so  managed  by  Rome  as  to 
make  herself,  not  merely  a  true  church  (which  many 
Protestants  grant),  but  the  exclusive  church.  Now 
what  Phil,  in  effect  undertakes  to  defend  is  not  prin- 
ciples by  preference  to  doctrines  (for  they  are  pretty 
nearly  the  same  thing),  but  the  question  of  title  to 
teach  at  all,  in  preference  to  the  question  of  what  is  the 
thing  taught.  There  is  the  distinction,  as  I  appre- 
nend  it.  All  these  terms  —  "principle,"  "  doctrine/' 
'  system,"  "  theory,"     hypothesis  "  — are  used  nearly 


PROTESTANTISM. 


327 


always  most  licentiously,  and  as  arbitrarily  as  a  New- 
market jockey  selects  the  colors  for  his  riding-dress. 
It  is  true  that  one  shadow  of  justification  offers  itself 
for  Phil.^s  distinction.  All  principles  are  doctrines, 
but  all  doctrines  are  not  principles  ;  which,  then,  in 
particular  ?  Why,  those  properly  are  principles  which 
contain  the  principia,  the  beginnings,  or  starting-points 
of  evolution,  out  of  which  any  system  of  truth  is 
developed.  Now,  it  may  seem  that  the  very  starting- 
point  of  our  Protestant  pretensions  is,  first  of  all,  to 
argue  our  title  or  right  to  be  a  church  sui  juris  ;  ap- 
parently we  must  begin  by  making  good  our  locus 
standi,  before  we  can  be  heard  upon  our  doctrines. 
And  upon  this  mode  of  approach,  the  pleadings  about 
the  title^  or  right  to  teach  at  all,  taking  precedency  of 
the  pleadings  about  the  particular  things  taught,  would 
be  the  principia,  or  beginnings  of  the  whole  process, 
and  so  far  would  be  entitled  by  preference  to  the  name 
of  principles.  But  such  a  mode  of  approach  is  merely 
an  accident,  and  contingent  upon  our  being  engaged 
in  a  polemical  discussion  of  Protestantism  in  relation 
to  Popery.  That,  however,  is  a  pure  matter  of  choice  ; 
Protestantism  may  be  discussed,  as  though  Rome  Avere 
not,  in  relation  to  its  own  absolute  merits  ;  and  this 
treatment  is  the  logical  treatment,  applying  itself  to 
what  is  permanent  in  the  nature  of  the  object ;  whereas 
the  other  treatment  applies  itself  to  what  is  casual  and 
vanishing  in  the  history  (or  the  origin)  of  Protestantism. 
For,  after  all,  it  would  be  no  great  triumph  to  Protest- 
antism that  she  should  prove  her  birthright  to  revolve 
Rs  a  primary  planet  in  the  Christian  system ;  that  she 
Uad  the  same  original  right  as  Rome  to  wheel  about  the 


328 


PEOTESTANTISJM. 


great  central  orb,  undegraded  to  the  rank  of  satellite 
or  secondary  projection  —  if,  in  the  meantime,  tele- 
scopes should  reveal  the  fact  that  she  was  pretty  nearly 
a  sandy  desert.  What  a  church  teaches  is  true  or  not 
true,  without  reference  to  her  independent  right  of 
teaching ;  and  eventually,  when  the  irritations  of 
earthly  feuds  and  political  schisms  shall  be  tran- 
quillized by  time,  the  philosophy  of  the  whole  ques- 
tion will  take  an  inverse  order.-  The  credentials  of 
a  church  will  not  be  put  in  first,  and  the  quality  of 
her  doctrine  discussed  as  a  secondary  question.  On 
the  contrary,  her  credentials  will  be  sought  in  her  doc- 
trine. The  protesting  church  will  say,  I  have  the 
right  to  stand  separate,  because  I  do  stand;  and  from 
my  holy  teaching  I  deduce  my  title  to  teach.  Jus  est 
ihi  summum  docendi,  ubi  est  fons  purissimus  doctrince. 
That  inversion  of  the  Protestant  plea  with  Rome  is 
even  now  valid  with  many ;  and,  when  it  becomes 
universally  current,  then  the  priiiciples,  or  great  begin- 
nings of  the  controversy,  will  be  transplanted  from  the 
centre,  where  Phil,  places  them,  to  the  very  locus 
which  he  neglects.  One  church  may  say  —  My  doc- 
trine must  be  holy,  because  it  is  admitted  that  I  have 
the  authentic  commission  from  Heaven  to  teach.  But 
equally  another  church  may  say  —  My  commission  to 
teach  must  be  conceded,  because  my  teaching  is  holy. 
The  first  deduces  the  purity  of  her  doctrine  from  her 
Divine  commission  to  teach.  But  the  second,  with 
logic  as  forcible,  deduces  her  Divine  commission  to 
teach  from  the  purity  of  her  doctrine. 

There  is  another  expression  of  Phil's,  to  which  I 
vbjc-ct.    He  describes  the  doctrines  held  by  all  the 


PROTESTANTISM. 


329 


separate  Protestant  churches  as  doctrines  of  Protest- 
antism. I  would  not  delay  either  PliiL  or  myself  for 
the  sake  of  a  trifle  ;  but  an  impossibility  is  not  a  trifle* 
If  from  orthodox  Turkey  *  you  pass  to  heretic  Persia, 
if  from  the  rigor  of  the  Sonnees  (orthodox  Mussulmans) 
to  the  laxity  of  the  Sheeahs  (Mahometan  heretics),  you 
could  not,  in  explaining  those  schisms,  go  on  to  say, 
"And  these  are  the  doctrines  of  Islamism  ;  "  for  they 
destroy  each  other.  Both  are  supported  by  earthly 
powers;  but  only  one  could  be  supported  by  a  central 
organ  of  Islamism,  if  such  there  were.  So  of  Calvin- 
ism and  Arminianism  ;  you  cannot  call  them  doctrines 
of  Protestantism,  as  if  growling  out  of  some  recon- 
ciling Protestant  principles ;  one  of  the  two,  though 
not  manifested  to  human  eyes  in  its  falsehood,  must 
secretly  be  false ;  and  a  falsehood  cannot  be  a  doc- 
trine of  Protestantism.  It  is  more  accurate  to  say, 
that  the  separate  creeds  of  Turkey  and  Persia  are 
ivithin  Mahometanism  ;  such,  viz.,  as  that  neither  ex- 
cludes a  man  from  the  name  of  Mussulman ;  and, 
again,  that  Calvinism  and  Arminianism  are  doctrines 
within  the  Protestant  Church  —  as  a  church  of  gen- 

*  Orthodox  Turkey:^'' — At  Mecca,  or  more  probably 
throughout  the  Mussulman  world,  the  Ottoman  Sultan  is  re- 
garded as  the  true  filial  champion  ed  deen  [i.  e.y  of  the  faith]. 
He  is  the  right-hfJULd  pillar;  whereas  the  Shah  of  Persia  is  a 
heterodox  believer,  and  therefore  an  unsound  pillar.  But  it  illus- 
trates powerfully  the  non-spirituality  of  this  religion  (though 
pirated  chiefly  from  the  Bible),  that  this  great  schism  in  Islam- 
ism does  not  turn  upon  any  point  of  doctrine,  but  simply  upon  a 
most  trivial  question  of  historic  fact  —  viz.,  who  were  de  jure  the 
\mmediate  successors  of  Mahomet. 


330 


PEOTESTANTISM. 


eral  toleration  for  all  religious  doctrines  not  demonstra- 
bly hostile  to  any  cardinal  truth  of  Christianity. 

Phil,^  then,  we  all  understand,  is  not  going  to  trav- 
erse the  vast  field  of  Protestant  opinions  as  they  are 
distributed  through  our  many  sects ;  that  would  be 
endless  ;  and  he  illustrates  the  mazy  character  of  the 
wilderness  over  which  these  sects  are  wandering, 

 **ubi  passim 

Palantes  error  recto  de  tramite  pellit," 

by  the  four  cases  of —  1,  the  Calvinist ;  2,  the  New- 
manite  ;  3,  the  Pcomanist ;  ^'  4,  the  Evangelical  enthu- 

*  *'  The  Romanist  '*  —  What,  amongst  Protestant  sects  ?  Ay, 
even  so.  It's  Phil.''s-  mistake,  not  mine.  He  will  endeavor  to 
doctor  the  case,  by  pleading  that  he  was  speaking  universally  of 
Christian  error  ;  but  the  position  of  the  clause  forbids  this  plea. 
Not  only  in  relation  to  what  immediately  precedes,  the  passage 
must  be  supposed  to  contemplate  Protestant  error  ;  but  the 
immediate  inference  from  it,  viz.,  that  '*  the  world  may  well  be 
excused  for  doubting  whether  there  is,  after  all,  so  much  to  be 
gained  by  that  liberty  of  private  judgment,  which  is  the  essen- 
tial characteristic  of  Protestantism  ;  whether  it  be  not,  after  all, 
merely  a  liberty  to  fall  into  error,"  nails  Phil,  to  that  construc- 
tion —  argues  too  strongly  that  it  is  an  oversight  of  indolence. 
Phil,  was  sleeping  for  the  moment,  which  is  excusable  enough 
towards  the  end  of  a  book,  but  hardly  in  section  1.  P.  S.  — I  have 
since  observed  (which  not  to  have  observed  is  excused,  perhaps, 
by  the  too  complex  machinery  of  hooks  and  eyes  between  the  text 
and  the  notes  involving  a  double  reference  —  first,  to  the  section; 
second,  to  the  particular  clause  of  the  section)  that  Phil,  has 
not  here  committed  an  inadvertency;  or,  if  he  has,  is  determined 
(0  fight  himself  through  his  inadvertency,  rather  than  break  up 
^lis  quaternion  of  cases.  "  In  speaking  of  Romanism,  as  arising 
from  a  misapplication  of  Protestant  principles,  we  refer,  not  to 
Vhose  who  were  born,  but  to  those  who  have  become  members  of 


PBOTESTANTISM. 


831 


Biast  —  as  holding  systems  of  doctrine,  "  no  one  of 
which  is  capable  of  recommending  itself  to  the  favor- 

the  Church  of  Rome."  What  is  the  name  of  those  people  ?  And 
where  do  they  live  ?  I  have  heard  of  many  who  think  (and  there 
are  cases  in  which  most  of  us,  that  meddle  with  philosophy,  are 
apt  to  think)  occasional  principles  of  Protestantism  available 
for  the  defence  of  certain  Roman  Catholic  mysteries  too  indis- 
criminately assaulted  by  the  Protestant  zealot  ;  but,  with  this 
exception,  I  am  not  aware  of  any  parties  professing  to  derive  their 
Popish  learnings  from  Protestantism  ;  it  is  in  spite  o/*  Protestant- 
ism, as  seeming  to  ihein  not  strong  enough,  or  through  principles 
omitted  by  Protestantism,  which  therefore  seems  to  them  not 
careful  enough  or  not  impartial  enough,  that  Protestants  have 
lapsed  to  Popery.  Protestants  have  certainly  been  known  to  be- 
come Papists,  not  through  Popish  arguments,  but  simply  through 
their  own  Protestant  books  ;  yet  never,  that  I  heard  of,  through 
an  affirmative  process,  as  though  any  Protestant  argument  in- 
volved the  rudiments  of  Popery,  but  by  a  negative  process,  as 
fancying  the  Protestant  reasons,  though  lying  in  the  right  di- 
rection, not  going  far  enough;  or,  again,  though  right  partially, 
yet  defective  as  a  whole.  Phil.,  therefore,  seems  to  me  absolutely 
caught  in  a  sort  of  FurccE  CaudincBf  unless  he  has  a  dodge  in 
reserve  to  puzzle  us  all.  In  a  different  point,  T,  that  hold  myself 
a  doctor  seraphicus,  and  also  inexpugnabilis  upon  quillets  of 
logic,  justify  Phil.,  whilst  also  I  blame  him.  He  defends  himself 
rightly  for  distinguishing  between  the  Romanist  and  Newmanite 
m  the  one  hand,  between  the  Calvinist  and  the  Evangelican  man 
oil  the  other,  though  perhaps  a  young  gentleman,  commencing 
his  studies  on  the  Organouy  will  fancy  that  here  he  has  Phil,  in 
a  trap,  for  these  distinctions,  he  will  say,  do  not  entirely  exclude 
each  other  as  -they  ought  to  do.  The  class  calling  itself  Evan- 
gelical, for  instance,  may  also  be  Calvinistic  ;  the  Newmanite  is 
not  therefore,  anti-Romanish.  True,  says  Phil.  ;  I  am  quite 
a  ware  of  it.  But  to  be  aware  of  an  objection  is  not  to  answer  it. 
The  fact  seems  to  be,  that  the  actual  combinations  of  life,  not 
conforming  to  the  truth  of  abstractions,  compel  us  to  seeming 


332 


PROTESTANTISM. 


able  opinion  of  an  impartial  judge."  Impartial  !  but 
what  Cbristian  can  be  impartial  ?  To  be  free  from  ali 
bias,  and  to  begin  his  review  of  sects  in  that  temper, 
he  must  begin  by  being  an  infidel.  Vainly  a  man 
endeavors  to  reserve  in  a  state  of  neutrality  any  pre- 
conceptions that  he  may  have  formed  for  himself  or 
prepossessions  that  he  may  have  inherited  from  "  mam- 
ma ;  "  he  cannot  do  it  any  more  than  he  can  dismiss 
his  own  shadow.  Every  man  that  lives,  has  (or  has 
had)  a  mamma^  who  has  made  it  impossible  for  him  to 
be  neutral  in  religious  beliefs.  And  it  is  strange  to 
contemplate  the  weakness  of  strong  minds  in  fancying 
that  they  can.  Calvin,  whilst  amiably  engaged  in 
hunting  Servetus  to  death,  and  writing  daily  letters  to 
his  friends,  in  which  he  expresses  his  hope  that  the 
executive  power  would  not  think  of  burning  the  poor 
man,  since  really  justice  would  be  quite  satisfied  by 
cutting  his  head  off,  meets  with  some  correspondents 
who  conceive  (idiots  that  they  were  !)  even  that  little 
amputation  not  absolutely  indispensable.  But  Calvin 
soon  settles  their  scruples.    You  don't  perceive,  he 

breaches  of  logic.  It  woukl  be  right  practically  to  distinguish 
the  Radical  from  the  Whig  ;  and  yet  it  might  shock  Duns  or 
Lombardus,  the  magister  sententiarum,  when  he  came  to  under- 
stand that  partially  the  j^rinciples  of  Radicals  and  Whigs  coin- 
cide. But,  for  all  that,  the  logic  which  distinguishes  them  is 
right  ;  and  the  apparent  error  must  be  sought  in  the  fact,  that 
all  cases  (political  or  religious)  being  cases  of  life,  are  concretes, 
which  never  conform  to  the  exquisite  truth  of  abstractions. 
Practically,  the  Radical  is  opposed  to  the  Whig,  though  caj>ually 
the  two  are  in  conjunction  continually  ;  for,  as  acHng  parti- 
sans, they  work  from  different  centres,  and,  finally, /or  different 
results. 


PROTESTANTISM. 


333 


tells  them,  wliat  this  man  has  been  about.  When  a 
writer  attacks  Popery,  it's  very  wrong  in  the  Papists 
to  cut  his  head  off ;  and  why  ?  Because  he  has  only 
been  attacking  error.  But  here  lies  the  difference  in 
this  case ;  Servetus  had  been  attacking  the  truth. 
Do  you  see  the  distinction,  my  friends  ?  Consider  it, 
and  I  am  sure  you  will  be  sensible  that  this  quite 
alters  the  case.  It  is  shocking,  it  is  perfectly  ridicu- 
lous, that  the  Bishop  of  Rome  should  touch  a  hair  of 
any  man's  head  for  contradicting  him;  and  why? 
Because,  do  you  see  ?  he  is  wrong.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  is  evidently  agreeable  to  philosophy,  that  I,  John 
Calvin,  should  shave  off  the  hair,  and,  indeed,  the 
head  itself  (as  I  heartily  hope     will  be  done  in  this 

*  The  reader  may  imagine  that,  in  thus  abstracting  Calvin's 
epistolary  sentiments,  I  am  a  little  improving  them.  Certainly 
they  would  bear  improvement,  but  that  is  not  my  business. 
What  the  reader  sees  here  is  but  the  result  of  bringing  scattered 
passages  into  closer  juxtaposition  ;  whilst,  as  to  the  strongest 
(viz.,  the  most  sanguinary)  sentiments  here  ascribed  to  him,  it 
will  be  a  sufficient  evidence  of  my  fidelity  to  the  literal  truth, 
if  I  cite  three  separate  sentences.  Writing  to  Farrel,  he  says, 
**  Spero  capitale  saltern  fore  judicium."  Sentence  of  the  court, 
he  hopes,  will,  at  any  rate,  reach  the  life  of  Servetus.  Die  he 
must,  and  die  he  shall.  But  why  should  he  die  a  cruel  death  ? 
"  Psenoe  vero  atrocitatem  remitti  cupio."  To  the  same  purpose, 
when  writing  to  Sultzer,  he  expresses  his  satisfaction  in  being 
ible  to  assure  him  tiiat  a  principal  civic  officer  of  Geneva  was,  in 
this  case,  entirely  upright,  and  animated  by  the  most  virtuous 
sentiments.  Indeed  !  What  an  interestmg  character  !  and  in 
9v^hat  way  now  might  this  good  man  show  this  beautiful  tender- 
ness of  conscience  ?  W4iy,  by  a  fixed  resolve  that  Servetus  should 
not  in  any  case  escape  the  catastrophe  which  I,  John  Calvin,  am 
longing  for  ("  ut  saltem  exitum,  quern  optamus,  non  fugiat  "). 


334 


PROTESTANTISM. 


present  case)  of  any  man  presumptuous  enough  to  con- 
tradict 7ne  ;  but  then,  why  ?  For  a  reason  that  makes 
all  the  difference  in  the  world,  and  which,  one  would 
think,  idiocy  itself  could  not  overlook,  viz.,  that  I, 
John  Calvin,  am  right  —  right,  through  three  degrees 
of  comparison  —  right,  righter,  or  more  right,  rightest, 
or  most  right. 

The  self-sufficingness  of  the  Bible,  and  the  right  of 
private  judgment- — here,  then,  are  the  two  great  charac- 
ters in  which  Protestantism  commences ;  these  are  the 
bulwarks  behind  which  it  intrenches  itself  against 
Kome.  And  it  is  remarkable  that  these  two  great  pre- 
liminary laws,  which  soon  diverge  into  fields  so  differ- 
ent, at  the  first  are  virtually  one  and  the  same  law. 
The  refusal  of  a  Delphic  oracle  at  Rome  alien  to  the 
Bible,  extrinsic  to  the  Bible,  and  claiming  the  sole  in- 
terpretation of  the  Bible  ;  the  refusal  of  an  oracle 
that  reduced  the  Bible  to  a  hollow  mask,  underneath 
which  fraudulently  introducing  itself  any  earthly  voice 
could  mimic  a  heavenly  voice,  was  in  effect  to  refuse 

Finally,  writing  to  the  same  Sultzer,  he  remarks  that  —  when  we 
see  the  Papists  such  avenging  champions  of  their  own  super- 
stitious fables  as  not  to  falter  in  shedding  innocent  blood,  "  pudeat 
Christianos  maglstratus  [as  if  the  Roman  Catholic  magistrates 
were  not  Christians]  in  tuenda  certd  veritate  nihil  prorsus  ha- 
bere animi  "  —  '  *  Christian  magistrates  ought  to  be  ashamed  of 
themselves  for  manifesting  no  energy  at  all  in  the  vindication  of 
truth  undeniable;"  yet  really  since  these  magistrates  had  at 
that  time  the  full  design,  which  design  not  many  days  after  they 
executed,  of  maintaining  truth  by  fire"  and  faggot,  one  does  not 
Bee  the  call  upon  them  for  blushes  so  very  deep  as  Calvin  requires. 
Hands  so  crimson  with  blood  might  compensate  the  absence  of 
orimBon  oh  ,cks. 


PItOTESTANTISM.  335 

the  coercion  of  this  false  oracle  over  each  man's  con- 
scientious judgment ;  to  make  the  Bible  independent 
of  the  Pope,  was  to  make  man  independent  of  all  re- 
ligious controllers.  The  self-sufficingness  of  Scripture^ 
its  independency  of  any  external  interpreter,  passed  in 
one  moment  into  the  other  great  Protestant  doctrine  of 
Toleration.  It  was  but  the  same  triumphal  monument 
under  a  new  angle  of  sight,  the  golden  and  silver  faces 
of  the  same  heraldic  shield.  The  very  same  act  which 
denies  the  right  of  interpretation  to  a  mysterious 
Papal  phoenix,  renewed  from  generation  to  generation, 
having  the  antiquity  and  the  incomprehensible  omni- 
science of  the  Simorg,^'  that  ancient  bird  in  Southey, 
transferred  this  right  of  mere  necessity  to  the  individ- 
uals of  the  whole  human  race.  For  where  else  could 
it  have  been  lodged?  Any  attempt  in  any  other  di- 
rection was  but  to  restore  the  Papal  power  in  a  new 
impersonation.  Every  man,  therefore,  suddenly  ob- 
tained the  right  of  interpreting  the  Bible  for  himself. 
But  the  word  "  right obtained  a  new  sense.  Every 
man  has  the  right,  protected  by  the  Queen's  Bench,  of 
publishing  an  unlimited  number  of  metaphysical  sys- 
tems ;  and,  under  favor  of  the  same  indulgent  Bench, 
we  all  enjoy  the  unlimited  right  of  laughing  at  him. 
But  not  the  whole  race  of  man  has  a  right  to  coerce., 
in  the  exercise  of  his  intellectual  rights,  the  humblest 
of  individuals.    The  rights  of  men  are  thus  unspeak- 

^  The  Sijnorg :  — If  the  reader  has  not  made  the  ac- 
quaintance of  this  mysterious  bird,  eldest  of  created  things.,  it  is 
dme  he  should.  The  Simorg  would  help  him  out  of  all  his 
troubles,  if  the  reader  could  find  him  at  home.  Let  him  consuU 
Southey 's  Thalaba." 


336 


protestantism:. 


ably  elevated  ;  for,  being  now  freed  from  all  anxiety, 
being  sacred  as  merely  legal  rights,  they  suddenly  rise 
into  a  new  mode  of  responsibility  as  intellectual  rights. 
As  a  Protestant,  every  mature  man,  the  very  humblest 
and  poorest,  has  the  same  dignified  right  over  liis  own 
opinions  and  profession  of  faith  that  he  has  over  his 
own  hearth.  But  his  hearth  can  rarely  be  abused  ; 
whereas  his  religious  system,  being  a  vast  kingdom, 
opening  by  immeasurable  gates  upon  worlds  of  light 
and  worlds  of  darkness,  now  brings  him  within  a  new 
amenability  —  called  upon  to  answer  new  impeach- 
ments, and  to  seek  for  new  assistances.  Formerly 
another  was  answerable  for  his  belief ;  if  that  were 
wrong,  it  was  no  fault  of  his.  Now  he  has  new  rights, 
but  these  have  burdened  him  with  new  obligations. 
Now  he  is  crowned  with  the  glory  and  the  palms  of  an 
intellectual  creature,  but  he  is  alarmed  by  the  certainty 
of  corresponding  struggles.  Protestantism  it  is  that 
has  created  him  into  this  child  and  heir  of  liberty  ; 
J  Protestantism  it  is  that  has  invested  him  with  these 
unbounded  privileges  of  private  judgment,  giving  him 
in  one  moment  the  sublime  pov/ers  of  a  Pope  within 
his  one  solitary  conscience  ;  but  Protestantism  it  is 
that  has  introduced  him  to  the  most  dreadful  of  re- 
gponsibilities. 

I  repeat  that  the  twin  maxims,  the  columns  of  Her- 
cules through  which  Protestantism  entered  the  great 
sea  of  human  activities,  were  originally  but  two  aspects 
of  one  law  :  to  deny  the  Papal  control  over  men's 
conscience  being  to  affirm  man's  self-control,  was, 
therefore,  to  affirm  man's  universal  right  to  toleration, 
which  again  implied  a  correspondirig  rfi/i?/  of  toleration. 


PEOTESTANTISM. 


337 


Under  this  bi-fronted  law,  generated  by  Protestantism, 
but  in  its  turn  regulating  Protestantism,  Phil,  under- 
takes to  develop  all  the  principles  that  belong  to  a 
Protestant  church.  The  seasonahleness  of  such  an 
investigation  —  its  critical  application  to  an  evil  now 
spreading  like  a  fever  through  Europe  —  he  perceives 
fully,  and  in  the  following  terms  expresses  this  percep- 
tion ;  ■ — 

That  we  stand  on  the  brink  of  a  great  theological  crisis,  that 
fehe  problem  must  soon  be  solved,  how  far  orthodox  Christianity 
is  possible  for  those  who  are  not  behind  their  age  in  scholarship 
and  science  ;  this  is  a  solemn  fact,  which  may  be  ignored  by  the 
partisans  of  short-sighted  bigotry,  but  which  is  felt  by  all,  and 
confessed  by  most  of  those  wha  are  capable  of  appreciating  its 
reality  and  importance.  The  deep  Sibylline  vaticinations  of 
Coleridge's  philosophical  mind,  the  practical  working  of  Arnold's 
religious  sentimentalism,  and  the  open  acknowledgment  of  many 
divines  who  are  living  examples  of  the  spirit  of  the  age,  have 
all,  in  dilferent  ways,  foretold  the  advent  of  a  Church  of  the 
Future." 

This  is  from  the  preface,  p.  ix.,  where  the  phrase, 
Church  of  the  Future,  points  to  the  Prussian  minister's 
(Bunsen's)  Kirche  der  Zukunft ;  but  in  the  body  of 
the  work,  and  not  far  from  its  close  (p.  114),  he  re- 
curs to  this  crisis,  and  more  circumstantially. 

Phil,  embarrasses  himself  and  his  readers  in  this 
development  of  Protestant  principles.  His  own  view 
of  the  task  before  him  requires  that  he  should  sepa- 
rate himself  from  the  consideration  of  any  particular 
church,  and  lay  aside  all  partisanship  —  plausible  or 
not  plausible.  It  is  his  own  overture  that  warrants  us 
in  expecting  this.  And  yet,  before  we  have  travelled 
three  measured  inches,  he  is  found  entangling  himself 
22 


388 


PROTESTxiXTISM. 


with  Chiircli  of  Englandism.  Let  me  not  be  misiin- 
d(^rstood,  as  though,  borrowing  a  Bentham  word,  I 
were  therefore  a  Jerry  Benthamite  :  I,  that  may  de- 
scribe myself  generally  as  Philo-PliiL,  am  not  less  a 
son  of  the  Reformed  Anglican  Church  "  than  Phil. 
Consequently,  it  is  not  likely  that,  in  any  vindication 
of  that  church,  simply  as  such,  and  separately  for  itself, 
I  should  be  the  man  to  find  grounds  of  exception. 
Loving  most  of  what  Phil,  loves,  loving  Phil,  himself, 
and  hating  (I  grieve  to  say),  with  a  theological  hatred^ 
whatever  Phil,  hates,  why  should  I  demur  at  this 
particular  point  to  a  course  of  argument  that  travels 
in  the  line  of  my  ov/n  partialities  ?  And  yet  I  do  de- 
mur. Having  been  promised  a  philosophic  defence  of 
the  principles  concerned  in  the  great  European  schism 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  suddenly  we  find  ourselves 
collapsing  from  that  altitude  of  speculation  into  a  de- 
fence of  one  individual  church.  Nobody  would  com- 
plain of  Phil.,  if  after  having  deduced  philosophically 
the  principles  upon  w^hich  all  Protestant  separation 
from  Rome  should  revolve,  he  had  gone  forward  to 
show,  that  in  some  one  of  the  Protestant  churches 
more  than  in  others,  these  principles  had  been  asserted 
with  peculiar  strength,  or  carried  through  with  special 
consistency,  or  associated  pre-eminently  with  the  other 
graces  of  a  Christian  church,  such  as  a  ritual  more  im- 
pressive to  the  heart  of  man  —  where  lies  the  defence 
for  the  sublime  Anglican  Liturgy  ;  or  a  polity  more 
symmeti:ical  with  the  structure  of  English  society  — 
where  lies  the  defence  of  Episcopacy.  Once  having 
unfolded  from  philosophic  grounds  the  primary  condi- 
tions of  a  pure  Scriptural  church,  Phil,  might  then, 


protestantism:. 


330 


ivithout  blame,  have  turned  sharp  round  upon  us, 
saying,  such  being  the  conditions  under  which  the 
great  idea  of  a  true  Christian  church  must  be  con- 
structed, I  now  go  on  to  show  that  the  Charch  of  Eng- 
land has  conformed  to  those  conditions  more  faithfully 
than  any  other.  But  to  entangle  the  pure  outlines  of 
the  idealizing  mind  with  the  practical  forms  of  any 
militant  church,  embarrassed  (as  we  know  all  churches 
to  have  been)  by  pre-occupations  of  judgment,  derived 
from  feuds  too  local  and  interests  too  political,  moving 
also  (as  we  know  all  churches  to  have  moved)  in  a 
spirit  of  compromise,  occasionally  from  mere  necessi- 
ties of  position  ;  this  is  in  the  result  to  injure  the  ob- 
ject of  the  writer  doubly  :  first,  as  leaving  "an  impres- 
sion of  partisanship  :  the  reader  is  mistrustful  from  the 
first,  as  against  a  judge  that  in  reality  is  an  advocate ; 
second,  without  reference  to  the  effect  upon  the  reader, 
directly  to  Phil,  it  is  injurious,  by  fettering  the  free- 
dom of  his  speculations  ;  or,  if  leaving  their  freedom 
undisturbed,  by  narrowing  their  compass. 

And,  if  Phil.,  as  to  the  general  movement  of  his 
Protestant  pleadings,  modulates  too  little  in  the  trans- 
cendental key,  sometimes  he  does  so  too  much.  For 
instance,  at  p.  69,  sec.  35,  we  find  him  half  calling 
upon  Protestantism  to  account  for  her  belief  in  God  ; 
how  then?  Is  this  belief  special  to  Protestants?  Are 
Roman  Catholics,  are  those  of  the  Greek,  the  Arme- 
nian, and  other  Christian  churches,  atheistically  given  ? 
We  used  to  be  told  that  there  is  no  royal  road  to 
geometry.  I  don't  know  whether  there  is  or  not;  ^ut 
I  am  sure  there  is  no  Protestant  by-road,  no  Reforma- 
tion short-cut,  to  the  demonstration  of  Deity.    It  is 


340 


PSOTESTANTISM. 


true  that  Phil,  exonerates  his  philosophic  scholar, 
when  throwing  himself  in  Protestant  freedom  upon 
pure  intellectual  aids,  from  the  vain  labor  of  such  an 
effort.  He  consigns  him,  however  philosophic,  to  the 
evidence  of  inevitable  assumptions,  upon  axiomatic 
postulates,  which  the  reflecting  mind  is  compelled  to 
accept,  and  which  no  more  admit  of  doubt  and  cavil 
than  of  establishment  by  formal  proof."  I  am  not 
sure  whether  I  understand  Phil,  in  this  section.  Ap- 
parently he  is  glancing  at  Kant.  Kant  w^as  the  first 
person,  and  perhaps  the  last,  that  ever  undertook 
formally  to  demonstrate  the  indemonstrability  of  God. 
He  showed  that  the  three  great  arguments  for  the 
existence  of  the  Deity  were  virtually  one,  inasmuch 
as  the  two  weaker  borrowed  their  value  and  vis  apo- 
deictica  from  the  more  rigorous  metaphysical  argument. 
The  physico-theological  argument  he  forced  to  back, 
as  it  were,  into  the  cosmological,  and  that  into  the 
ontological.  After  this  reluctant  regressus  of  the 
three  into  one,  shutting  up  like  a  spy-glass,  which 
(with  the  iron  hand  of  Hercules  forcing  Cerberus  up 
to  daylight)  the  stern  man  of  Koenigsberg  resolutely 
dragged  to  the  front  of  the  arena,  nothing  remained, 
now  that  he  had  this  pet  scholastic  argument  driven  up 
into  a  corner,  than  to  break  its  neck  —  which  he  did. 
Kant  took  the  conceit  out  of  all  the  three  arguments; 
but,  if  this  is  what  Phil,  alludes  to,  he  should  have 
ftdded,  that  these  three,  after  all,  were  only  the  argu- 
ments of  speculating  or  theoretic  reason.  To  this 
faculty  Kant  peremptorily  denied  the  power  of  demon- 
strating the  Deity ;  but  then  that  same  opodeixis, 
which  he  had  thus  inexorably  torn  from  reason  under 


PKOTESTANTISM. 


341 


f«ne  manifestation,  Kant  himself  restored  to  the  reason 
in  another  (the  praktische  vernunft),  God  he  asserts 
to  he  a  postulate  of  the  human  reason,  as  speaking 
through  the  conscience  and  will,  not  proved  ostensively^ 
but  indirectly  proved  as  being  ivanted  indispensably, 
and  presupposed  in  other  necessities  of  our  human 
nature.  This,  probably,  is  what  PhiL  means  by  his 
short-hand  expression  of  "axiomatic  postulates."  But 
then  it  should  not  have  been  said  that  the  case  does 
not  "  admit  of  formal  proof,"  since  the  proof  is  as 

formal  "  and  rigorous  by  this  new  method  of  Kant 
as  by  the  old  obsolete  methods  of  Sam.  Clarke  and 
the  schoolmen.*' 

But  it  is  not  the  too  high  ar  the  too  low^  —  the  too 
much  or  the  too  little  —  of  what  one  might  call  by 
analogy  the  transce7idental  course,  which  I  charge 
upon  PkiL  It  is,  that  he  is  too  desultory  —  too 
eclectic.  And  the  secret  purpose,  which  seems  to  me 
predominant  throughout  his  work,  is,  not  so  much  the 
defence  of  Protestantism,  or  even  of  the  Anglican 
Church,  as  a  report  of  the  latest  novelties  that  have 
found  a  roosting-place  in  the  English  Church,  amongst 
the  most  temperate  of  those  churchmen  who  keep  pace 
with  modern  philosophy  ;  in  short,  it  is  a  selection 
from  the  classical  doctrines  of  religion,  exhibited  under 
their  newest  revision  ;  or,  generally,  it  is  an  attempt 

*  The  method  of  Des  Cartes  was  altogether  separate  and  pe- 
culiar to  himself;  it  is  a  more  conjuror's  juggle;  and  yet,  what 
is  strange,  like  some  other  audacious  sophisms,  it  is  capable  of 
\)eing  so  stated  as  most  of  all  to  baffle  the  subtle  dialectician; 
and  Kant  himself,  though  not  cheated,  was  never  so  much  per* 
plexed  in  his  life  as  in  the  effort  to  make  its  hollo wness  apparent. 


342 


PROTESTANTISM. 


to  show,  from  what  is  going  on  amongst  tho  most 
moving  orders  in  the  English  Church,  how  far  it  is 
possible  that  strict  orthodoxy  should  bend,  on  the  one 
side,  to  new  impulses,  derived  from  an  advancing 
philosophy,  and  yet,  on  the  other  side,  should  recon- 
cile itself,  both  verbally  and  in  spirit,  with  ancient 
standards.  But  if  Phil,  is  eclectic,  then  I  will  be 
eclectic  ;  if  Phil,  has  a  right  to  be  desultory,  then  1 
have  a  right.  Phil,  is  my  leader.  I  can't,  in  reason, 
be  expected  to  be  better  than  he  is.  If  I'm  wrong, 
Phil,  ought  to  set  me  a  better-  example.  And  here, 
before  this  honorable  audience  of  the  public,  I  charge 
all  my  errors  (whatever  they  may  be,  past  or  coming) 
upon  Phil's  misconduct.- 

Having  thus  established  my  patent  of  vagrancy,  and 
mj  license  for  picking  and  choosing,  I  choose  out  these 
three  articles  to  toy  with :  —  first,  Bibliolatry  ;  second. 
Development  applied  to  the  Bible  and  Christianity  ; 
third.  Philology,  as  the  particular  resource  against 
false  philosophy,  relied  on  by  Phil. 

Bibliolatry.  —  We  Protestants  charge  upon  the 
Ponteficii,  as  the  more  learned  of  our  fathers  always 
called  the  Roman  Catholics,  Mariolatry ;  they  pay  un- 
due honors,  say  ^ve,  to  the  Virgin.  They  in  return 
charge  upon  us,  Bibliolatry,  or  superstitious  allegiance 
—  an  idolatrous  homage  —  to  the  words,  syllables,  and 
punctuation  of  the  Bible.  They,  according  to  us, 
deify  a  woman ;  and  we,  according  to  them,  deify  an 
arrangement  of  printer's  types.  As  to  their  error,  we 
need  not  mind  that :  let  us  attend  to  our  own.  And 
to  this  extent  it  is  evident  at  a  glance  that  Bibliolatrists 
^iUSt  be  wrong  —  viz.,  because,  as  a  pun  vanishes  on 


FEOTESTANTISM. 


343 


being  translated  into  another  language,  even  so  would, 
and  must  melt  away,  like  ice  in  a  hot-house,  a  large 
majority  of  those  conceits  which  every  Christian  nation 
is  apt  to  ground  upon  the  verbal  text  of  the  Scriptures 
in  its  own  separate  vernacular  version.  But  once 
aware  that  much  of  their  Bibliolatry  depends  upon 
ignorance  of  Hebrew  and  Greek,  and  often  depends 
upon  peculiarity  of  idiom  or  structures  in  modern 
tongues,  cautious  people  begin  to  suspect  the  wholcc 
Here  arises  a  very  interesting,  startling,  and  perplexing 
situation  for  all  who  venerate  the  Bible ;  one  which 
must  always  have  existed  for  prying,  inquisitive  people, 
but  which  has  been  incalculably  sharpened  for  the 
apprehension  of  these  days  by  the  extraordinary  ad- 
vances made  and  being  made  in  Oriental  and  Greek  phi- 
lology. It  is  a  situation  of  public  scandal  even  to  the 
deep  reverencers  of  the  Bible  ;  but  a  situation  of  much 
more  than  scandal,  of  real  grief,  to  the  profound  and 
sincere  amongst  religious  people.  On  the  one  hand, 
viewing  the  Bible  as  the  Word  of  God,  and  not  merely 
so  in  the  sense  of  its  containing  most  salutary  coun- 
sels, but,  in  the  highest  sense,  of  its  containing  a 
revelation  of  the  most  awful  secrets,  they  cannot  for  a 
moment  listen  to  the  pretence  that  the  Bible  has 
benefited  by  God's  inspiration  only  as  other  good 
books  may  be  said  to  have  done.  They  are  confiden 
ihat,  in  a  much  higher  sense,  and  in  a  sense  incommu- 
nicable to  other  books,  it  is  inspired.  Yet,  on  the 
other  hand,  as  they  will  not  tell  lies,  or  countenance 
lies,  even  in  what  seems  the  service  of  religion,  they 
cannot  hide  from  themselves  that  the  materials  of  this 
Imperishable  book  are  perishable,  frail,  liable  to  crum- 


344 


PROTESTANXISM. 


ble,  and  actually  have  crumbled  to  some  extent,  in 
various  instances.  There  is,  therefore,  lying  broadly 
before  us,  something  like  what  Kant  called  an  anti- 
nomy —  a  case  where  two  laws  equally  binding,  on  the 
mind  are,  or  seem  to  be,  in  collision.  Such  cases 
occur  in  morals  —  cases  which  are  carried  out  of  the 
general  rule,  and  the  jurisdiction  of  that  rule,  by  pe- 
culiar deflexions ;  and  from  the  word  case  we  derive 
the  word  casuistry^  as  a  general  science  dealing  with 
such  anomalous  cases;  There  is  a  casuistry,  also,  for 
the  speculative  understanding,  as  well  as  for  the  moral 
(which  in  Kant's  terminology  is  the  practical)  under- 
standing. And  this  question,  as  to  the  inspiration  of 
the  Bible,  with  its  apparent  conflict  of  forces,  repelling 
it  and  yet  affirming  it,  is  one  of  its  most  perplexing 
and.  most  momentous  problems. 

My  ovvii  solution  of  the  problem  would  reconcile  all 
that  is  urged  against  an  inspiration  ^vith  all  that  the 
internal  necessity  of  the  case  would  plead  in  behalf  of 
an  inspiration.  So  would  PhiVs.  His  distinction,  like 
mine,  would  substantially  come  down  to  this  —  that 
the  grandeur  and  extent  of  religious  truth  is  not  of  a 
nature  to  be  affected  by  verbal  changes  such  as  can  be 
made  by  time,  or  accident,  or  without  treacherous  de- 
sign. It  is  like  lightning,  which  could  not  be  mutilated, 
or  truncated,  or  polluted.  But  it  may  be  well  to  re- 
hearse a  little  more  in  detail,  both  PhilJs  view  and 
my  own.  Let  my  principal  go  first ;  make  way,  I 
desire,  for  my  leader  :  let  this  honorable  man  PAi/., 
whom  I,  Philo-PhiL,  now  take  by  the  right  hand,  and 
solemnly  present  to  the  public  —  let  this  Daniel  who 
has  come  to  judgment  have  precedency,  as,  in  all  rea* 
son,  it  is  my  duty  to  see  that  he  has. 


:pkotestanxism. 


845 


Whilst  rejecting  al together  any  inspiration  as  at- 
taching to  the  separate  words  and  phrases  of  the 
Scriptures,  Phil,  insists  upon  such  an  inspiration  as 
attaching  to  the  spiritual  truths  and  doctrines  deliv- 
ered in  these  Scriptures.  And  he  places  this  theory 
in  a  striking  light,  equally  for  what  it  affirms  and  for 
what  it  denies,  by  these  two  arguments  —  first  (in 
affirmation  of  the  real  spiritual  inspiration),  that  a 
series  of  more  than  thirty  writers,  speaking  in  succes- 
sion along  a  vast  line  of  time,  and  absolutely  without 
means  of  concert,  yet  all  combine  unconsciously  to 
one  end  —  lock  like  parts  of  a  great  machine  into  one 
system  —  conspire  to  the  unity  of  a  very  elaborate 
scheme,  without  being  at  all  aware  of  what  was  to 
come  after*  Here,  for  instance,  is  one,  living  nearly 
one  thousand  six  hundred  years  before  the  last  in  the 
series,  who  lays  a  foundation  (in  reference  to  man's 
ruin,  to  God's  promises  and  plan  for  human  restora- 
tion), which  is  built  upon  and  carried  forward  by  all, 
without  exception,  that  follow.  Here  come  a  multi- 
tude that  prepare  each  for  his  successor  —  that  uncon- 
sciously integrate  each  other  —  that,  finally,  when 
reviewed,  make  up  a  total  drama,  of  which  each  writer's 
separate  share  would  have  been  utterly  imperfect 
without  corresponding  parts  that  he  could  not  have 
ioreseen.  At  length  all  is  finished.  A  profound  piece 
of  music,  a  vast  oratorio,  perfect  and  of  elaborate 
unity,  has  resulted  from  a  long  succession  of  strains, 
each  for  itself  fragmentary.  On  such  a  final  creation 
resulting  from  such  a  distraction  of  parts,  it  is  indis- 
pensable to  suppose  an  overruling  inspiration,  in  order 
at  all  to  account  for  the  final  result  of  a  most  elaborate 


346 


PROTESTANTISM. 


harmony.  Besides,  which  would  argue  some  incon- 
ceivable magic,  if  we  did  not  assume  a  providential 
inspiration  w-atching  over  the  coherencies,  tendencies^ 
and  intertessellations  (to  use  a  learned  word)  of  the 
whole,  —  it  happens  that,  in  many  instances,  typica. 
things  are  recorded  —  things  ceremonial,  that  could 
have  no  meaning  to  the  person  recording  —  prospec- 
tive words,  that  were  reported  and  transmitted  in  a 
spirit  of  confiding  faith,  but  that  could  have  little 
meaning  to  the  reporting  parties  for  many  hundreds  of 
years.  Briefly,  a  great  mysterious  word  is  spelt,  as  it 
were,  by  the  w^hole  sum  of  the  Scriptural  books  — 
every  separate  book  forming  a  letter  or  syllable  in 
that  secret  and  that  unfinished  word,  as  it  was  for  so 
many  ages.  This  cooperation  of  ages,  not  able  to 
communicate  or  concert  arrangements  with  each  other, 
is  neither  more  nor  less  an  argument  of  an  overruling 
inspiration,  than  if  the  separation  of  the  contributing 
parties  were  by  space,  and  not  by  time.  As  if,  for 
example,  every  island  at  the  same  moment  were  to 
send  its  contribution,  without  previous  concert,  to  a 
sentence  or  chapter  of  a  book  ;  in  which  case  the  re- 
sult, if  full  of  meaning,  much  more  if  full  of  awful 
and  profound  meaning,  could  not  be  explained  ration- 
ally without  the  assumption  of  a  supernatural  over- 
ruling of  these  unconscious  cooperators  to  a  common 
result  So  far  on  behalf  of  inspiration.  Yet,  on  the 
other  hand,  as  an  argument  in  denial  of  any  blind 
mechanic  inspiration  cleaving  to  words  and  syllables, 
Phil,  notices  this  consequence  as  resulting  from  such 
(in  assumption,  viz.,  that  if  you  adopt  any  one  gospel, 
St  John's  suppose,  or  any  one  narrative  of  a  particulai 


PROTESTANTISM. 


347 


transaction,  as  inspired  in  this  minute  and  pedantic 
sense,  then  for  every  other  report,  which,  adhering  to 
the  spiritual  value  of  the  circumstances,  and  virtually 
the  same,  should  differ  in  the  least  of  the  details,  there 
would  instantly  arise  a  solemn  degradation.  All  parts 
of  Scripture,  in  fact,  would  thus  be  made  active  and 
operative  in  degrading  each  other. 

Such  IS  Phil.^s  way  of  explaining  d^eoTtPsvaiia'^^ 
{theopneustia),  or  divine  prompting,  so  as  to  reconcile 
the  doctrine  affirming  a  virtual  inspiration,  an  inspira- 
tion as  to  the  truths  revealed,  with  a  peremptory 
denial  of  any  inspiration  at  all,  as  to  the  mere  verbal 
vehicle  of  those  revelations.  He  is  evidently  as  sin- 
cere in  regard  to  the  inspiration  which  he  upholds  as 
in  regard  to  that  which  he  denies.  Phil,  is  honest, 
and  Phil,  is  able.  Now  comes  my  turn.  I  rise  to 
support  my  leader,  and  shall  attennpt  to  wrench  this 
notion  of  a  verbal  inspiration  from  the  hands  of  its 
champions  by  a  reductio  ad  ahsurdum  —  viz.,  by  show- 
ing the  monstrous  consequences  to  which  it  leads  — 
which  form  of  logic  Phil,  also  has  employed ;  but 
mine  is  different  and  more  elaborate.    Yet,  first  of  all, 

*  **  0£O7TV£v(rTia:  "  — I  must  point  out  to  Phil,  an  oversight  of 
his  as  to  this  word  at  p.  45;  he  there  describes  the  doctrine  of 
theopneusiia  as  being  that  of  *'  plenary  and  verbal  inspiration." 
But  this  he  cannot  mean,  for  obviously  this  word  theopneusiia 
comprehends  equtilly  the  verbal  inspiration  which  he  is  denounc- 
ing, and  the  inspiration  of  power  or  spiritual  virtue  which  he  is 
substituting.  Neither  Phil.,  nor  any  one  of  his  school,  is  to  be 
understood  as  rejecting  theopneusiia,  but  as  rejecting  that  par- 
ticular mode  of  theopneusiia  which  appeals  to  the  eye  by  moul- 
iering  symbols,  in  favor  of  that  other  mode  which  appeals  to 
iho  heart  by  incorruptible  radiations  of  inner  truth. 


B48 


PKOTESTAXTISM. 


let  me  frankly  confess  to  the  reader,  that  som6  peuple 
allege  a  point-blank  assertion  by  Scripture  itself  of  its 
own  verbal  inspiration ;  which  assertion,  if  it  really 
had  any  existence,  would  summarily  put  down  all 
cavils  of  human  dialectics*  That  makes  it  necessary 
to  review  this  assertion.  This  famous  passage  of 
Scripture,  this  locus  classicus,  or  prerogative  text, 
pleaded  for  the  verhatim  et  literatim  inspiration  of  the 
Bible,  is  the  following ;  and  I  will  so  exhibit  its  very 
words  as  that  the  reader,  even  if  no  Grecian,  may  un« 
derstand  the  point  in  litigation.  The  passage  is  this  : 
Ilaaa  yqac^^i  {^^qtcv^voto^  ^cu  coq)ehiiog,  &c.,  taken  from 
St.  Paul  (2  Tim.  iii»  16)«  Let  us  construe  it  literally, 
expressing  the  Greek  by  Latin  characters:  jPasa  graphe,' 
all  written  lore  (or  every  writing)  —  theopneustos,  God- 
breathed,  or,  God-prompted — kai,  and  (or,  also)  — 
opheliiHos,  serviceable  —  pros,  towards,  didaskaliari, 
doctrinal  truth.  Now  this  sentence,  when  thus  rendered 
into  English  according  to  the  rigor  of  the  Grecian  letter, 
wants  something  to  complete  its  sense it  W' ants  an  is» 
There  is  a  subject,  as  the  logicians  say,  and  there  is  a 
predicate  (or,  something  affirmed  of  that  subject),  but 
there  is  no  copula  to  connect  them —  we  miss  the  is. 
This  omission  is  common  in  Greek,  but  cannot  be  al- 
lowed in  English.  The  is  must  be  supplied  ;  but  ivhere 
must  it  be  supplied  ?  That's  the  very  question,  for 
there  is  a  choice  between  two  places ;  and  according  to 
the  choice,  will  the  word  theopneustos  become  part  of 
the  subject,  or  part  of  the  predicate  ;  w^hich  will  make 
a  worid  of  difference.    Let  us  try  it  both  ways :  — 

1.  All  writing  inspired  by  God  (i.  e.  being  inspired 
Vy  God,  supposing  it  inspii-ed,  which  makes  theop- 


PKOTESTANTISM. 


349 


neustos  part  of  tlie  subject)  is  also  profitable  for  teach- 
ing, &c. 

2.  All  writing  is  inspired  by  God,  and  profitable, 
&c.  (which  makes  theopneustos  part  of  the  predicate.) 

Now,  in  this  last  way  of  construing  the  text,  which  is 
the  way  adopted  by  our  authorized  version,  one  objec- 
tion strikes  everybody  at  a  glance  —  viz.,  that  St.  Paul 
could  not  possibly  mean  to  say  of  all  writing,  indis- 
criminately, that  it  was  divinely  inspired,  this  being  so 
revoltingly  opposed  to  the  truth.  It  follows,  there- 
fore, that,  on  this  way  of  interpolating  the  is,  we  must 
understand  the  Apostle  to  use  the  word  graphe, 
writing,  in  a  restricted  sense,  not  for  writing  generally, 
but  for  sacred  writing,  or  (as  our  English  phrase  runs) 
"  Holy  Writ ;  "  upon  which  will  arise  three  separate 
demurs :  First,  one  already  stated  by  —  Phil,  viz.,  that, 
when  graphe  is  used  in  this  sense,  it  is  accompanied 
by  the  article  ;  the  phrase  is  either  ^  yQacpi],  "  the 
writing,"  or  else  (as  in  St.  Luke)  di  jQacpai,  "  the 
writings,"  just  as  in  English  it  is  said,  "the  Scripture," 
or  "  the  Scriptures."  Secondly,  that,  according  to  the 
Greek  usage,  this  would  not  be  the  natural  place  for 
introducing  the  is.  Thirdly  —  which  disarms  the 
whole  objection  from  this  text,  howsoever  construed  — 
that,  after  all,  it  leaves  the  dispute  with  the  bibliola^ 
ters  wholly  untouched.  We  also,  the  anti-bibliolaters, 
say  that  all  Scripture  is  inspired,  though  we  may  not 
therefore  suppose  the  Apostle  to  be  here  insisting  on 
that  doctrine.  But  no  matter  whether  he  is  or  not, 
in  relation  to  this  dispute.  Both  parties  are  contend- 
ing for  the  inspiration  —  so  far  they  are  agreed  ;  the 
question   between  them  arises  upon   quite  another 


350 


protestantism:. 


point  —  viz.,  as  to  the  mode  of  that  inspiration,  whether 
incarnating  its  golden  light  in  the  corruptibilities  of 
perishing  syllables,  or  in  the  sanctities  of  indefeasible, 

^rd-transcending  ideas.  Now,  upon  that  question, 
apostolic  words,  torture  them  how  you  please,  say 
nothing  at  all. 

There  is,  then,  no  such  dogma  (or,  to  speak  Ger- 
manice,  no  such  macTit-spruch)  in  behalf  of  verbal 
inspiration  as  has  been  ascribed  to  St.  Paul,  and  I 
pass  to  my  own  argument  against  it.  This  argument 
turns  upon  the  self-confounding  tendency  of  the  com- 
mon form  ascribed  to  •O^eoTtvevaria^  or  divine  inspiration. 
When  translated  from  its  true  and  lofty  sense  of  an 
inspiration  —  brooding,  with  outstretched  wings,  over 
the  mighty  abyss  of  secret  truth  —  to  the  vulgar  sense 
of  an  inspiration,  burrowing,  like  a  rabbit  or  a  worm, 
in  gramm.atical  quillets  and  syllables,  mark  how  it 
comes  down  to  nothing  at  all  ;  mark  how  a  stream, 
pretending  to  derive  itself  from  a  heavenly  fountain, 
is  finally  lost  and  confounded  in  a  morass  of  human 
perplexities. 

First  of  all,  at  starting,  we  have  the  inspiration  (No. 
1)  to  the  original  composers  of  the  sacred  books. 
That  I  grant,  though  distinguishing  as  to  its  nature. 

Next,  we  want  another  inspiration  (No.  2)  for  the 
countless  translators  of  the  Bible.  Of  what  use  is  it 
to  a  German,  to  a  Swiss,  or  to  a  Scotsman,  that,  three 
thousand  years  (plus  two  hundred)  before  the  Refor- 
mation, the  author  of  the  Pentateuch  was  kept  from 
erring  by  a  divine  restraint  over  his  words,  if  the 
authors  of  this  Reformation  —  Luther,  suppose,  Zwin- 
gle,  John  Knox  —  either  making  translations  them- 


PROTESTANTISM. 


351 


selves,  or  relying  upon  translations  made  by  others 
under  no  such  verbal  restraint,  have  been  left  free  to 
bias  his  mind,  pretty  nearly  as  much  as  if  the  orignal 
Hebrew  writer  had  been  resigned  to  his  own  human 
discretion  ? 

Thirdly,  even  if  we  adopt  the  inspiration  No.  2,  that 
will  not  avail  us  ;  because  many  different  translators 
exist.  Does  the  very  earliest  translation  of  the  Law 
and  the  Prophets  —  viz.,  the  Greek  translation  of  the 
Septuagint,  always  agree  verbally  with  the  Hebrew? 
Or  the  Samaritan  Pentateuch  always  with  the  Hebrew  ? 
Or  do  the  earliest  Latin  versions  of  the  entire  Bible 
agree  verhally  with  modern  Latin  versions  ?  Jerome's 
Latin  version,  for  instance,  memorable  as  being  that 
adopted  by  the  Pomish  Church,  and  known  under  the 
name  of  the  Vulgate^  does  it  agree  verbally  with  the 
Latin  versions  of  the  Bible  or  parts  of  the  Bible  made 
since  the  Reformation  ?  In  the  English,  again,  if  we 
begin  with  the  translation  still  sleeping  in  MS.,  made 
five  centuries  ago  —  in  fact  about  Chaucer's  time  — 
and  passing  from  that  to  the  first  printed  translation 
(which  was,  I  think,  Coverdale's,  in  1535),  if  we  thence 
travel  down  to  our  own  day,  so  as  to  include  all  that 
have  confined  themselves  to  separate  versions  of  some 
one  book,  or  even  of  some  one  cardinal  text,  countless 
other  versions  that  differ  —  and  to  the  idolater  of 
words  all  differences  are  important.  Here,  then,  on 
that  doctrine  of  inspiration  which  ascribes  so  much  to 
the  power  of  verbal  accuracy,  we  shall  want  a  third 
inspiration  (No.  3)  for  the  guidance  of  each  separate 
Christian  applying  himself  to  the  Scriptures  in  his 
mother  tongue.    The  man  who  seeks  to  benefit  by  in- 


P  H  O  TE  S  T  AiS"  T I S  M . 


spiration  in  his  choice  of  a  translator  will  nave  to 
select  from  a  multitude,  since  nobody  contends  that 
the  truth  is  uniformly  exhibited  throughout  any  one 
version,  but  grants  that  it  is  dispersed  in  fractions 
through  a  multitude. 

Fourthly,  as  these  differences  of  version  arise  often 
under  the  same  reading  of  the  original  text ;  but  as, 
in  the  meantime,  there  are  many  different  readings, 
here  a  fourth  source  of  possible  error  calls  for  a  fourth 
inspiration  overruling  us  to  the  proper  choice  amongst 
various  readings.  What  may  be  called  a  "  textual  " 
inspiration  for  selecting  the  right  reading  is  requisite 
for  the  very  same  reason,  neither  more  nor  less,  which 
supposes  any  verbal  inspiration  originally  requisite  for 
constituting  a  right  reading.  It  matters  not  in  which 
stage  of  the  Bible's  progress  the  error  commences  ; 
first  stage  and  last  stage  are  all  alike  in  the  sight  of 
God.  There  was,  reader,  as  perhaps  you  know,  about 
six  score  years  ago,  another  Phil.,  not  the  same  as  this 
Phil,  now  before  us  (who  would  be  quite  vexed  if  you 
fancied  him  as  old  as  all  that  comes  to  —  oh  dear,  no  ! 
he's  not  near  as  old)  —  well,  that  earlier  Phil,  was 
Bentley,  who  wrote  (under  the  name  of  Phileleutheros 
Lipsiensis)  a  pamphlet  connected  with  this  very  sub- 
ject, partly  against  an  English  infidel  of  that  day.  In 
that  phamphlet,  Phil,  the  first  pauses  to  consider  and 
value  this  very  objection  from  textual  variation  to  the 
validity  of  Scripture  :  for  the  infidel  (as  is  usual  with 
infidels)  being  no  great  scholar,  had  argued  as  though 
it  were  impossible  to  urge  anything  whatever  for  the 
Word  of  God,  since  so  vast  a  variety  in  the  readings 
tendered  it  impossible  to  know  what  was  the  Word  of 


tEOTESTANTISM. 


353 


God.  Bentley,  though  rather  rough,  from  having  too 
olten  to  deal  with  shallow  coxcombs,  was  really  and 
unaffectedly  a  pious  man.  He  was  shocked  at  this 
argument,  and  set  himself  seriously  to  consider  it. 
Now,  as  all  the  various  readings  were  Groek,  and  as 
Bentley  happened  to  be  the  first  of  Grecians,  his  de- 
liberate review  of  this  argument  is  entitled  to  great 
attention.  There  were  at  that  moment  when  Bentley 
spoke,  something  more  (as  I  recollect)  than  ten  thou- 
sand varieties  of  reading  in  the  text  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment ;  so  many  had  been  collected  in  the  early  part  of 
Queen  Anne's  reign  by  Wetstein,  the  Dutchman,  who 
was  then  at  the  head  of  the  collators.  Mill,  the  Eng- 
lishman, was  at  that  very  time  making  further  colla- 
tions. How  many  he  added,  I  cannot  tell  without 
consulting  books  —  a  thing  which  I  very  seldom  do. 
But  since  that  day,  and  long  after  Bentley  and  Mill 
were  in  their  graves,  Griesbach,  the  German,  rose  to 
the  top  of  the  tree,  by  towering  above  them  all  in  the 
accuracy  of  his  collations.  Yet,  as  the  harvest  comes 
before  the  gleanings,  we  may  be  sure  that  Wetstein's 
barn  housed  the  very  wealth  of  all  this  variety.  Of 
this  it  was,  then,  that  Bentley  spoke.  And  what  was 
it  that  he  spoke  ?  Why,  he,  the  great  scholar,  pro- 
nounced, as  with  the  authority  of  a  Chancery  decree, 
that  the  vast  majority  of  various  readings  made  no 
difference  at  all  in  the  sense.  In  the  sense,  observe  ; 
but  many  things  might  make  a  difference  in  the  sense 
which  would  still  leave  the  doctrine  undisturbed.  For 
instance,  in  the  passage  about  a  camel  going  through 
the  eye  of  a  needle,  it  will  make  a  very  noticeable 
difference  in  the  sense,  whether  you  read  in  the  Greek 
23 


354 


PROTESTANTISM. 


word  for  camel  the  oriental  animal  of  that  name,  o:  a 
ship's  cable,  sometimes  so  called;  but  no  difference 
at  all  arises  in  the  spiritual  doctrine.  Or,  illustrat- 
ing the  case  out  of  Shakspeare,  it  makes  no  difference 
as  to  the  result,  whether  you  read  in  Hamlet  "  to  take 
arms  against  a  sea  of  troubles,"  or  (as  has  been  sug- 
gested), "  against  a  siege  of  troubles  :  but  it  makes 
a  difference  as  to  the  integrity  of  the  image. What 
has  a  sea  to  do  with  arms  ?  What  has  a  camel, f  the 
quadruped,  to  do  with  a  needle  ?  A  prodigous  minor- 
ity, therefore,  there  is  of  such  various  readings  as 

*  Integrity  of  the  image  —  One  of  the  best  notes  ever 
written  by  Warburton  was  in  justification  of  the  old  reading, 
sea.  It  was  true,  that  against  a  sea  it  would  be  idle  to  take 
arms.  We,  that  have  lived  since  Warburton 's  day,  have  learned 
by  the  solemn  example  of  Mrs.  Partington  (which,  it  is  to  be 
hoped,  none  of  us  will  ever  forget) ,  how  useless,  how  vain  it  is 
to  take  up  a  mop  against  the  Atlantic  Ocean.  Great  is  the  mop, 
great  is  Mrs.  Partington,  but  greater  is  the  Atlantic.  Yet, 
though  all  arms  must  be  idle  against  the  sea  considered  literally, 
and  xara  tjjv  cpavraaiav  under  that  image,  Warburton  contend- 
ed justly  that  all  images,  much  employed,  evanesce  into  the 
ideas  which  they  represent.  A  sea  of  troubles  comes  to  mean 
only  a  multitude  of  troubles.  No  image  of  the  sea  is  suggested; 
and  arms,  incongruous  in  relation  to  the  literal  sea,  is  not  so  in 
relation  to  a  multitude;  besides,  that  the  image  arms  itself, 
evanesces  for  the  same  reason  into  resistance.  For  this  one  note, 
which  I  cite  from  boyish  remembrance,  I  have  always  admired 
the  subtlety  of  Warburton. 

t  Meantime,  though  using  this  case  as  an  illustration,  I  be- 
lieve that  camel  is,  after  all,  the  true  translation;  first  on  ac- 
count of  the  undoubted  proverb  in  the  East  about  the  elephant 
^oing  through  the  needle's  eye;  the  relation  is  that  of  contrast 
fts  to  magnitude;  and  the  same  relation  holds  as  to  the  cameJ 


PROTESTANTISM. 


355 


slightly  affect  the  sense ;  but  this  minor  ty  becomes 
next  to  nothing,  when  we  inquire  for  such  as  affect 
any  doctrine.  This  was  Bentley's  opinion  upon  the 
possible  disturbance  offered  to  the  Christian  by  various 
readings  of  the  New  Testament.  You  thought  that  the 
carelessness,  or,  at  times,  even  the  treachery  of  men, 
through  so  many  centuries,  must  have  ended  in  cor- 
rupting the  original  truth ;  yet,  after  all,  you  see  the 
light  burns  as  brightly  and  steadily  as  ever.  We, 
now,  that  are  not  bibliolatrists,  no  more  believe  that, 
from  the  disturbance  of  a  few  words  here  and  there, 
any  evangelical  truth  can  have  suffered  a  w^ound  or 
mutilation,  than  we  believe  that  the  burning  of  a  w^ood, 
or  even  of  a  forest,  which  happens  in  our  vast  Ameri- 
can possessions,  sometimes  from  natural  causes  (light- 
ning or  spontaneous  combustion),  sometimes  from  an 
Indian's  carelessness  in  lighting  his  culinary  fires, 
sometimes  from  an  Englishman's  carelessness,  when 
throwing  away  into  a  drift  of  dry  leaves  the  fuming 
reliques  of  his  cigar,  can  seriously  have  injured  botany , 
But  for  him^  who  conceives  an  inviolable  sanctity  to 
have  settled  upon  each  word  and  particle  of  the  origi- 
nal record,  there  should  have  been  strictly  required  an 
inspiration  (No.  5)  to  prevent  the  possibility  of  vari- 
ous readings  arising.  It  is  too  late,  however,  to  pray 
for  that  ;  the  various  readings  have  arisen  ;  here  they 

and  the  needle's  eye;  secondly,  because  the  proper  word  for  a 
cable,  it  has  been  alleged,  is  not  "  camelus,"  but  camilus." 
What  has  an  elephant  to  do  with  a  needle  ?  Why,  he  has  this  to 
do :  the  needle's  eye,  under  its  narrow  function,  takes  charge 
of  physical  magnitude  in  one  extreme  —  the  elephant  of  the 
&ame  idea  in  another  extreme. 


356 


PROTESTANTISM. 


are,  thirty  thousand  in  amount  ;    and  what's  to  be 
done  now  ?    The  only  resource  for  the  bibliolatrist  is 
—  to  invoke  a  new  inspiration  for  helping  him  out  of 
his  difficulty,  by  guiding  his  choice.    We  an ti- biblio- 
laters, are  not  so  foolish  as  to  believe  that  God,  having 
once  sent  a  deep  message  of  truth  to  man,  would  suf- 
fer it  to  lie  at  the  mercy  of  a  careless  or  wicked  copy- 
ist.   Treasures  so  vast  would  not  be  left  at  the  mercy 
of  accidents  so  vile.    Very  little  more  than  two  hun- 
dred years  ago,  a  London  compositor,  not  wicked  at 
all,  but  simply  drunk,  in  printing  Deuteronomy,  left 
out  the  most  critical  of  words  ;  the  seventh  command- 
ment he  exhibited  thus  —  i'  Thou  shall  commit  adul- 
tery ;  "  in  which  form  the  sheet  was  struck  off.  And 
though  in  those  days  no  practical  mischief  could  arise 
from  this  singular  erratum,  which  English  Griesbachs 
will  hardly  enter  upon  the  roll  of  vaiious  readings,  yet 
harmless  as  it  was,  it  met  with  punishment.    "  Scan- 
dalous ! "  said  Laud,  "  shocking  !  to  tell  men  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  as  a  biblical  rule,  that  they  posi- 
tively must  commit  adultery !       The  brother  composi- 
tors of  this  drunken  biblical  reviser,  being  too  honorable 
to  betray  the  individual  delinquent,  the  Star  Chamber 
fined  the  whole  "  chapel."   A  black  Monday  that  must 
have  been  for  the  self-accusing  compositors.   Now,  the 
copyists  of  MSS.  were  as  certain  to  be  sometimes 
drunk  as  this  compositor,  —  famous  by  his  act  —  utterly 
forgotten  in  his  person,  —  whose  crime  is  remembered 
*—  the  record  of  whose  name  has  perished.    We  there- 
fore hold,  that  it  never  was  in  the  power,  or  placed 
within  the  discretion,  of  any  copyist,  whether  writer 
printer,  to  injure  the  sacred  oracles.    But  the  bib- 


357 


liolatrist  cannot  say  thai  ;  because,  if  lie  does,  tken  he 
k  formally  unsaying  the  very  prm<^iple  which  is  meant 
by  bibliolatry.  He  therefore  must  require  another 
Supplementary  inspiration — Viz,^  No.  5,  if  I  count  right, 
to  direct  him  in  his  choice  of  the  true  reading  amongst 
so  many  as  continually  offer  themselves,^' 

Fifthly,  as  all  words  cover  ideas,  and  many  a  word 
<jovers  a  choice  of  ideas,  and  very  many  ideas  split 
into  a  variety  of  modifications,  we  shall,  even  after  a 
fifth  inspiration  has  qualified  us  for  selecting  the  true 

*  I  I'ecollect  no  variation  in  the  text  of  Scripture  whicli  makes 
any  startling  change,  even  to  the  amount  of  an  eddy  in  its  own 
circumjacent  waters,  except  that  fkmous  passage  about  the  thl:'ee 
witnesses  —  There  are  three  that  bare  record  in  heaven, kG, 
This  has  been  denounced  with  perfect  fury  as  an  interpolation  ; 
and  it  is  impossible  to  sum  up  the  quart  bottles  of  ink,  black  and 
blue,  that  have  been  shed  in  the  dreadful  skirmish.  Person 
even,  the  alUaceomplished  Grecian,  in  his  letters  to  Archdeacon 
Gravis,  took  a  conspicuous  part  in  the  controversy;  his  w^isli 
Was,  that  men  should  think  of  him  as  a  second  Bentley  tilting 
against  Phalaris;  and  he  stung  like  a  hornet.  To  be  a  Cam- 
bridge man  in  those  days  was  to  be  a  hater  of  nil  Establishments 
in  England ;  things  and  persons  were  hated  alike.  I  hope  the 
Same  thing  may  not  be  true  at  present.  It  may  chance  that  on 
this  subject  Master  Person  will  get  stung  through  his  coffin,  be^- 
fore  he  is  many  years  deader.  However,  if  this  pai^ticular  yari 
ition  troubles  the  waters  just  around  itself  (for  it  would  desolate 
a  Popish  village  to  withdraw  its  local  saint),  yet  carrying  one's 
eye  from  this  Epistle  to  the  whole  domains  of  the  New  Testament 
—  yet,  looking  away  from  that  defrauded  village  to  universal 
Christendom,  we  must  exclaim  —  What  does  one  miss  ?  Surely 
Christendom  is  not  disturbed  because  a  village  suffers  wrong; 
^he  sea  is  not  roused  because  an  eddy  in  a  corner  is  boiling;  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  not  in  danger  because  Mr.  I-orson  is  in 
a  passion. 


358 


PROTESTANTISM. 


readiag,  still  be  at  a  loss  how,  with  regard  to  this 
right  reading,  to  select  the  right  acceptation.  So  there, 
at  that  fifth  stage,  in  rushes  the  total  deluge  of  human 
theological  controversies.  One  church,  or  one  sect,  in* 
sists  upon  one  sense  ;  second  church,  or  second  sect,  "  to 
ihe  end  of  time,"  insists  upon  a  different  sense.  Babel 
is  upon  us  ;  and,  to  get  rid  of  Babel,  we  shall  need  a 
sixth  inspiration.    No,  6  is  clamorously  called  for.^' 

*  One  does  not  wish  to  be  tedious ;  or,  if  one  has  a  gift  in  that 
way,  naturally  one  does  not  wish  to  bestow  it  all  upon  a  perfect 
stranger,  as  **  the  reader  "  usually  is,  but  to  reserve  a  part  for 
the  fireside,  and  the  use  of  one's  most  beloved  friends;  else  I 
3ould  torment  the  reader  by  a  long  succession  of  numbers,  and 
perhaps  drive  him  to  despair.  But  one  more  of  the  series  —  viz., 
No.  6,  as  a  parting  gage  d^amitie  —  he  must  positively  permit 
me  to  drop  into  his  pocket.  Supposing,  then,  that  No.  5  were 
surmounted,  and  that,  super  naturally,  you  knew  the  value  to  a 
hair's  breadth  of  every  separate  word  (or,  perhaps,  composite 
phrase  made  up  from  a  constellation  of  words)  —  ah,  poor  trav- 
eller in  trackless  forests ,  still  you  are  lost  again  —  for,  often- 
times, and  especially  in  St.  Paul,  the  words  may  be  known,  their 
sense  may  be  known,  but  their  logical  relation  is  still  doubtful. 
The  word  X  and  the  word  Y  are  separately  clear ;  but  has  Y  the 
iependency  of  a  consequence  upon  X,  or  no  dependency  at  all  ? 
f"s  the  clause  which  stands  eleventh  in  the  series  a  direct  prolon- 
gation of  that  which  stands  tenth  ?  or  is  the  tenth  wholly  inde- 
pendent and  insulated  ?  or  does  it  occupy  the  place  of  a  paren- 
thesis, so  as  to  modify  the  ninth  clause?  People  that  have 
practised  composition  as  much,  and  with  as  vigilant  an  eye  as 
myself,  know  also,  by  thousands  of  cases,  how  infinite  is  the 
disturbance  caused  in  the  logic  of  a  thought  by  the  mere  position 
of  a  word  as  despicable  as  the  word  even.  A  mote,  that  is  itself 
invisible,  shall  darken  the  august  faculty  of  sight  in  a  human 
eye  —  the  heavens  shall  be  hidden  by  a  wretched  atom  that  dares 
not  show  Itself  —  and  the  station  of  a  syllable  shall  cloud  the 


PEOTESTANTISM. 


359 


But  we  all  know,  each  knows  by  his  own  experi- 
ence, that  No.  6  is  not  forthcoming ;  and,  in  the  ab- 
sence of  that^  what  avail  for  us  the  others  ?  "  Man 
overboard  !  "  is  the  cry  upon  deck  ;  but  what  avails  it 
for  the  poor  drowning  creature  that  a  rope  being 
thrown  to  him  is  thoroughly  secured  at  one  end  to  the 
ship,  if  the  other  end  floats  wide  of  his  grasp?  We 
are  in  prison :  we  descend  from  our  prison-roof,  that 
seems  high  as  the  clouds,  by  knotting  together  all  the 
prison  bed-clothes,  and  all  the  aids  from  friends  out- 
side. But  all  is  too  short :  after  swarming  down  the 
line,  in  middle  air,  we  find  ourselves  hanging  :  sixty 
feet  of  line  are  still  wanting.  To  reascend  —  that  is 
impossible  :  to  drop  boldly  —  alas !  that  is  to  die. 

Meantime,  what  need  of  this  eternal  machinery,  that 
eternally  is  breaking  like  ropes  of  sand  ?  Or  of  this 
earth  resting  on  an  elephant,  that  rests  on  a  tortoise, 
that  when  all  is  done,  must  still  consent  to  rest  on  the 
common  atmosphere  of  God  ?  These  chains  of  inspi- 
ration are  needless.  The  great  ideas  of  the  Bible 
protect  themselves.  The  heavenly  truths,  by  their 
own  imperishableness,  defeat  the  mortality  of  languages 
with  which  for  a  moment  they  are  associated.  Is  the 
lightning  enfeebled  or  emasculated,  because  for  thou- 
sands of  years  it  has  blended  with  the  tarnish  of  earth 
and  the  steams  of  earthly  graves  ?  Or  light,  which  so 
long  has  travelled  in  the  chambers  of  our  sickly  air, 
and  searched  the  haunts  of  impurity  —  is  that  less 

judgment  of  a  council.  Nay,  even  an  ambiguous  emphasis  fall- 
ing to  the  right-hand  word,  or  the  left-hand  word,  shall  confound 
h.  6ystem. 


860 


PROTESTANTISM. 


pure  than  it  was  iu  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  ?  Or 
that  more  holy  light  of  truth  —  the  trutli,  suppose, 
written  from  his  creation  upon  the  tablets  of  man's 
heart  —  which  truth  never  was  imprisoned  in  any  He- 
brew or  Greek,  but  has  ranged  forever  through  courts 
and  camps,  deserts  and  cities,  the  original  lesson  of  jus- 
tice to  man  and  piety  to  God  —  has  that  become  tainted 
by  intercourse  with  flesh  ?  or  has  it  become  hard  to 
decipher,  because  the  very  heart,  that  human  heart 
where  it  is  inscribed,  is  so  often  blotted  with  false- 
hoods ?  You  are  aware,  perhaps,  reader,  that  in  the 
Mediterranean  Sea,  off  the  coast  of  Asia  Minor  (and, 
indeed,  elsewhere),  through  the  very  middle  of  the 
salt-sea  billows,  rises  up,  in  silvery  brightness,  an 
aspiring  column  oi  fresh  water. ^  In  the  desert  of  the 
sea  are  found  fountains  —  sister  fountains  to  those  oi 
Ishmael  and  Isaac  in  the  Arabian  sands !  Are  these 
fountains  j)oisoned  for  the  poor  victim  of  fever,  be- 
cause they  have  to  travel  through  a  contagion  of  waters 
not  potable  ?  Oh,  no !  They  bound  upwards  like 
arrows,  cleaving  the  seas  above  with  as  much  projectile 

*  See  Mr.  Yates's  Annotatiotis  upon  Fellowes's  Researches  in 
Anatolia,"  as  one  authority  for  this  singular  phenomenon,  wliich 
has  since  been  noticed  in  the  Persian  Gulf.  This  most  interest- 
ing phenomenon  was  witnessed  by  the  Generals  Outram  and 
Havelock,  in  company  with  most  of  their  army,  on  the  expedition 
against  Persia,  within  the  last  twelve  months  [February,  1858], 
In  fact,  if  a  fountain  bursts  out  with  the  sudden  impetus  of  a 
fiery  projectile,  forced  upwards  by  earthquake,  which  may  hap- 
pen on  the  barren  floor  of  the  ocean  as  probably  as  in  many 
other  situations,  then,  ^ti|)posing  the  column  of  water  above  not 
foo  dense,  the  fountain  of  fresh  Water  Will  naturally  cleave  the 
paarine  water  like  an  arrow. 


PEOTESTANTISM. 


861 


force  as  the  glittering  water-works  of  Versailles  cleave 
the  air,  and  rising  as  sweet  to  the  lip  as  ever  monntaii) 
torrent  that  comforted  the  hunted  fawn. 

It  is  impossible  to  suppose  that  any  truth,  launched 
hj  God  upon  the  agitations  of  things  so  unsettled  as 
languages,  can  perish.  The  very  frailty  of  languages 
is  the  strongest  proof  of  this  ;  because  it  is  impossible 
to  suppose  that  anything  so  great  can  have  been  com> 
mitted  to  the  fidelity  of  anything  so  treacherous. 
There  is  laughter  in  heaven  when  it  is  told  of  man, 
that  he  fancies  his  earthly  jargons,  which  to  heavenly 
ears,  must  sound  like  the  chucklings  of  poultry,  equal 
to  the  task  of  hiding  or  distorting  any  light  of  revela- 
tion. Had  words  possessed  any  authority  or  restraint 
over  Scriptural  truth,  a  much  worse  danger  would 
have  threatened  it  than  any  malice  in  the  human  will, 
suborning  false  copyists^  or  surreptitiously  favoxing 
depraved  copies.  Even  a  general  conspiracy  of  the 
human  race  for  such  a  purpose  would  avail  against  the 
Bible  only  as  a  ge^eral  conspiracy  to  commit  suicide 
might  avail  against  the  drama  of  God's  providence. 
Eithet  conspiracy  would  first  become  dangerous  when 
either  became  possible.  But  a  real  danger  seems  to 
lie  in  the  inseiLsible  corruption  going  on  forever  within 
all  languages,  by  means  of  which  they  are  eternally 
dying  away  from  their  own  vital  powers ;  and  that  is 
a  danger  which  is  travelling  fast  after  all  the  wdsdom 
and  the  wit,  the  eloquence  and  the  poetry  of  this  earth, 
like  a  mountainous  wave,  and  will  finally  overtake 
them ' — '  their  very  vehicles  being  lost  and  confounded 
to  human  sensibilities.  But  such  a  wave  will  break 
harmlessly  against  Scriptural  truth ;  and  not  merely 


S62 


PROTESTANTISM. 


because  that  tnith  will  forever  evade  such  a  shock  by 
its  eternal  transfer  from  language  to  language  —  from 
languages  dying  to  languages  in  vernal  bloom  —  but 
also  because,  if  it  could  not  evade  the  shock,  supreme 
truth  would  surmount  it  for  a  profounder  reason.  A 
danger  analogous  to  this  once  existed  in  a  different 
form.  The  languages  into  which  the  New  Testament 
was  first  translated  offered  an  apparent  obstacle  to  the 
translation  that  seemed  insurmountable.  The  Latin, 
for  instance,  did  not  present  the  spiritual  words  which 
tjuch  a  translation  demanded  ;  and  how  should  it,  when 
the  corresponding  ideas  had  no  existence  amongst  the 
Romans  ?  Yet,  if  not  spiritual,  the  language  of  Rome 
was  intellectual ;  it  was  the  language  of  a  cultivated 
and  noble  race.  But  what  shall  be  done  if  the  New 
Testament  seeks  to  drive  a  tunnel  through  a  rude 
forest  race,  having  an  undeveloped  language,  and 
understanding  nothing  but  war  ?  Four  centuries  after 
Christ,  such  a  case  did  actually  occur:  the  Gothic 
Bishop  Ulphilas  set  about  translating  the  Gospels  for 
his  countrymen.  He  had  no  words  for  expressing 
spiritual  relations  or  spiritual  operations.  The  new 
nomenclature  of  moral  graces,  humility,  resignation, 
the  spirit  of  forgiveness,  &c,,  hitherto  unrecognized 
for  virtues  amongst  men,  having  first  of  all  been  shown 
as  blossoms  and  flowers,  and  distinguished  from  weeds, 
by  Christian  gardening,  had  to  be  reproduced  in  the 
Gothic  language,  with  apparently  no  means  whatever 
of  effecting  it.  In  this  earliest  of  what  we  may  call 
ancestral  translations  (for  the  Goths  were  of  our  own 
Wood),  and,  therefore,  by  many  degrees,  this  most 
interesting  of  translations  for  us,  may  be  seen  to  this 


PROTESTANTISM. 


3G3 


day,  when  nearly  fifteen  centuries  have  passed,  how 
the  good  bishop  succeeded,  to  what  extent  he  suc- 
ceeded, and  by  what  means.  I  shall  take  a  separate 
opportunity  for  investigating  that  problem ;  but  at 
present  I  will  content  myself  with  noticing  a  remark- 
able principle  which  applies  to  the  case,  and  illustrat- 
ing it  by  a  remarkable  anecdote.  The  principle  ia 
this  —  that  in  the  grander  parts  of  knowledge,  which 
do  not  deal  much  with  petty  details,  nearly  all  the 
building  or  constructive  ideas  (those  ideas  which  build 
up  the  system  of  that  particular  knowledge)  lie  in- 
volved within  each  other ;  so  that  any  one  of  the 
series,  being  awakened  in  the  mind,  is  sufficient  (given 
a  multitude  of  minds)  to  lead  backwards  or  forwards, 
analytically  or  synthetically,  into  many  of  the  rest. 
That  is  the  principle ;     and  the  story  which  illustrates 

*  **  That  is  the  principle:  "  —  I  am  afraid,  on  reviewing  this 
passage,  that  the  reader  may  still  say,  '*  What  is  the  principle?  " 
I  will  add,  therefore,  the  shortest  explanation  of  my  meaning. 
If  in  any  Pagan  language  you  had  occasion  to  translate  the  word 
love,  or  purity^  or  penitence,  &c.,  you  could  not  do  it.  The 
Greek  language  itself,  perhaps  the  finest  (all  things  weighed  and 
valued)  that  a  man  has  employed,  could  not  do  it.  The  scale 
was  not  so  pitched  as  to  make  the  transfer  possible.  It  was  to 
execute  organ  music  on  a  guitar.  And,  hereafter,  I  will  endeavor 
to  show  how  scandalous  an  error  has  been  committed  on  this 
Bubject,  not  by  scholars  only,  but  by  religious  philosophers  The 
relation  of  Christian  ethics  (which  word  ethics,  however,  is  itself 
most  insufficient)  to  natural  or  universal  ethics,  is  a  field  yet 
uncultured  by  rational  thought.  The  first  word  of  sense  has 
yet  to  be  spoken.  There  lies  the  difficulty  ;  and  the  principle 
which  meets  it  is  this,  that  what  any  one  idea  could  never  effect 
for  itself  (insulated,  it  must  remain  an  unknown  quality  forever), 
the  total  system  of  the  ideas  developed  from  its  centre  would 


PEOXESTANTISM. 


t  is  this  :  —  A  great  work  of  Apollonius,  the  sublime 
geometer^  w^s  supposed  in  part  to  have  perished : 
seven  of  the  eight  books  remained  in  the  original 
Greek ;  but  the  eighth  was  missing.  The  Greek,  after 
much  search  was  not  recovered ;  but  at  length  there 
was  found  (in  the  Bodleian,  I  think)  an  Arabic  trans- 
lation of  it.  An  English  mathematician,  Halley, 
knowing  not  one  word  of  Arabic,  determined  (without 
waiting  for  that  Arabic  key)  to  pick  the  lock  of  this 
MS.  And  he  did  so.  Through  strength  of  precon- 
ception, derived  equally  from  his  knowledge  of  the 
general  subject,  and  from  his  knowledge  of  this  par- 
ticular work  in  its  earlier  sections,  using  also  to  some 

effect  for  each  (Separately.  To  know  the  part,  you  must  first  know 
the  whole,  or  know  it,  at  least,  by  some  outline.  The  idea  of 
purity i  for  instance,  in  its  Christian  altitude,  would  be  utterly 
incomp!  ehensible,  and,  besides,  could  not  sustain  itself  for  Of 
moment,  if  by  any  glimpse  it  were  approached.  But  when  a 
ruin  w.ts  unfolded  that  had  affected  the  human  race,  and  many 
things  heretofore  unobserved,  because  uncomhined^  were  gather- 
ed into  a  unity  of  evidence  to  that  ruin,  spread  through  innu- 
merable channels,  the  great  altitude  would  begin  dimly  to  reveal 
itself  by  means  of  the  mighty  depth  in  correspondence.  One 
deep  calleth  to  another.  One  after  one  the  powers  lodged  in  thQ 
ftWful  succession  of  uncoverings  would  react  upon  each  other ; 
find  thus  the  feeblest  language  would  be  as  capable  of  receiving 
and  reflecting  the  system  of  truths  (because  the  system  is  an 
arch  that  supports  itself)  as  the  richest  and  noblest;  and  for 
the  same  reason  that  makes  geometry  careless  of  language.  The 
vilest  jargon  that  ever  was  used  by  a  shivering  savage  of  Terra 
del  Fuego  is  as  capable  of  dealing  with  the  sublime  and  eternal 
affections  of  space  and  quantity,- with  up  and  down,  with  more 
and  less,  with  circle  and  radius,  angle  and  tangent,  as  is  th« 
golden  language  of  Athens. 


PBOTESTANTISAT, 


365 


extent  tlie  subtle  art  of  the  decipherer,^  now  become 
BO  powerful  an  instrument  of  analysis,  he  translated 
the  whole  Arabic  MS.  He  printed  it  —  ho  published 
t.  He  tore  the  hidden  truth  —  he  extorted  it  from  the 
darkness  of  an  unknown  language  —  be  would  not  suf- 
fer the  Arabic  to  hide  a  treasure  from  man.  And  the 
book  remains  a  monument  to  this  day,  that  a  system  of 
ideas,  having  internal  coberency  and  iuterdependency, 
is  vainly  hidden  under  a  mask  of  words  ;  that  it  may 
be  illuminated  and  restored  chiefly  through  the  recip- 
rocal involutions  of  the  hidden  ideas  themselves.  The 
same  principle  applies,  and  a  fortiori  applies,  to  re- 
ligions truth,  as  one  which  lies  far  deeper  than  geom- 
etry in  the  spirit  of  man,  one  to  which  the  inner 
attestation  is  profounder,  and  to  which  the  key-notes 
of  Scripture  (once  awakened  on  the  great  organ  of 
the  human  heart)  are  sure  to  call  up  corresponding 
echoes.  It  is  not  in  the  power  of  language  to  arrest 
or  to  defeat  this  mode  of  truth ;  because,  when  once 
the  fundamental  base  is  furnished  by  revelation,  the 
human  heart  itself  is  able  to  co-operate  in  developing 
the  great  harmonies  of  the  system,  without  aid  from 
language^  and  in  defiance  of  language  —  without  aid 

*  ^^Art  of  the  decipherer:  *'  —  An  art  which,  in  the  seventeenth 
^♦^ntiiry,  had  been  greatly  improved  by  Wallis,  Sayilian  Professor 
of  Geometry  at  Oxford,  the  improver  of  analytic  mathematics, 
and  the  great  historian  of  algebra.  Algebra  it  was  that  suggested 
to  him  his  exquisite  deciphering  skill,  and  the  Parliamentary 
W^r  it  was  that  furnished  him  with  a  sufficient  field  of  practice. 
The  King's  private  cabinet  of  papers,  all  written  in  cipher,  and 
captured  in  the  royal  coach  on  the  decisive  day  of  Naseby 
(June,  1645),  was  (I  believe)  deciphered  by  Wallis^  propria 
marie  ;  that  is  to  say,  withou<t  assistance 


366 


PROTESTANTISM, 


from  human  learning,  and  in  defiance  of  human  learn- 
ing, by  a  machinery  of  spiritual  counterpoint. 

Finally,  there  is  another  security  against  the  sup- 
pression or  distortion  of  any  great  Biblical  truth  by 
false  readings,  which  I  will  state  in  the  briefest  terms. 
The  reader  is  aware  of  the  boyish  sport  sometimes 
called  "  drake-stone:  "  a  flattish  stone  is  thrown  by  a 
little  dexterity  so  as  to  graze  the  surface  of  a  river, 
but  so,  also,  as  in  grazing  it  to  dip  slightly  below  the 
^surface,  to  rise  again  from  this  dip,  again  to  dip,  again 
to  rise,  and  so  on  alternately  dipping  and  rising  d  plu- 
sieurs  reprises.  In  the  same  way,  with  the  same  effect 
of  alternate  resurrections,  all  Scriptural  truths  rever- 
berate and  diffuse  themselves  along  the  pages  of  the 
Bible ;  none  is  confined  to  one  text,  or  to  one  mode  of 
enunciation ;  all  parts  of  the  scheme  are  eternally 
chasing  each  other,  like  the  parts  of  a  fugue  ;  they  hide 
themselves  in  one  chapter,  only  to  restore  themselves 
in  another ;  they  diverge,  only  to  recombine;  and  under 
sach  a  vast  variety  of  expressions,  that  even  in  that 
way,  supposing  language  to  have  powers  over  religious 
truth  —  which  it  never  had,  or  can  have  —  any  abuse 
of  such  a  power  would  be  thoroughly  neutralized. 
The  case  resembles  the  diffusion  of  vegetable  seeds 
through  the  air  and  through  the  waters  ;  draw  a  cordon 
sanitaire  against  dandelion  or  thistle-down,  and  see  if 
the  armies  of  earth  would  suffice  to  interrupt  this 
process  of  radiation,  which  yet  is  but  the  distribution 
of  weeds.  Suppose,  for  instance,  the  text  about  the 
three  heavenly  witnesses  to  have  been  eliminated  finally 
us  an  interpolation.  The  first  thought  is  —  there  goes 
10  wreck  a  great  doctrine  !    Not  at  all.    That  tex* 


PROTESTANTISM. 


367 


occupied  but  a  corner  of  the  garden.  The  truth,  and 
the  secret  implications  of  the  truth,  have  escaped  at  a 
thousand  points  in  vast  arches  above  our  heads,  rising 
high  above  the  garden  wall,  and  have  sown  the  earth 
with  memorials  of  the  mystery  which  they  envelope. 

The  final  inference  is  this  —  that  Scriptural  truth  is 
endowed  with  a  self-conservative  and  a  self-restorative 
virtue  ;  it  needs  no  long  successions  of  verbal  protection 
by  inspiration  ;  it  is  self-protected  ;  first,  internally,  by 
the  complex  power  which  belongs  to  the  Christian  system 
of  involving  its  own  integrations,  in  the  same  way  as  a 
musical  chord  involves  its  own  successions  of  sound,  and 
its  own  technical  resolutions ;  secondly,  in  an  external 
and  obvious  way,  it  is  protected  by  its  prodigious 
iteration,  and  secret  presupposal  in  all  varieties  of  form. 
Consequently,  as  the  peril  connected  with  language  is 
thus  effectually  neutralized,  the  call  for  any  verbal 
inspiration  (which,  on  separate  grounds,  appears  to  be 
self-confounding)  shows  itself  now,  in  a  second  form, 
to  be  a  gratuitous  and  superfluous  delusion,  since,  in 
efiect,  it  is  a  call  for  protection  against  a  danger  which 
cannot  have  any  existence. 

There  is  another  variety  of  bibliolatry  arising  in  a 
difierent  way  —  not  upon  errors  of  language  incident 
to  human  infirmity,  but  upon  deliberate  errors  indis- 
pensable to  Divine  purposes.  The  case  is  one  which 
has  been  considered  with  far  too  little  attention,  else 
it  could  never  have  been  thought  strange  that  Christ 
should  comply  in  things  indifferent  with  popular  errors. 
A  few  words  will  put  the  reader  in  possession  of  my 
view.  Speaking  of  the  Bible,  Phil,  says,  "  We  admit 
that  its  separate  parts  are  the  work  of  frail  and  fallible 


368 


PBOTESTANTISM. 


human  beings.  We  do  not  seek  to  build  upon  it 
systems  of  cosmogony,  chronology,  astronomy,  and 
natural  history.  We  know  no  reason  of  internal  or 
external  probability  wbich  should  induce  us  to  believe 
that  such  matters  could  ever  have  been  the  subjects  of 
direct  revelation."  Is  that  all  ?  There  is  no  reason, 
certainly,  for  expectations  so  unreflecting  ;  but  is  there 
no  adamantine  reason  against  them  ?  It  is  no  business 
of  the  Bible,  we  are  told,  to  teach  science.  Certainly 
not ;  but  that  is  far  too  little.  It  is  an  obligation 
resting  upon  the  Bible,  if  it  is  tp  be  consistent  with 
itself,  that  it  should  refuse  to  teach  science ;  and,  if 
the  Bible  ever  had  taught  any  one  art,  science,  or 
process  of  life,  capital  doubts  would  have  clouded,  our 
confidence  in  the  authority  of  the  book.  .  By  what 
caprice,  it  would  have  been  asked,  is  a  Divine  mission 
abandoned  suddenly  for  a  human  mission  ?  By  what 
caprice  is  this  one  science  taught,  and  others  not? 
Or  these  two,  suppose,  and  not  all  ?  But  an  objection, 
even  deadlier,  would  have  followed.  It  is  clear  ^s  is 
the  purpose  of  daylight,  that  the  whole  body  of  the 
arts  and  sciences  composes  one  vast  machinery  for  the 
irritation  and  development  of  the  human  intellect. 
For  this  end  they  exist.  To  see  God,  therefore, 
descending  into  the  arena  of  science,  and  contending, 
as  it  were,  for  his  own  prizes,  by  teaching  science  in 
the  Bible,  would  be  to  see  him  intercepting  from  theii 
self-evident  destination  (viz.,  man's  intellectual  bene- 
fit), his  own  problems  by  solving  them  himself.  No 
spectacle  could  more  dishonor  the  divine  idea  —  could 
more  dishonor  man  under  the  mask  of  aiding  him. 
The  Bible  must  not  teach  ant/thing  that  man  can  teach 


1?IlOTESTANIISi\r. 


369 


himself.  Does  a  doctrine  require  a  revelation  —  ilion 
nobody  but  God  can  teacli  it.  Does  it  require  none  ? 
—  then  m  whatever  caSe  God  bas  qualified  man  to  do 
a  tbing  for  himself,  be  has  in  that  very  qualification 
silently  laid  an  injunction  upon  man  to  do  it.  But  it 
is  fancied  tbat  a  divine  teacher,  without  descending  to 
the  unworthy  office  of  teaching  science,  might  yet 
have  kept  his  own  language  free  from  all  collusion 
with  human  error.  Hence,  for  instance,  it  has  been 
argued,  that  any  language  in  the  Bible  implying  the 
earth  to  be  stationary,  and  central  to  our  system, 
could  not  express  a  mere  compliance  with  the  popular 
errors  of  the  time,  but  must  be  taken  to  indicate  the 
absolute  truth.  And  so  grew  the  anti-Galilean  fanatics. 
Out  of  similar  notions  have  risen  the  absurdities  of  a 
polemic  Bible  chronology,  ^c."^''  Meantime,  if  a  man 
sets  himself  steadily  to  contemplate  the  consequences 

*  The  Bible  cosmology  stands  upon  another  footing.  Thai  is 
hot  gathered  from  a  casual  expression;  shaped  to  meet  popular 
Comprehension,  but  is  delivered  directly,  formally,  and  elabo- 
rately, as  a  natural  preface  to  the  history  of  man  and  his  habita- 
tion. Her6,  aceordingly,  there  is  no  instance  of  accommodation 
to  vulgar  ignorance;  and  the  persuasion  gains  ground  contin- 
ually that  the  order  bf  succession  in  the  phenomena  of  creation 
Will  be  eventually  confirmed  by  scientific  geology,  so  far  as  this 
science  may  ever  succeed  in  unlinking  the  steps  of  the  process. 
Nothing,  in  fact,  disturbs  the  grandeur  and  solemnity  of  the 
Mosaical  cosmogony,  except  (as  usual)  the  ruggedness  of  the 
bibliolater.  He,  finding  the  English  word  day  employed  in  the 
measurement  of  the  intervals,  takes  it  for  granted  that  this  must 
mean  a  nychthemeron  of  twenty- four  hours;  imports,  therefore, 
Into  the  Biblical  text  this  conceit;  fights  for  his  own  opinion,  as 
for  ^  revelation  from  heaven;  and  thus  disfigures  the  grnit 
kiaugural  cha|)ter  of  human  Jii^tory  with  this  single  feature  9i 
24 


370 


PROTESTANTISM. 


which  must  inevitably  have  followed  any  deviation 
from  the  customary  erroneous  phraseology  of  the  peo- 
ple, he  will  see  the  utter  impossibility  that  a  teacher 
(pleading  a  heavenly  mission)  could  allow  himself  to 
deviate  by  one  hair's  breadth  (and  why  should  he 
wish  to  deviate?)  from  the  ordinary  language  of  the 
times.  To  have  uttered  one  syllable  for  instance,  that 
implied  motion  in  the  earth,  would  have  issued  into 
the  following  ruins :  —  First,  it  would  have  tainted 
tlie  teacher  with  the  reputation  of  lunacy  ;  secondly, 
it  would  have  placed  him  in  this  inextricable  dilemma. 
On  the  one  hand,  to  answer  the  questions  prompted 
by  his  own  perplexing  language,  would  have  opened 
upon  him,  as  a  necessity,  one  stage  after  another  of 
scientific  cross-examination,  until  his  spiritual  mission 
would  have  been  forcibly  swallowed  up  in  the  mission 
of  natural  philosopher  ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  to 
pause  resolutely  at  any  one  stage  of  this  public  exami- 
nation, and  to  refuse  all  further  advance,  would  be,  in 

a  fairy-tale,  vihere  everything  else  is  told  with  the  most  majestic 
simplicity,  Biit  this  word,  which  so  ignorantly  he  presumes  to 
be  an  ordinary  human  day,  bears  that  meaning  only  in  common 
historical  transactions  between  man  and  man;  but  never  once  in 
the  great  prophetic  writings,  where  God  comes  forward  as  him- 
self the  principal  agent.  It  then  means  always  a  vast  and  mys- 
terious duration — undetermined,  even  to  this  hour,  in  Daniel. 
The  heptameron  is  not  a  week,  but  a  shadowy  adumbration  of  a 
week,  comprising  perhaps  millions  of  years.  Let  me  ask  this 
question  —  In  Daniel,  whether  considered  (as  in  past  ages  he 
was)  a  prophet,  or  (a&  in  this  generation  he  is,  even  by  pious 
men  like  Dr.  Arnold  of  Rugby)  simply  a  writer  of  history,  and 
posterior  to  the  events  contemplated  —  has  any  man  been  foolish 
enough  to  regard  his  1260  days  as  literally  such  —  viz.,  as  no 
more  than  180  weeks  ? 


PKOTESTANTISM. 


371 


,lie  popular  opinio q,  to  retreat  as  a  baffled  disputant 
from  insane  paradoxes  which  it  had  not  been  found  pos- 
sible to  support.  One  step  taken  in  that  direction  was 
fatal,  whether  the  great  envoy  retreated  from  his  own 
words  to  leave  behind  the  impression  that  he  was 
defeated  as  a  rash  speculator,  or  stood  to  these  words, 
and  thus  fatally  entangled  himself  in  the  inexhaustible 
succession  of  explanations  and  justifications.  In  either 
event  the  spiritual  mission  xvsls  at  an  end  :  it  would 
have  perished  in  shouts  of  derision,  from  which  there 
could  have  been  no  retreat,  and  no  retrieval  of  char^ 
acter.  The  greatest  of  astronomers,  rather  than  seem 
ostentatious  or  unseasonably  learned,  will  stoop  to 
the  popular  phrase  of  the  sun's  rising,  or  the  sun's 
motion  in  the  ecliptic.  But  God,  for  a  purpose  com- 
mensurate with  man's  eternal  welfare,  is  by  these 
critics  supposed  incapable  of  the  same  petty  absti- 
nence. 

A  similar  line  of  argument  applies  to  all  the  coiri- 
pliances  of  Christ  with  the  Jewish  prejudices  (partly 
imported  from  the  Euphrates)  as  to  demonology, 
witchcraft,  &c.  By  the  way,  in  this  last  word,  "  witch- 
craft," and  the  two  memorable  histories  connected 
it,  lies  a  perfect  mine  of  bibliolatrous  madness. 
As  i :  illustrates  the  folly  and  the  wickedness  of  the 
bibliolaters,  let  us  pause  upon  it. 

The  word  witch  ^  these  bibliolaters  take  it  for  grant- 
ed, must  mean  exactly  what  the  original  Hebrew 
means,  or  the  Greek  woixi  chosen  by  the  LXX. ;  so 
much,  and  neither  more  nor  less.  That  is,  from  total 
ignorance  of  the  machinery  by  which  language  moves, 
they  fancy  that  every  idea  and  word  which  exists,  or 


372 


1»R0TESTANTISM. 


has  existed,  for  any  nation,  ancient  or  modern,  nuisl 
have  a  dii^ect  interchangeable  equivalent  in  all  other 
languages  ;  and  that,  if  the  dictionaries  do  not  show 
it,  that  must  be  because  the  dictionaries  are  bad.  Will 
these  worthy  people  have  the  goodness,  then,  to  trans- 
late co^ue^^e  into  Hebrew,  and  post-office  into  Greek  ? 
The  fact  is,  that  all  languages,  and  in  the  ratio  of 
their  development,  offer  ideas  absolutely  separate  and 
exclusive  to  themselves.  In  the  highly  cultured  lan- 
guages of  England,  France,  and  Germany,  are  words, 
hy  thousands,  which  are 'strictly  untranslatable.  They 
may  be  approached,  but  cannot  be  reflected  as  from  a 
mirror.  To  take  an  image  from  the  language  of 
eclipses,  the  correspondence  between  the  disk  of  the 
original  word  and  its  translated  representative  is,  in 
thousands  of  instances,  not  amildar  ;  the  centres  do 
not  coincide  ;  the  words  overlap  ;  and  this  arises  from 
the  varying  modes  in  which  different  nations  combine 
ideas.  The  French  word  shall  combine  the  elements, 
i,  n,  0' — ^the  nearest  English  word,  perhaps,  m,  ?/, 
Oy  p  —  by  one  element  richer,  by  one  element  poorer. 
For  instance,  in  all  words  applied  to  the  miamces  of 
manners,  and  generally  to  social  differences,  how  pro- 
digious is  the  wealth  of  the  French  language !  How 
merely  untranslatable  for  all  Europe  !  In  the  lan- 
guage of  high  passion,  how  bare  and  beggarly  is  the 
French  !  how  incapable  of  rendering  Shakspeare  !  1 
suppose,  my  bibliolater,  you  have  not  yet  finished 
your  Hebrew  or  xlrabic  translation  of  coquette.^''-  Well, 

*  Od^fiefte — Virgil  comes  near  to  one  phasis  of  this 
iiea  —  Malo  me  GalateA  petit  lasciva  puella,  et  fugit  ad  salioes, 
et  se  cupii  ante  videri.  LtiBciua  is  mQvely  frolicsome  i  in  tke 
last  line  ^kpjpears  the  coquette. 


PROTESTAI^TISM. 


373 


you  shall  be  excused  from  that^  if  you  will  only  trans- 
late it  into  English.  You  cannot :  you  are  obliged  to 
keep  the  French  word ;  and  yet  you  take  for  granted, 
without  inquiry,  that  in  the  word  "  witchcraft,"  and 
in  the  word  "  witch,"  applied  to  the  sorceress  of 
Endor,  our  authorised  English  Bible  of  King  James's 
day  must  be  correct.  And  your  wicked  bibliolatrous 
ancestors  proceeded  on  that  idea  throughout  Christen- 
dom to  murder  harmless,  friendless,  and  oftentimes 
crazy  old  women.  Meantime  the  witch  of  Endor  in 
no  respect  resembled  our  modern  domestic  wdtch.'^' 

*  **  The  domestic  witch:  "  —  It  is  the  common  notion  that  the 
superstition  of  the  evil  eye,  so  widely  diffused  in  the  Southern 
lands,  and  in  some,  as  Portugal,  for  example,  not  a  slumbering, 
but  a  fiercely  operative  superstition,  is  unknown  in  England  and 
other  Northern  latitudes.  On  the  contrary,  to  my  thinking,  the 
regular  old  vulgar  witch  of  England  and  Scotland  was  but  an 
impersonatrix  of  the  very  same  superstition.  Virgil  expresses 
this  mode  of  sorcery  to  the  letter,  when  his  shepherd  says  — 

Nescio  quis  teneros  oculus  mihi  fascinat  agnos  ?  " 

Precisely  in  that  way  it  was  that  the  British  witch  operated. 
She,  by  her  eye,  blighted  the  natural  powers  of  growth  and  fer- 
tility. By  the  way,  I  ought  to  mention,  as  a  case  parallel  to 
that  of  the  Bible's  recognising  witchcraft,  and  of  enlightened 
nations  continuing  to  punish  it,  that  St.  Paul  himself,  in  an 
equal  degree,  recognises  the  evil  eye  ;  that  is,  he  uses  the  idea 
(though  certainly  not  meaning  to  accredit  such  an  idea),  as  one 
that  briefly  and  energetically  conveyed  his  meaning  to  those 
whom  he  was  addressing.  **  Oh,  foolish  Galatians,  who  hath 
bewitched  you?"  That  is,  literally,  who  has  fascinated  your 
senses  by  the  evil  eye  ?  For  the  Greek  is,  tis  umas  ehaskanen  ? 
Now  the  word  ebaskanen  is  a  past  tense  of  the  verb  baskaino, 
which  was  the  technical  term  for  the  action  of  the  evil  eye 
Without  having  written  a  treatise  on  the  MoWq  digarama,  prob* 


374 


PHOTESTANTISM. 


There  was  as  mucii  difFerence  as  between  a  Roman 
Proconsul,  surrounded  with  eagle-bearers,  and  a  com- 
mercial Consul's  clerk  with  a  pen  behind  his  ear. 
Apparently  she  was  not  so  much  a  Medea  as  an 
Erichtho.  (See  the  Pharsalia).  She  was  an  Evoca" 
trix,  or  female  necromancer,  evoking  phantoms  that 
stood  in  some  unknown  relation  to  dead  men ;  and 
then  by  some  artifice  (it  has  been  supposed)  of  ven- 
triloquism,^' causing  these  phantoms  to  deliver  oracular 
answers  upon  great  political  questions.  Oh,  that  one 
had  lived  in  the  times  of  those  New-England  wretches 
that  desolated  whole  districts  and  terrified  vast  prov- 

ably  the  reader  is  aware  that  F  is  V,  and  that,  in  many  lan- 
guages, B  and  V  are  interchangeable  letters  through  thousands 
of  words,  as  the  Italian  tavola,  from  the  Latin  tabula.  Under 
that  little  process  it  was  that  the  Greek  baskaino  transmigrated 
into  the  Latin/ascnio  ;  so  that  St.  Paul's  word,  in  speaking  to 
the  Galatians,  is  the  very  same  word  as  Virgil's,  in  speaking  of 
the  shepherd's  flock  as  charmed  by  the  evil  eye.  For  first  of  all, 
St.  Paul's  word  Baskaino  was  undoubtedly  pronounced  Vas- 
kaino  ;  just  as  Sebastopol  is  orientally  pronounced  Sei;astopol, 
and  as  Sebastos,  which  is  the  Greek  equivalent  for  the  Roman 
Augustus^  was  always  pronounced  Set^astos.  By  this  process, 
the  Grecian  word  Baskaino  became  Faskaino,  and  then,  with 
hardly  any  change,  the  Latin  Fascino  pronounced  Fas/cino." 
For  the  Roman  "c"  had  in  a  Zr  situations  the  force  of  " /c." 
Thus  Coesar  was  always  Keysar  (therefore  in  Greek  Kataai^)\ 
and  our  wicked  friend  Cicero  was  always  Kikero  (in  Greek  there- 
fore Ki'/.'^ion).  Except  for  the  accent  on  the  first  syllable  of 
Fascino,  the  Greek  and  the  Roman  word  were  therefore  identical 
to  the  ear,  though  slightly  different  to  the  eye. 

*  I  am  not  referring  to  German  infidels.  Very  pious  commen- 
tators have  connected  her  with  the  engastrimuthoi  {tyyaoTQiuvdoi'^ 
or  ventrij-jijuists. 


PKOTESTANTISM. 


375 


inces  by  their  judicial  murders  of  witches,  under  plea 
of  a  bibliolatrous  warrant ;  until  at  last  the  fiery 
furnace,  which  they  had  heated  for  women  and  chil- 
dren, shot  forth  flames  that,  like  those  of  Nebuchad- 
nezzar's furnace,  seizing  upon  his  very  agents  of  his 
cruelty,  began  to  reach  the  murderous  judges  them- 
selves and  denouncers  !  Oh,  glory  of  retribution 
to  see  the  wicked  judge  of  New  England  roasted 
in  the  fire  which  himself  had  kindled  —  to  see  the 
cruel  bibliolater,  in  Hamlet's  words,  hoist  by  his 
own  petard." 

Yet,  after  all,  are  there  not  express  directions  in 
Scripture  to  exterminate  witches  from  the  land  ?  Cer- 
tainly ;  but  that  does  not  argue  any  Scriptural  recog- 
nition of  witchcraft  as  a  possible  offence.  An  imaginary 
crime  may  imply  a  criminal  intention  that  is  7iot  imag- 
inary ;  but  also,  which  much  more  directly  concerns 
the  interests  of  a  state,  a  criminal  purpose,  that  rests 
upon  a  pure  delusion,  may  work  by  means  that  are 
felonious  for  ends  that  are  fatal.  At  this  moment,  we 
English  and  the  Spaniards  have  laws,  and  severe  ones, 
against  witchcraft  —  viz.,  in  the  West  Indies  ;  and  in- 
dispensable it  is  that  we  should.  The  Obeah  man  from 
Africa  can  do  no  mischief  to  one  of  us.  The  proud 
and  enlightened  white  man  despises  his  arts ;  and  for 
him^  therefore,  these  arts  have  no  existence,  for  they 
work  only  through  strong  preconceptions  of  their  re- 
ality, and  through  trembling  faith  in  their  efiicacy. 
But  by  that  very  agency  they  are  all-sufficient  for  the 
ruin  of  the  poor  credulous  negro  ;  he  is  mastered  by 
original  faith,  and  has  perished  by  a  languishing  de- 
cay  thousands  of  times  under  the  knowledge  that  Obi 


376 


PROTESTAXTISM. 


bad  been  set  for  him.  Justly,  therefore,  do  our 
colonial  courts  punish  the  Obeah  sorcerer,  who  (though 
an  impostor)  is  not  the  less  a  murderer.  Now  the 
Hebrew  witchcraft  was  probably  even  worse;  equally 
resting  on  delusions,  equally,  nevertheless,  it  woiked 
for  unlawful  ends,  and  (which  chiefly  made  it  an  ob- 
ject of  Divine  wrath)  it  worked  through  idolatrous 
agencies.  All  the  spells,  the  rites,  the  invocations 
were  doubtless  Pagan.  The  witchcraft  of  Judea, 
therefore,  must  have  kept  up  that  connection  with  idol- 
atry which  it  was  the  unceasing  effort  of  the  Hebrew 
polity  to  exterminate  from  the  land.  Consequently, 
the  Hebrew  commonwealth  might,  as  consistently  as 
our  own  in  Trinidad  and  Jamaica,  denounce  and 
punish  witchcraft  without  liability  to  the  inference 
that  it  therefore  recognised  the  pretensions  of  witches 
as  real,  in  the  sense  of  working  their  bad  ends  by  the 
means  which  they  alleged.  Their  magic  was  causa- 
tively  of  no  virtue  at  all ;  but,  being  believed  in  like 
the  equally  false  but  equally  operative  behef  of  the 
African  negro  in  Ohi,  it  became,  through  and  by  that 
potent  belief,  the  occasional  means  of  exciting  the 
imagination  of  its  victims  ;  after  which  the  consequen- 
ces were  the  same  as  if  the  magic  had  acted  physically 
according  to  its  pretences.* 

*  Does  that  argument  not  cover*  "the  New  England  wretches,' 
BO  unreservedly  denounced  in  a  preceding  paragraph  ?  —  Amer- 
ican Ed.  Answer  by  the  Author.  —  No,  surely  the  diflference  ia 
vast  between  the  two  cases.  The  persons  denounced  and  arrested 
in  New  England  were  entirely  passive ;  or  were  so  generally ; 
ihey  did  nothing  at  all  —  they  were  not  seeking  to  injure  others. 
But  the  Obeah  man  never  moved  except  for  evil  jmrposes; 


PEOTESTANTISM. 


377 


2.  Development,  as  applicable  to  Christianity,  is  a 
doctrine  of  the  very  days  that  are  passing  over  our 
heads,  and  due  to  Mr.  Newman,  originally  the  ablest 
son  of  Puseyism,  but  now  a  powerful  architect  of  re- 
ligious philosophy  on  his  own  account.  I  should  have 
described  him  more  briefly  as  a  master-builder,"  had 
my  ear  been  able  to  endure  a  sentence  ending  with  two 
consecutive  trochees,  and  each  of  those  trochees  end- 
ing with  the  same  syllable  er.  Ah,  reader !  I  would 
the  gods  had  made  thee  rhythmical,  that  thou  might  est 
comprehend  the  thousandth  part  of  my  labors  in  the 
evasion  of  cacophony.  PhiL  has  a  general  dislike  to 
the  Puseyites,  though  he  is  too  learned  to  be  ignorant 
(as  are  often  the  Low-Church,  or  Evangelical,  party 
in  England),  that,  in  many  of  their  supposed  innova- 

eitlier  as  an  agent  in  the  service  of  some  other  man's  malice,  or 
in  the  service  of  his  own  rapacity  —  as  an  extortioner  relying 
upon  the  mystic  terrors  of  his  negro  victims.  Let  the  reader 
consult  Bryan  Edwards  in  his  **  West  Indies  "  —  a  well-known 
book  of  sixty  years  back.  Or,  as  I  now  dimly  remember,  in  Miss 
Edgeworth's  earliest  novel  of  "Belinda,"  he  will  find  a  lively 
sketch  embodying  most  of  the  features  characterising  the  African 
form  of  magic;  that  is,  the  special  magic  of  Obi  (which,  by  the 
way,  was  popularised  in  London  and  Liverpool  some  fifty  years 
back  by  the  picturesque  drama  of  **  Obi,  or  Three-fingered 
Jack  ").  But  for  a  larger  view  of  African  magic,  not  limited  to 
the  Koromantyn  form  of  Obi,  I  would  refer  the  reader  to  some 
interesting  disclosures  (founded  on  personal  experience)  in  the 
African  Memoranda"  of  Captain  Beavor.  The  book  belongs 
to  the  last  generation,  and  must  be  more  than  forty  years  old. 
The  author  was  a  Post-captain  in  our  navy;  and  I  may  mention 
incidentally  that  he  was  greatly  admired  by  Coleridge  and 
Wordsworth  for  the  meditative  and  philosophic  style  of  mind  ex- 
hibited in  his  book. 


378 


PROTESTANTISM. 


tions,  the  Puseyites  were  really  only  restoring  what 
the  torpor  of  the  eighteenth  century  had  suffered  to  go 
into  disuse.  They  were  reforming  the  church  in  the 
sense  sometimes  belonging  to  the  particle  re  —  viz.,  re- 
troforming  it,  moulding  it  back  into  compliance  with 
its  original  form  and  model.  It  is  true  that  this  effort 
for  quickening  the  church,  and  for  adorning  her  exte- 
rior service,  moved  under  the  impulse  of  too  undis- 
guised a  sympathy  w^ith  Papal  Rome.  But  there  is  no 
great  reason  to  mind  that  in  our  age  and  our  country. 
Protestant  zealotry  may  be  safely  relied  on  in  this 
island  as  a  match  for  Popish  bigotry.  There  will  be 
no  love  lost  between  them  —  be  assured  of  that  —  and 
justice  will  be  done  to  both,  though  neither  should  do 
it  to  her  rival  ;  for  philosophy,  which  has  so  long 
sought  only  amusement  in  either,  is,  in  these  latter 
days  of  growing  profundity,  applying  herself  steadily 
to  the  profound  truths  which-  dimly  are  descried  lurk- 
ing in  both.  It  is  these  which  Mr.  Newman  is  likely 
to  illuminate,  and  not  the  faded  forms  of  an  obsolete 
ceremonial  that  cannot  now  be  restored  effectually, 
were  it  even  important  that  they  should.  Strange  it 
is,  however,  that  he  should  open  his  career  by  offering 
to  Rome,  as  a  mode  of  homage,  this  doctrine  of  de- 
velopment, which  is  the  direct  inversion  of  her  own. 
Rome  founds  herself  upon  the  idea,  that  to  her,  by 
tradition  and  exclusive  privilege,  was  communicated, 
once  for  all,  the  whole  truth  from  the  beginning.  Mr. 
Newman  lays  his  corner-stone  in  the  very  opposite 
idea  of  gradual  development  given  to  Christianity  by 
the  motion  of  time,  by  experience,  by  expanding  occa- 
sions, and  by  the  progress  of  civilization.    Is  New- 


PHOTESTANTISM. 


379 


oianism  likely  to  prosper  ?  Let  me  tell  a  little  anecdote. 
Twenty  years  ago,  roaming  one  day  (as  so  often  I  did) 
with  our  immortal  Wordsworth,  I  took  the  liberty  of 
telling  him,  at  a  point  of  our  walk,  where  nobody 
could  possibly  overhear  me,  unless  it  were  old  Father 
Helvellyn,  that  I  feared  his  theological  principles  ^vere 
not  quite  so  sound  as  his  friends  would  wish.  They 
wanted  tinkering  a  little.  But  what  was  worse,  I  did 
not  see  how  they  could  he  tinkered  in  the  particular 
case  which  prompted  my  remark ;  for  in  that  place,  to 
tinker,  or  in  any  respect  to  alter,  was  to  destroy.  It 
was  a  passage  in  the  "  Excursion,"  where  the  Solitary 
had  described  the  baptismal  rite  as  washing  away  the 
taint  of  original  sin,  and,  in  fact,  working  the  effect 
which  is  called  technically  regeneration.  In  the  Ex- 
cursion "  this  view  was  advanced,  not  as  the  poet's 
separate  opinion,  but  as  the  avowed  doctrine  of  the 
English  Church,  to  which  church  "Wordsworth  and 
myself  yielded  gladly  a  filial  reverence.  But  was  this 
the  doctrine  of  the  English  Church  ?  That  I  doubted 
—  and  judging  by  my  own  casual  experience,  I  fancied 
that  a  considerable  majority  in  the  church  gave  an  in- 
terpretation to  this  sacrament  differing  by  much  from 
that  in  the  "  Excursion."  Wordsworth  was  startled 
and  disturbed  at  hearing  it  whispered  ever  before 
Helvellyn,  who  is  old  enough  to  keep  a  secret,  that 
his  theology  might  possibly  limp  a  little.  I,  on  ?ny 
part,  was  not  sure  that  it  did,  but  I  feared  so  ;  and, 
as  there  was  no  chance  that  I  should  be  murdered  for 
speaking  freely  (though  the  place  was  lonely,  and  the 
evening  getting  dusky,  and  W.  W.  had  a  natural  re- 
semblance to  Mrs.  Ratcliffe's  Schedoni  and  other  as- 


380 


PllOTESTANTISM. 


sassins  roaming  through  prose  and  verse),  I  stood  to  my 
disagreeable  communication  with  the  courage  of  a 
martyr.  The  question  between  us  being  one  of  mere 
fact  (not  what  ought  to  be  the  doctrine,  but  what  was 
the  doctrine  of  our  English  Church  at  that  time),  there 
was  no  opening  for  much  discussion  ;  and,  on  Words- 
worth's suggestion,  it  was  agreed  to  refer  the  point  to 
his  learned  brother,  Dr.  Christopher  Wordsworth,  just 
then  meditating  a  visit  to  his  native  lakes.  That  visit 
in  a  short  time  came  off,"  and  then,  without  delay, 
our  dispute  "  came  on  "  for  judgment.  1  had  no  bets 
upon  the  issue  —  one  can't  bet  with  Wordsworth  — 
and  I  don't  know  that  I  should  have  ventured  to  back 
myself  in  a  case  of  that  nature.  However,  I  felt  a  slight 
anxiety  on  the  subject,  which  was  very  soon  and  kindly 
removed  by  Dr.  Wordsworth's  deciding,  "  sans  phrase," 
that  I,  the  original  mover  of  the  strife,  was  wrong, 
wrong  as  wrong  could  be  ;  without  an  opening  in  fact 
to  any  possibility  of  being  more  wrong.  To  this  de- 
cision I  bowed  at  once,  on  a  principle  of  courtesy. 
One  ought  always  to  presume  a  man  right  within  his 
own  profession^  even  if  privately  one  should  think 
him  wrong.  But  1  could  not  think  that  of  Dr.  Words- 
svorth.  He  was  a  D.  D.  ;  he  was  head  of  Trinity 
College,  which  has  my  entire  permission  to  hold  its 
head  up  among  twenty  colleges,  as  the  leading  one  in 
Cambridge  (provided  it  can  obtain  St.  John's  per- 
mission), "  and  which,"  says  Phil.,  "has  done  more 
than  any  other  foundation  in  Europe  for  the  enlighten- 
Tient  of  the  world,  and  for  the  overthrow  of  literary, 
philosophical,  and  religious  superstitions."  I  quarrel 
not  with  this  bold  appreciation,  remembering  reveren- 


protestantism:. 


381 


dally  that  Isaac  Barrow,  that  Isaac  Ne^vton,  that 
Richard  Bentley  belonged  to  Trinity,  but  I  wish  to 
understand  it.  The  total  pretensions  of  the  College 
can  be  known  only  to  its  members  ;  and  therefore 
Phil,  should  have  explained  himself  more  fully.  He 
can  do  so,  for  Fhil.  is  certainly  a  Trinity  man.  If  the 
police  are  in  search  of  him,  beyond  a  doubt  they'l 
hear  of  him  at  Trinity.  Suddenly  it  strikes  me  as  a 
dream,  that  Lord  Bacon  also  belonged  to  this  College. 
As  to  Dr.  Wordsworth,  he  was,  or  had  been  an  examin- 
ing chaplain  to  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury.  Now 
to  suppose  Lambeth  in  fault  on  such  a  question,  is  equiv- 
alent to  the  old  Roman  formula  of  Solem  dicere  fal- 
sum.  What  other  court  of  appeal  was  known  to  man  ? 
So  I  submitted  as  cheerfully  as  if  the  learned  Doctor, 
instead  of  kicking  me  out  of  court,  had  been  handing 
me  in.  Yet,  for  all  that,  as  I  returned  musing  past 
Rydal  Water,  I  could  not  help  muttering  to  myself  — 
Ay,  now,  what  rebellious  thought  was  it  that  I  mut- 
tered ?  You  fancy,  reader,  that  perhaps  I  said,  But 
yet.  Doctor,  in  spite  of  your  wig,  I  am  in  the  right." 
No  ;  you're  quite  wrong  ;  I  said  nothing  of  the  sort. 
What  I  did  mutter  was  this  —  "  The  prevailing  doc- 
trine of  the  church  must '  be  what  Dr.  Wordsworth 
says  —  viz.,  that  baptism  is  regeneration —  he  cannot 
be  mistaken  as  to  that  —  and  I  have  been  misled  by 
the  unfair  proportion  of  Evangelical  people,  bishops, 
and  others,  whom  accident  has  thrown  in  my  way  at 
Barley  Wood  (Hannah  More's).  These,  doubtless 
form  a  minority  in  the  church  ;  and  yet,  from  the 
strength  of  their  opinions,  from  their  being  a  moving 
party,  as  also  from  their  being  a  growing  party,  I  pro- 


PROTESTAIS^TISM. 


phesy  this  issue,  that  many  years  will  not  pass  before 
this  very  question,  now  slumbering,  will  rouse  a  feud 
within  the  English  Church.  There  is  a  quarrel  brew- 
ing. Such  feuds,  long  after  they  are  ripe  for  explosion, 
sometimes  slumber  on,  until  accident  kindles  then) 
into  flame."  That  accident  was  furnished  by  the 
tracts  of  the  Puseyites,  and  since  then,  according  to 
the  word  which  I  spoke  on  Rydal  Water,  there  has 
been  open  war  raging  on  this  very  point. 

At  present,  with  even  more  certainty,  I  prophesy 
that  mere  necessity,  a  necessity  arising  out  of  continual 
collisions  with  sceptical  philosophy,  will,  in  a  few 
years,  carry  all  churches  enjoying  a  learned  priesthood 
into  the  disputes  connected  with  this  doctrine  of  de^'el- 
opment.  Phil,,  meantime,  is  no  friend  to  that  New- 
manian  doctrine ;  and  in  sect.  31,  p.  66,  he  thus 
describes  it:  —  "According  to  these  writers"  (viz., 
the  writers  who  advocate  the  theory  of  development), 
"  the  progressive  and  gradual  development  of  religious 
truth,  which  appears  to  "  {us,  in  the  mouth  of  an 
anti-Newmanite,  meaning  the  OZcZ-mannians)  "  to  have 
been  terminated  by  the  final  revelation  of  the  Gospel, 
has  been  going  on  ever  since  the  foundation  of  the 
church,  is  going  on  still,  and  must  continue  to  advance. 
This  theory  presumes  that  the  Bible  does  not  contain 
a  full  and  final  exposition  of  a  complete  system  of 
religion ;  that  the  church  has  developed  from  the 
Scriptures  true  doctrines  not  explicitly  contained  ' 
therein,"  &c.,  &;c. 

But,  without  meaning  to  undertake  a  defence  of 
Mr.  Newman  (whose  book  I  am  as  yet  too  slenderly 
acquainted  with),  may  I  be  allowed,  at  this  point,  to 


PROTESTANTISM. 


383 


intercept  a  fallacious  view  of  that  doctrine,  as  though 
essentially  it  proclaimed  some  imperfection  in  Chris  - 
tianity. The  imperfection  is  in  us,  the  Christians, 
not  in  Christianity.  The  impression  gi\en  by  Phil,  to 
the  hasty  reader  is,  that,  according  to  Newmanism, 
the  Scriptures  make  a  good  beginning,  to  which  we 
ourselves  are  continually  adding  —  furnish  a  founda- 
tion, on  which  we  ourselves  build  the  superstructure. 
Not  so.  In  the  course  of  a  day  or  a  year,  the  sun 
passes  through  a  vast  variety  of  positions,  aspects,  and 
corresponding  powers,  in  relation  to  ourselves.  Daily 
and  annually  he  is  developed  to  us  —  he  runs  a  cycle 
of  development.  Yet,  after  all,  this  practical  result 
does  not  argue  any  change  or  imperfection,  growth  or 
decay,  in  the  sun.  This  great  orb  is  stationary  as 
regards  his  place,  and  unchanging  as  regards  his  power. 
It  is  the  subjective  change  in  ourselves  that  projects 
itself  into  this  endless  succession  of  apparent  changes 
in  the  object.  Not  otherwise  on  the  scheme  of  religious 
development;  the  Christian  theory  and  system  are 
perfect  from  the  beginning.  In  itself,  Christianity 
changes  not,  neither  waxing  nor  waning  ;  but  the 
motions  of  time  and  the  evolutions  of  experience  con- 
tinually uncover  new  parts  of  its  unchanging  disk. 
The  orb  grows,  so  far  as  practically  we  are  speaking 
of  our  own  perceptions ;  but  absolutely,  as  regards 
itself  in  its  essence,  the  orb,  eternally  the  same,  has 
simply  more  or  fewer  of  its  digits  exposed.  Chris- 
tianity, perfect  from  the  beginning,  had  in  its  earlier 
stages  a  curtain  over  much  of  its  disk,  which  Time 
and  Social  Progress  are  continually  withdrawing. 
This  I  say  not  as  any  deliberate  judgment  on  develop- 


384 


PROTESTANTISM. 


ment,  but  merely  as  a  suspending,  or  ad  interiyn  idea, 
by  way  of  barring  too  summary  an  interdict  against 
the  doctrine  at  this  premature  stage.  Phil.,  however, 
hardens  his  face  against  Newman  and  all  his  works. 
Him  and  them  he  defies  ;  and  would  consign,  perhaps 
secretly,  to  the  care  of  a.  well-known  (not  new,  but) 
old  gentleman,  if  only  he  had  any  faith  in  that  old 
gentleman's  existence.  On  that  point,  he  is  a  fixed 
infidel,  and  quotes  with  applause  the  answer  of  Robin- 
son, the  once  celebrated  Baptist  clergyman,  who  being 
asked  if  he  believed  in"  the  devil,  replied,  "  Oh,  no ; 
7,  for  my  part,  believe  in  God  —  don't  i/om  ?  "  as  if 
each  belief  alternately  involved  the  negation  of  the 
other. 

P^^7.,  therefore,  as  we  have  seen,  in  effect,  condemns 
development.  But,  at  p.  33,  when  as  yet  he  is  not 
thinking  of  Mr.  Newman,  he  says,  "  If  knowledge  is 
progressive,  the  development  of  Christian  doctrine  must 
be  progressive  likewise."  I  do  not  see  the  must;  but 
I  see  the  Newmanian  cloven  foot.  As  to  the  must^ 
knowledge  is  certainly  progressive ;  but  the  develop- 
ment of  the  multiplication  table  is  not  therefore  pro- 
gressive, nor  of  anything  else  that  is  finished  from  the 
beginning.  My  reason,  however,  for  quoting  the  sen- 
tence, is  because  here  we  suddenly  detect  Phil,  laying 
down  in  his  own  person  that  doctrine  which  in  Mr. 
Newman  he  had  regarded  as  heterodox.  Phil,  is 
taken  red-hand,  as  the  English  law  expresses  it,  crim- 
son with  the  blood  of  his  offence ;  assuming,  in  fact, 
fin  original  imperfection  quoad  the  scire,  not  quoad  the 
esse  ;  as  to  the  "  exposition  of  the  system,"  though  not 
as  to  the  ''system  itself"  of  Christianity.    Mr.  New- 


PHOTESTANTISM. 


385 


man,  after  all,  asserts  (I  believe)  only  one  mode  of 
development  as  applicable  to  Christianity.  Phil,  hav- 
ing broke  the  ice,  may  now  be  willing  to  allow  of  two 
developments  ;  whilst  I,  that  am  always  for  going  to 
extremes,  finding  moderation  to  be  the  v/orst  thing  in 
this  present  world,  should  be  disposed  to  assert  three, 
viz. :  — 

First,  the  Philological  development.  And  this  is  a 
point  on  which  I,  Philo-Phil.  (or,  as  for  brevity  you 
may  call  me,  Phil-Phil.)  shall,  without  wishing  to  do 
so,  vex  Phil,  It's  shocking  that  one  should  vex  the 
author  of  one's  existence,  which  Phil,  certainly  is  in 
relation  to  me,  when  considered  as  Phil- Phil  ;  for  I, 
in  my  incarnation  of  Phil-Phil.,  certainly  could  not 
have  existed,  had  not  Phil,  pre-existed.  Still  it  is 
past  all  denial,  that,  to  a  certain  extent,  the  Scriptures 
must  benefit,  like  any  other  book,  by  an  increasing  ac- 
curacy and  compass  of  learning  in  the  exegesis  applied 
to  them.  But  if  all  the  world  denied  this,  Phil.,  my 
parent,  is  the  man  that  cannot ;  since  he  it  is  that  re- 
lies upon  philological  knowledge  as  the  one  resource  of 
Christian  philosophy  in  all  circumstances  of  difficulty 
for  any  of  its  interests,  positive  or  negative.  Philol- 
ogy, according  to  Phil.,  is  the  sheet-anchor  of  Chris- 
tianity. Already  it  is  the  author  of  a  Christianity 
more  in  harmony  with  philosophy ;  and,  as  regards  the 
future,  Phil,  it  is  that  charges  Philology  with  the 
whole  service  of  divinity.  Wherever  anything,  being 
right,  needs  to  be  defended  —  wherever  anything, 
being  amiss,  needs  to  be  improved,  on  Philology  it  is 
that  the  burden  rests.  Oh,  what  a  life  he  will  lead 
this  poor  Philology !  Philology,  with  Phil.,  is  the 
25 


386 


PROTESTANTISM, 


is  the  great  benefactress  for  the  past,  and  the  sole  trus- 
tee for  the  future.  Philology  is  the  Mrs.  Partington 
that  not  only  engages  in  single  duel  with  the  Atlantic 
Ocean,  armed  simply  with  her  mop,  but  also  under- 
takes to  mop  out  the  Atlantic  from  all  trespass  or  in- 
trusion through  all  time  coming.  Here,  therefore, 
Phil,  is  caught  in  a  fix,  liahemus  confitentem.  He  de- 
nounces development  when  dealing  with  the  Newman- 
ites  ;  he  relies  on  it  when  vaunting  the  functions  of 
Philology  ;  and  the  only  evasion  for  him  would  be  to 
distinguish  about  the  modes  of  development,  were  it 
not  that,  by  insinuation,  he  has  apparently  denied  all 
modes. 

Secondly,  there  is  the  Philosophic  development,  from 
that  constant  reaction  upon  the  Bible  which  is  maintain- 
ed by  advancing  knowledge.  This  is  a  mode  of  develop- 
ment continually  going  on,  and  reversing  the  steps  of 
past  human  follies.  In  every  age,  man  has  imported 
his  own  crazes  into  the  Bible,  fancied  that  he  saw 
them  there,  and  then  drawn  sanctions  to  his  wicked- 
ness or  absurdity  from  what  were  nothing  else  than 
reflexes  projected  from  his  own  monstrous  errors,  or,  at 
best,  puerile  conceits  of  adventurous  ignorance.  Thus 
did  the  Papists  draw  a  plenary  justification  of  intoler- 
ance, or  even  of  atrocious  persecution,  from  the  Evan- 
gelical "  Compel  them  to  come  in  The  right  of  un- 
limited coercion  was  read  in  those  words.  People, 
again,  that  were  democratically  given,  or  had  a  fancy 
for  treason,  heard  a  trumpet  of  insurrection  in  the 
words  "  To  your  tents,  oh  Israel!''  But  far  beyond 
these  in  multitude  were  those  that  drew  from  the  Bible 
the  most  extravagant  claims  for  kings  and  rulers. 


PROTESTANTISM. 


387 


"  Eebellion  was  as  the  sin  of  witchcraft."  This  was 
%  jewel  of  a  text ;  it  killed  two  birds  with  one  stone 
— -  viz.,  simultaneously  condemning  all  constitutional 
resistance,  the  most  wise  and  indispensable,  to  the 
most  profJigate  of  kings,  and  also  consecrating  the  fil- 
thiest of  man's  follies  as  to  witchcraft.  Broomsticks, 
as  aerial  horses,  were  proved  out  of  it  most  clearly, 
and  also  the  atrocity  of  representative  government. 
What  a  little  text  to  contain  so  much  !  Look  into 
Algernon  Sidney,  or  into  Locke's  controversy  with  Sir 
Robert  Filmer's  *  "  Patriarcha,"  or  into  any  books  of 
those  days  on  political  principles,  and  it  will  be  found 
that  Scripture  was  so  used  as  to  form  an  absolute  bar 
against  human  progress.  All  public  benefits  were,  in 
the  most  verbal  sense,  made  to  be  precarious,  as  de- 
pending upon  prayers  (preces  —  whence  precor,  and  our 
own  precarious)  to  those  who  had  an  interest  in  refus- 
ing them.  Ail  improvements  were  eleemosynary ;  for 
the  initial  step  in  all  cases  belonged  to  the  crown  ;  and 
except  as  bounty  or  lordly  alms  from  the  crown,  no 
reform  was  possible.  "The  right  divine  of  kings  to 
govern  wrong "  was  in  those  days  what  many  a  man 
would  have  died  for  —  what  many  a  man  did  die  for ; 
and  all  in  pure  simplicity  of  heart  —  feithful  to  the 
Bible,  but  to  the  Bible  of  misinterpretation.  They 
obeyed  (and  most  sincerely,  because  often  to  their  own 
ruin)  an  order  w^hich  they  had  misread.  Their  sincer- 
ty,  the  disinterestedness  of  their  folly,  is  evident ; 
and  in  that  degree  is  evident  the  opening  for  Scripture 

*  "  Filmer's  Patriarcha ; "  —  I  mention  the  booh  as  the  an- 
tagonist, and  not  the  man,  because  (according  to  my  impression) 
Bir  Robert  was  dead  when  Locke  was  answering  him. 


388 


PHOTESTANTISM. 


development.  Nobody  could  better  obey  Scripture  as 
iliey  had  understood  it.  Change  in  the  obedience, 
there  could  be  none  for  "the  better  ;  it  demanded  only 
that  there  should  be  a  change  in  the  interpretation, 
and  that  change  would  be  what  is  meant  by  a  develop- 
ment of  Scripture.  Two  centuries  of  enormous  pro- 
gress in  the  relations  between  subjects  and  rulers  have 
altered  the  whole  reading.  How  readest  thou  ?  " 
was  the  question  of  Christ  himself;  that  is,  in  what 
meaning  dost  thou  read  the  particular  Scripture  that 
applies  to  this  case,  so  as  to  escape  a  superstitious 
obedience  to  its  mere  letter,  which  so  often  "  killeth  ?  " 
All  the  texts  and  all  the  cases  remain  at  this  hour  just 
as  they  were  for  our  ancestors  ;  and  our  reverence  for 
these  texts  is  as  absolute  as  theirs ;  but  we,  applying 
lights  of  experience  which  they  had  not,  construe  these 
texts  by  different  logic.  There  now  is  development 
applied  to  the  Bible  in  one  of  its  many  strata  —  that 
particular  stratum  which  connects  itself  most  with  civil 
polity.  Again,  what  a  development  have  we  made  of 
Christian  truth  ;  how  differently  do  we  now  read  our 
Bibles  in  relation  to  the  poor  tenants  of  dungeons  that 
once  were  thought,  even  by  Christian  nations,  to  have 
no  rights  at  all  !  —  in  relation  to  "  all  prisoners  and 
captives  ;  and  in  relation  above  all  to  slaves  !  The 
New  Testament  had  said  nothing  directly  upon  the 
question  of  slavery ;  nay,  by  the  misreader  it  was 
rather  supposed  indirectly  to  countenance  that  institu- 
tion.  But  mark  —  it  is  Mohammedanism,  having  little 

*  Words  from  one  of  the  beautiful  petitions  in  tLe  Litany  of 
the  Anglican  Church. 


PROTESTAISTISM. 


389 


faith  in  its  own  spiritual  power  of  rectification,  that 
dare  not  confide  in  its  children  for  developing  anything, 
but  must  tie  them  up  for  every  contingency  by  the 
letter  of  a  rule.  Christianity  —  how  differently  does 
she  proceed !  She  throws  herself  broadly  upon  the 
pervading  spirit  which  burns  within  her  morals.  Let 
them  alone,"  she  says  of  nations ;  "  leave  them  to 
themselves.  I  have  put  a  new  law  into  their  hearts, 
and  a  new  heart  (a  heart  of  flesh,  where  before  was  a 
stony  heart)  into  all  my  children ;  and  if  it  is  really 
there,  really  cherished,  that  law,  read  by  that  heart, 
will  tell  them  —  will  develop  for  them  —  what  it  is 
that  they  ought  to  do  in  every  case  as  it  arises,  though 
never  noticed  in  words,  when  once  its  consequences 
are  comprehended."  No  need,  therefore,  for  the  New 
Testament  explicitly  to  forbid  slavery;  silently  and 
implicitly  it  is  forbidden  in  many  passages  of  the  New 
Testament,  and  it  is  at  war  with  the  spirit  of  all.  Be- 
sides, the  religion  which  trusts  to  formal  and  literal 
rules  breaks  down  the  very  moment  that  a  new  case 
arises  not  d^escribed  in  the  rules.  Such  a  case  is  vir- 
tually unprovided  for,  if  it  does  not  answer  to  a  cir- 
cumstantial textual  description ;  whereas  every  case  is 
provided  for,  as  soon  as  its  tendencies  and  its  moral 
relations  are  made  known,  by  a  religion  that  speaks 
through  a  spiritual  organ  to  a  spiritual  apprehension 
in  man.  Accordingly,  we  find  that,  whenever  a  new 
mode  of  intoxication  is  introduced,  not  depending 
ipon  grapes,  the  most  devout  Mussulmans  hold  them- 
selves absolved  from  the  interdict  of  the  Koran  as  to 
strong  drink,  on  the  ground  that  this  interdict  applied  ^ 
itself  to  the  fermentations  of  grapes,  and  scandalously 


390 


PROTESTAjN'TISM. 


unaware,  in  its  bee-like  limitation  of  prophetic  vision,* 
that  such  blessings  would  arise  in  the  Christian  world 
as  brown  stout  and  Bass's  medicinal  ale,  which  the 
Prophet  hijnself  might  have  found  useful  as  a  viaticum^ 
on  his  flight  to  [ov  from,  was  it?)  Medina. 

And  so  it  would  have  been  with  Christians,  if  the 
New  Testament  had  laid  down  literal  prohibitions  of 
slavery,  or  of  the  slave  traffic.  Thousands  of  varia- 
tions woutd  have  been  developed  by  time  which  no  let- 
ter of  Scripture  could  have  been  comprehensive  enough 
to  reach.  Were  the  domestic  servants  of  Greece,  the 
{fijrsg  (thetes),  within  the  description  ?  Were  the 
serfs  and  the  ascripii  glebce  of  feudal  Europe  to  be 
accounted  slaves  ?  Or  those  amongst  our  own  bro- 
thers and  sisters,  that  within  so  short  a  period  were 

*  *'  Bee-like  limitation  of  prophetic  vision  ;  "  —  Grosser  ig- 
norance than  my  own  in  most  sections  of  natural  history  is  not 
easily  imagined.  I  retreat  in  panic  from  a  cross-examination 
upon  such  themes  by  a  child  of  five  years.  But,  nevertheless, 
I  am  possessed  of  various  odd  fragments  in  this  field  cf  learning, 
mostly  achieved  by  my  own  casual  observation  up  and  down  in- 
numerable solitary  roamings.  I  am  also  possessed  of  one  solitaiy 
zoological  fact,  borrowed,  and  not  self-originated  (which  I  fear 
may  turn  out  to  be  a  falsehood),  as  to  the  optics  of  the  bee.  I 
pi3ked  it  up  about  fifty  years  ago  in  a  most  unlikely  quarter  — 
nz.,  the  little  work  of  a  sentimentalist  and  discounting  poet  — 
namely,  Samuel  Rogers  —  which  is  my  chief  reason  for  viewing 
it  sceptically.  He,  in  his  Pleasures  of  Memory,"  asserts  that 
the  bee,  too  busy  for  star-gazing,  sees  only  to  the  extent  of  hal^- 
an-inch  beyond  his  own  eye.  I  know  people  with  a  range  oi 
vision  considerably  less.  Will  the  reader  permit  me  to  present 
him  with  this  little  contribution  to  his  stores  of  zoological  science 
t)efore  it  has  time  to  explode  (in  the  event  of  being  unsour.d)  ? 
[  expect  no  premium  or  bo?ius,  by  way  of  commission  on  fifty 
years'  porterage. 


PROTESTANTISM. 


391 


born  sublerraneously,*  in  Scottish  mines,  or  in  the 
English  collieries  of  Cumberland,  and  were  sup- 
posed to  be  ascripti  metallo,  sold  by  nature  to  the 
mine,  and  endorsed  upon  the  machinery  as  so  many 
spokes  in  a  mighty  wheel,  shafts  and  tubes  in  the 
"  plant"  of  the  concern,  and  liable  to  be  pursued  as 
fugitive  slaves,  in  the  event  of  their  coming  up  to 
daylight,  and  walking  off  to  some   other  district. f 

*  See,  for  some  very  interesting  sketches  of  this  Pariah  popu- 
lation, the  work  (title  I  forget)  of  Mr.  Bald,  a  Scottish  engineer, 
well  known  and  esteemed  in  Edinburgh  and  Glasgow.  He  ma/ 
be  relied  on.  What  he  tells  against  Scotland  is  violently  against 
his  own  will,  for  he  is  intensely  national,  of  which  I  will  give  the 
reader  one  instance  that  may  make  him  smile.  Much  of  the 
lich,  unctuous  coal,  from  Northumberland  and  Durham,  gives  a 
deep  ruddy  light,  verging  to  a  blood-red,  and  certainly  is  rather 
sullen,  on  a  winter  evening  to  the  eye.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
Scottish  coal,  or  most  of  it,  being  far  poorer  as  to  heat,  throws 
out  a  very  beautiful  and  animated  scarlet  blaze;  upon  which 
hint,  Mr.  Bald,  when  patriotically  distressed  at  not  being  able  to 
deny  the  double  power  of  the  eastern  English  coal,  suddenly  re- 
vivifies his  Scottish  heart  that  had  been  chilled,  perhaps,  by  the 
Scottish  coals  in  his  fire-grate,  upon  recurring  to  this  picturesque 
difibrence  in  the  two  blazes  —  '*Ah!  "  he  says  gratefully,  "  that 
Newcastle  blaze  is  well  enough  for  a  "gloomy"  Englishman,  but 
it  wouldn't  do  at  all  for  cheerful  Scotland." 

t  These  hideous  abuses,  which  worked  for  generations  through 
the  silent  aid  of  dense  ignorance  in  some  quarters,  and  of  old 
traditional  maxims  in  others,  under  the  darkness  of  general 
credulity,  and  riveted  locally  by  brazen  impudence  in  lawyers, 
gave  way  (I  believe),  not  to  any  express  interference  of  the 
legislature  [for  in  these  monstrous  inroads  upon  human  rights 
the  old  proverbial  saying  was  exemplified  —  Out  of  sight,  out  of 
mind ,  and  no  bastille  can  be  so  much  out  of  sight  as  a  mine  or 
%  colliery],  but  simply  to  the  instincts  of  truth  and  knowledge 


592 


mOTESTANTISM. 


Would  they,  would  these  poor  Scotch  and  English 
Pariahs,   have  stood  within  any  Scriptural  privilege 

slowly  diifusing  their  contagious  light.    Latterly,  indeed,  the 
House  of  Cominoiis  interfered  powerfully  to  protect  woiRen  from 
working  in  mines,  and  the  poor  creatures  most  fervently  return- 
ed thanks  to  the  House  —  but,  as  I  saw  and  said  at  the  time, 
under  the  unfortunate  misconception  that  the  gracious  and  pa- 
ternal senate  would  send  a  supplementary  stream  of  gold  and 
silver,  in  lieu  of  that  particular  stream  which  the  honorable 
House  had  seen  cause  suddenly  to  freeze  up  forever.    Not  that  I 
would  insinuate  the  reasonableness,  or  even  the  possibility,  of 
Parliament's  paying  permanent  wages  to  these  poor  mining 
women;  but  I  do  contend,  that  in  the  act  of  correcting  a  ruinous 
social  evil,  that  never  could  have  reached  its  climax  unless  under 
the  criminal  negligence  of  Parliament,  naturally  and  justly  the 
duty  fell  upon  that  purblind  Parliament  of  awarding  to  these 
poor  mining  families  such  an  indemnification,  once  for  all,  as 
might  lighten  and  facilitate  the  harsh  transition  from  double 
pay  to  single  pay  which  the  new  law  had  suddenly  exacted. 
As  a  sum  to  be  paid  by  a  mighty  nation,  it  was  nothing  at  all  ; 
as  a  sum  to  be  received  by  a  few  hundreds  of  working  house- 
holds, at  a  moment  of  unavoidable  hardship  and  unforeseen 
change,  it  would  have  been  a  serious  and  seasonable  relief, 
acknowledged  with  gratitude.    Meantime,  I  am  not  able  to  say 
whether  all  the  evils  of  female  participation  in  mining  labor,  as 
contemplated  by  the  wisdom  of  Parliament,  so  fearfully  disturb- 
ing the  system  of  their  natural  household  functions,  and  lowering 
^0  painfully  the  dignity  of  their  sexual  position,  have  even  yet 
been  purified.    Mr.  Bald,  a  Scottish  engineer,  chiefly  applying 
his  science  to  collieries,  describes  a  state  of  degradations  as 
pressing  upon  the  female  co-operators  in  the  system  of  some 
collieries,  which  is  Ukely  enough  to  prevail  at  this  hour  [Feb- 
ruary, 1858],  inasmuch  as  the  substitution  of  male  labor  would 
often  prove  too  costly,  besides  that  the  special  difficulty  of  the 
case  would  thus  be  aggravated  :  I  speak  of  cases  where  the 
avenues  of  descent  into  the  mine  are  too  low  to  admit  of  horses  ; 
^d  the  womeuj  whom  it  is  found  necessary  to  substitute,  being 


PROTESTANTISM. 


393 


Had  fhe  New  Testament  legislated  by  name  and  let- 
ter for  this  class  of  douloi  (slaves)  ?  Ten  thousand 
evasions,  distinctions,  and  subdistinctions,  would  have 
neutralized  the  intended  relief;  and  a  verbal  refine- 
ment would  forever  have  defeated  a  merely  verbal 
concession.  Endless  would  be  the  virtual  restorations 
Co  slavery  under  a  Mahometan  appeal  to  the  letter  of 
the  Scriptural  command :  endless  would  be  the  defeats 
of  these  restorations  under  a  Christian  appeal  to  the 
pervading  spirit  of  God's  revealed  command,  and 
under  an  appeal  to  the  direct  voice  of  God,  ventrilo- 
quizing through  the  secret  whispers  of  man's  con- 
science. Meantime,  this  sort  of  development  (it  may 
be  objected)  is  not  so  much  a  light  which  Scripture 

obliged  to  assume  a  cowering  attitude,  gradually  subside  into 
this  unnatural  posture  (as  a  fixed  memorial  of  their  brutal 
degradation).  The  spine  in  these  poor  women,  slaving  on  behalf 
of  their  children,  becomes  permanently  horizontal,  and  at  right 
angles  to  their  legs.  In  process  of  time  they  lose  the  power  of 
bending  back  into  the  perpendicular  attitude  conferred  by 
nature  as  a  symbolic  privilege  of  grandeur  upon  the  human 
race  ;  at  least  if  we  believe  the  Roman  poet,  who  tells  us  that 
She  (meaning  Nature) 

Os  homini  sublime  dedit,  coelumque  tueri 
Jussit,  et  erectos  ad  sidera  tollere  vultus  :  " 

t.  e.,  to  the  race  of  man  she  gave  an  aspiring  countenance,  and 
laid  her  commands  upon  that  race  to  fix  his  gaze  upon  the 
heavens  overhead,  and  to  lift  up  all  faces  erect  and  bold  to  the 
imperishable  stars.  But  these  faithful  mothers,  loyal  to  their 
duties  in  scorn  of  their  own  personal  interests,  oftentimes  ex- 
ulted in  tossing  away  from  them,  as  a  worthless  derelict,  their 
womanly  graces  of  figure  and  motion  —  dedicating  and  using 
up  these  graces  as  a  fund  for  ransoming  their  daughters  from 
all  similar  degradation  in  time  to  come. 


394 


PBOTESTANTISM. 


throws  out  upon  human  life,  as  inversely  a  light  which 
human  life  and  its  eternal  evolutions  throw  back  upon 
Scripture.  True :  but  then  the  very  possibility  of 
Buch  developments  for  life,  and  for  the  deciphering 
intellect  of  man,  was  first  of  all  opened  by  the  spirit 
of  Christianity.  Christianity,  for  instance,  brings  to 
bear  seasonably  upon  some  opening,  offered  by  a  new 
phasis  in  the  aspects  of  society,  a  new  and  kindling 
truth.  This  truth,  caught  up  by  some  influential 
organ  of  social  life,  is  prodigiously  expanded  by  hu- 
man experience ;  and  subsequently,  when  travelling 
back  to  the  Bible  as  an  improved  or  illustrated  text, 
is  found  to  be"  made  up  in  its  details  of  many  human 
developments.  Does  that  argue  any  disparagement  to 
Christianity,  though  she  contributed  little,  and  man 
contributed  much  ?  On  the  contrary,  man  would  have 
contributed  nothing  at  all,  but  for  that  first  elementary 
impulse  by  which  Christianity  awakened  man's  atten- 
tion to  the  slumbering  instincts  of  truth,  started  man's 
movement  in  the  new  direction,  and  moulded  man's 
regenerated  principles.  To  give  one  instance  :  Public 
charity,  the  charity  that  grows  out  of  tender  and  ap- 
prehensive sympathy  with  human  sufferings  —  when 
did  it  commence,  and  where  ?  Who  first  thought  of  it 
as  a  paramount  duty  for  all  who  had  any  available 
power  —  as  an  awful  right,  clamorously  pleading  its 
pangs  night  and  day  in  the  ear  of  God  and  man  ? 
What  voice,  melodious  as  the  harps  of  Paradise  — 
voice  which  "  all  the  company  of  heaven  "  must  have 
echoed  with  a  choral  antiphony,  first  of  all  insisted  on 
co)d  and  hunger  as  dreadful  realities  afflicting  pool 
women  and  innocent 'children  ?    It  was  the  voice  of 


PROTESTANTISM. 


395 


one  that  sal  upon  a  throne  ;  and  lie  was  the  first  man, 
having  power  to  realize  his  benign  purposes,  that  read 
in  the  rubric  of  man's  duties  any  call  for  such  pur- 
poses. But  why  it  was  that  he  first  read  the  secret 
writing  which  the  whole  pagan  world,  Kome,  and 
insolent  Greece,  had  so  obstinately  ignored,  suddenly 
becomes  clear  as  daylight,  when  we  learn  that  he  — 
the  inaugurator  of  eleemosynary  aid  to  the  afflictions 
of  man  —  was  the  first  son  of  Christianity  that  sat 
upon  a  throne.  Yes,  Constantino  it  was,  earliest  of 
Christian  princes,  that  first'^^  of  all  invested  Pauperism 

*  "  Constantine  that  first:  '* — But  let  me  warn  the  reader 
not  to  fancy  that  the  public  largesses  of  corn  to  the  humbler 
citizens  of  Rome  had  intercepted  the  possibility  of  this  prece- 
dency for  Constantine  by  many  generations  before  he  was 
known,  or  even  before  Christianity  was  revealed.  There  was  no 
vestige  of  charity  in  the  Roman  distributions  of  grain.  These 
distributions  moved  upon  the  same  impulse  as  the  sportulm  of 
the  great  oligarchic  houses,  and  the  donatices  of  princely  officers 
to  their  victorious  soldiery  upon  great  anniversaries,  or  upon 
accessions  to  the  throne,  or  upon  adoptions  of  successors,  &c. 
All  were  political,  oftentimes  rolling  through  the  narrowest 
grooves  of  intrigue  ;  and  so  far  from  contemplating  any  collat- 
eral or  secondary  purpose  of  charity,  that  the  most  earnest 
inquiry  on  such  occasions  was  —  to  find  pretexts  for  excluding 
men  from  the  benefit  of  the  bounty.  The  primary  thought 
was  —  who  should  not  be  admitted  to  participate  in  the  dole. 
And  at  any  rate  none  luere  admitted  but  citizens  in  the  most 
rigorous  and  the  narrowest  sense.  Constantine  it  was  :  — I  do 
not  certainly  know  that  I  have  anywhere  called  the  reader's 
=  attention  to  another  great  monument  which  connected  the  name 
vf  Constantine  by  a  separate  and  hardly  noticed  tie  with  the 
propagation  of  Christianity.  What  name  is  it  that,  being  still 
verdant  and  most  interesting  to  all  the  nations  of  Christendom, 
»ijrves  as  a  daily  memorial  to  refresh  otir  reverence  for  the 

I 


396 


PROTESTANTISM. 


with  the  majesty  of  an  organ  amongst  political  forces, 
on  the  Scriptural  warrant  that  the  poor  should  never 

emperor  Constantine  ?  What  but  his  immortal  foundation  of 
Constantinople,  imposed  upon  the  ruins  of  the  elder  city  Byzan- 
tium^  in  the  year  of  Christ  813,  now  therefore  in  the  1565th 
year  of  its  age  ;  which  city  of  Constantinople  is  usually  regard- 
ed, by  those  who  have  science  comprehensive  enough  for  valuing 
its  various  merits,  as  enjoying  the  most  august  site  and  cir- 
cumstantial advantages,  in  reference  to  climate,  commerce, 
navigation,  sovereign  policy,  and  centralization,  on  this  planet, 
—  with  the  doubtful  reservation  of  one  single  South  American 
Btation,  viz.,  that  of  the  Brazilian  city  Rio  Janeiro  (or,  as  we 
usually  call  it,  Rio).  Doubtless  these  magnificent  natural 
endowments  did  much  to  influence  the  choice  of  Constantine  ; 
and  yet  I  believe  that  no  economic  advantages,  even  though 
greater  and  more  palpable,  would  have  been  sufficient  to  disen- 
gage his  affections  from  a  scene  so  consecrated  by  grand  historical 
recollections  as  Rome,  had  not  one  overwhelming  repulsion, 
ineradically  Roman,  violently  disenchanted  him  forever.  This 
turned  upon  religion.  Rome,  it  was  found,  could  not  be  de- 
paganised.  Too  profound,  too  inveterately  entangled  with  the 
very  soil  and  deep  substructions  of  Latium  were  the  old  traditional 
records,  promises,  auguries,  and  mysterious  splendors  of  con 
centrated  Heathenism  in,  and  on,  and  nine  times  round  about, 
and  fifty  fathoms  below,  and  countless  fathoms  in  upper  air 
above  this  most  memorable  of  capital  cities.  Jupiter  Capitolinus, 
the  Sybil's  Books,  which  for  Roman  minds  were  authentic,  the 
dread  cloister  of  Vestal  Virgins,  Jupiter  Stator,  and  the  undeni- 
able omen  of  the  Twelve  Vultures  *  —  centuries  of  mysterious 


*  "  Omen  of  the  twelve  vultures:  "  —  The  reader  must  not 
allow  himself  to  be  repelled  from  the  plain  historic  truth  by  fool- 
ish reproaches  of  superstition  or  credulity.  The  fact  of  twelve 
Vultures  having  appeared  under  ceremonial  circumstances,  at 
Srhat  may  be  considered  the  inauguration  of  Rome,  and  was 


PROTESTANTISM. 


397 


cease  out  of  the  land  —  Constantine  that  conferred 
upon  misery,  as  a  mighty  potentate  dwelling  forever 
in  the  skirts  of  populous  cities,  the  privilege  of  appear- 

gympathy  between  dim  records  and  dim  inquiries,  could  no 
more  be  washed  away  from  the  credulous  heart  of  the  Roman 
jilebs,  than  the  predictions  of  Nostradamus  from  the  expecting 
and  listening  faith  of  Catherine  de'  Medici  and  her  superstitious 
court.  In  short,  fifty  baptisms  could  not  have  washed  away  the 
deep-seated  scrofula  of  Paganism  in  Rome.  Constantine,  there- 
fore, wisely  drew  away  a  select  section  of  the  population  to  the 
quiet  waters  of  the  Propontis  {the  Sea  of  Marmora,  which 
oblige  me  by  pronouncing  as  if  an  imperfect  rhyme  to  armory, 
not  as  if  the  o  in  the  penult,  were  accented).  And  thus,  by  a 
double  service  to  Christianity  —  viz.,  by  a  solemn  institution  of 
charitable  contributions  to  the  poor,  as  their  absolute  right 
under  the  Christian  law,  and  by  a  wise  shepherd's  segration  of 
diseased  members  from  his  flock  —  he  earned  meritoriously,  and 
did  not  Avin  by  luck,  that  fortunate  destiny  which  has  locked  up 
his  name  into  that  of  the  regenerated  Rome  —  the  earliest  Chris- 
tian city  —  and  the  mother  of  the  Second,  or  the  Oriental  Roman 
Empire. 


so  understood  at  the  time,  is  as  certain  as  any  fact  the  best 
attested  in  the  history  of  Rome.  And  as  it  repeatedly  announced 
itself  during  the  lapse  of  these  twelve  centuries,  when  as  yet 
they  were  fxr  from  being  completed,  there  cannot  be  a  reasonable 
doubt  that  a  most  impressive  coincidence  did  occur  between  the 
^arly  prophesy  and  its  extraordinary  fulfilment.  In  a  gross 
general  statement,  such  as  can  be  made  in  a  single  sentence,  we 
may  describe  the  duration  of  Rome,  from  Romulus  to  Christ,  as 
seven  hundred  and  fifty  years,  which  leaves  about  four  hundred 
and  fifty  to  be  accounted  for,  in  order  to  make  up  the  tale  of  the 
twelve  vultures.  And  pretty  exactly  that  number  of  four  hun- 
dred and  fifty,  plus  two  or  three  suppose,  measures  the  interval 
between  Christ  and  Augustulus. 


398 


PROTESTANTISM. 


ing  forever  in  the  skirts  of  populous  cities,  the  privi- 
lege of  appearing  by  a  representative  and  a  spokesman 
in  the  council-chamber  of  the  Empire. 

Had,  then,  the  Pagans  of  all  generations  before 
Constantine,  or  more  strictly  before  the  Christian  era, 
no  charity,  no  pity,  neither  money  nor  verbal  sympa- 
thy at  the  service  of  despairing  poverty  ?  No,  none 
at  all.  Supposing,  for  instance,  any  Gentile  establish- 
ments to  have  existed  up  and  down  Greece,  or  Egypt 
or  the  Grecianized  regions  of  Asia  Minor  and  Syria, 
at  the  Apostolic  era,  these  would  undoubtedly  have 
been  referred  to  by  the  Apostles  as  furnishing  models 
to  emulate,  or  to  copy  with  improvements,  or  utterly 
and  earnestly  (o  ignore,  under  terror  of  contagion  from 
some  of  those  fundamental  errors  in  their  plan  theo- 
retically, or  in  their  administration  practically,  which 
might  be  counted  on  as  pretty  certain  to  pollute  the 
executive  details,  however  decent  in  their  first  origi- 
nating purpose.  Tnon  any  one  of  some  half-dozen 
motives,  St.  Paul,  in  ^iis  boundless  activity  of  inquiry 
and  comparison,  would  have  found  cause  to  mention 
such  institutions.  And  again,  in  the  next  generation, 
under  the  Emperor  Trajan,  Pliny  would  have  had 
abundant  ground  for  dwelling  on  this  early  communism 
and  system  of  reciprocal  charity  established  amongst 
the  Christians,  had  he  not  recoiled  from  thus  emblazon- 
ing the  beneficence  of  an  obnoxious  sect,  when  con- 
scious that  no  parallel  public  bounty  could  be  pleaded 
as  a  set-orf  on  the  side  of  those  who  desired  to  perse- 
cute this  new-born  sect.  There  remains,  moreover,  a 
damnatory  evidence  on  this  point,  much  more  unequiv- 
Dcal  ar^c  direct,  in  the  formal  systems  of  ethics  still 


PROTESTANTISM. 


399 


surviving  from  the  Pagan  world  under  the  noon-day 
splendor  of  its  civilization  :  ApoIo tie's,  for  example, 
at  the  epoch  of  Alexander  the  Great ;  and  Cicero's, 
at  a  corresponding  period  of  refinement  three  centuries 
later  in  Rome.  Now,  in  these  elaborate  systems, 
which  have  come  down  to  us  unmutilated,  no  traces 
are  to  be  found  of  any  recognised  duty  moving  in  the 
direction  of  public  aid  and  relief  to  the  sufferers  from 
poverty.  Our  wicked  friend  Kikero,"^'  for  instance, 
who  was  so  bad,  but  wrote  so  well,  who  did  such 
naughty  things,  but  said  such  pretty  things,  has  hi-m- 
self  noticed  in  one  of  his  letters,  with  petrifying 
coolness,  that  he  knew  of  destitute  old  women  in 
Kome,  who  went  without  tasting  food  for  one,  two,  or 
even  three  days.  After  making  such  a  statement,  did 
Kikero  not  tumble  down-stairs,  and  break  at  least 
three  of  his  legs,  in  his  hurry  to  call  a  public  meeting 
for  the  redressing  of  so  cruel  a  grievance  ?  Not  he  : 
the  man  continued  to  strut  up  and  down  his  library, 

*  It  is  interesting  to  observe,  at  this  moment,  how  the  proofs 
acoumulate  from  the  ends  of  the  earth  that  the  Roman  C  was 
always  in  value  equal  to  K.  The  imperial  name  of  Coesar  has 
survived  in  two  separate  functions.  It  is  found  as  a  family  name 
rooted  amongst  Oriental  peoples,  and  is  always  Keyser.  But 
also  it  has  survived  as  an  official  title,  indicating  the  sovereign 
ruler.  At  this  moment,  from  Milan,  under  the  shadow  of  the 
Alps,  to  Lucknow,  under  the  shadow  of  the  Himalayas,  this 
immortal  Roman  name  popularly  expresses  the  office  of  the 
supreme  magistrate.  Keyser  is  the  current  titular  designation 
of  the  king  who  till  lately  reigned  over  Oude  ;  and  der  Kayser, 
V)n  the  fiction  w^hich  made  the  Empire  of  Germany  a  true  lineal 
successor  to  the.  Western  Roman  Empire,  has  always  indicated 
the  Emperor  —  once  German,  now  simply  Austrian, 


400 


PROTESTANTISM. 


in  a  toga  as  big  as  the  "  Times  "  newspaper,  singing 
out  — 

**  Cedant  arma  togae;  concedat  laurea  laudi." 

And,  if  Kikero  noticed  the  case  at  all,  it  was  only  as  i 
fact  that  might  be  interesting  to  natural  philosophers, 
or  to  speculators  on  the  theories  of  a  plenum  and  a 
vacuum^  or  to  Greek  physicians  investigating  the  powers 
of  the  human  stomach,  or  to  connoisseurs  in  old  wo- 
men. No  drachma  or  denarius,  be  well  assured,  ever 
left  the  secret  lockers  or  hidden  fobs  of  this  discreet 
barrister  upon  so  blind  a  commission  as  that  of  carrying 
consolation  to  a  superfluous  old  woman  —  not  enjoying 
so  much  as  the  jus  suffragii.  By  a  thousand  indirect 
notices,  it  might  be  shown  that  an  act  of  charity  would, 
in  the  eyes  of  Pagan  moralists,  have  taken  rank  as  an 
act  of  drunkenness. 

Yes,  the  great  planetary  orb  of  charity  in  its  most 
comprehensive  range  —  not  that  charity  only  which 
interprets  for  the  best  all  doubtful  symptoms,  not  that 
charity  only  which  "  hopeth  all  things,"  and  which, 
even  to  the  relenting  criminal,  gives  back  an  opening 
for  recovering  his  lost  position  by  showing  that  for 
him  also  there  is  shining  in  the  distance  a  reversionary 
hope  —  but  that  charity  also  which  brings  aid  that  is 
effectual,  and  sympathy  that  is  unaffected,  to  the  house- 
holds sitting  in  darkness  —  this  great  diffusive  orb,  and 
magnetic  centre  of  every  perfect  social  system,  lirst 
wheeled  into  its  place  and  functions  on  that  day  when 
Christianity  shot  above  the  horizon.  But  the  idea,  but 
the  principle,  but  the  great  revolutionary  fountain  of 
benediction,  was  all  that   Christianity  furnished,  oj 


PROTESTANTISM. 


401 


needed  to  furnish.  The  executive  arrangements,  the 
endless  machinery,  fgi  diffusing,  regulating,  multi- 
plying, exalting  this  fountain  —  all  this  belongs  no 
longer  to  the  Bible,  but  to  man.  And  why  not  ? 
What  blindness  to  imagine  that  revelation  would  have 
promoted  its  own  purposes  by  exonerating  man  from 
Ids  share  in  the  total  work.  So  far  from  that,  thus  and 
no  otherwise  it  was  —  viz.,  by  laying  upon  a  man  a 
necessity  for  co-operating  with  heaven  — that  the  com- 
pound object  of  this  great  revolution  had  any  chance 
of  being  accomplished.  It  was  as  much  the  object  of 
Christianity  that  he  who  exercised  charity  should  be 
bettered,  as  he  that  benefited  by  charity  —  the .  agent 
equally  with  the  object.  Only  in  that  way  is  Shaks- 
peare's  fine  anticipation  realized  of  a  two-fold  harvest, 
and  a  double  moral  won  ;  for  the  fountain  itself 

"  Is  twice  blessed  : 
It  blesseth  him  that  gives,  and  him  that  takes." 

But  if  Providence  had  reserved  to  itself  the  whole  of 
the  work  —  not  merely  the  first  suggestion  of  anew 
and  divine  magnetism  for  interlinking  reciprocally  all 
members  of  the  human  family,  but  had  also  appro- 
priated the  whole  process  of  deducing  and  distributing 
into  separate  rills  the  irrigation  of  God's  garden  upon 
earth,  in  that  act  it  would  have  defeated  on  the  largest 
scale  its  own  scheme  of  training  for  man ;  just  as 
much  as  if  (according  to  a  former  speculation  of  mine) 
God,  by  condescending  to  teach  science  in  the  Bible 
(astronomy  suppose,  chronology,  or  geology),  had  thus 
at  one  blow,  besides  defrauding  the  true  and  avowed 
mission  of  the  Bible,  self-counteractingly  stepped  in  to 
26 


402 


PROTESTANTISM. 


solve  his  own  problems,  and  thus  had  violently  inter- 
cepted those  very  difficulties  whicji  had  been  strewed  in 
man' s  path  seriatim^  and  so  as  to  advance  by  measured 
increments  of  difficulty,  for  the  specific  purpose  of  ap- 
plying graduated  irritations  to  the  stimulation  of  man's 
intellect.  Equally  in  the  training  of  his  moral  habits, 
and  in  the  development  by  successive  steps  of  his  in- 
tellect, man  and  the  religion  of  man  must  move  by  co- 
operation ;  and  it  cannot  be  the  policy  or  the  true 
meaning  of  revelation  to  work  towards  any  great  pur- 
pose in  man's  destiny,  otherwise  than  through  the  co- 
agency  of  man's  faculties,  improved  in  the  whole 
extent  of  their  capacities.  This  case,  therefore  (of 
charity  arising  suddenly  as  a  new  command  to  man), 
teaches  three  great  inferences  :  — 

First,  the  power  of  a  religion  to  stimulate  vast  de- 
velopments in  man,  when  itself  stimulated  by  a  social 
condition  not  sleeping  and  passive,  but  in  a  vigilant 
state  of  healthy  activity. 

Secondly,  that  if  all  continued  cases  of  interchange- 
able development  —  that  is,  of  the  Bible  downwards 
upon  man,  or  reversely  of  man  upwards  upon  the  Bible 
and  its  interpretation  —  may  be  presumed  to  argue  a 
concurrent  action  between  Providence  and  man,  it  fol- 
lows that  the  human  element  in  the  co-agency  will  al- 
ways account  for  any  admixture  of  evil  or  error,  with- 
out impeaching  in  any  degree  the  doctrine  of  a  general 
overriding  inspiration.  For  instance,  I  see  little  reason 
to  doubt  that  economically  the  Apostles  had  erred,  and 
through  their  very  simplicity  of  heart  had  erred,  as 
to  that  joint-stock  company  which  they,  so  ignorant 
of  the  world,  had  formed  in  an  early  stage  of  the  in- 


PROTESTANTISM. 


403 


Pant  cliiircli  ;  and  that  Ananias  and  Sappliira  had  fallen 
rictims  to  a  perplexity,  and  a  collision  between  their 
engagements  and  their  natural  rights,  such  as  over- 
threw their  too  delicate  sensibilities.  But,  if  this  were 
really  so,  the  human  element  carries  away  from  the 
Divine  all  taint  of  reproach.  There  lies  one  mode 
of  benefit  from  this  joint  agency  of  man  and  Provi- 
dence.^' 

Thirdly,  we  see  here  illustrated  one  amongst  innu- 
merable cases  of  development  applicable  to  the  Bible. 
And  this  power  of  development  in  general  proves 
one  other  thing  of  the  last  importance  to  prove 
—  viz.,  the  power  of  Christianity  to  work  in  co- 
operation with  time  and  social  progress  —  to  work 
variably,  according  to  the  endless  variation  of  time  and 
place.  And  this  is  the  exact  shibboleth  of  a  spiritual 
religion. 

For,  in  conclusion,  here  lies  a  consideration  of  dead- 
liest importance.  On  reviewing  the  history  of  false 
religions,  and  inquiring  what  it  was  that  ruined  them, 
or  caused  them  to  tremble,  or  to  exhibit  premonitory 
signs  of  coming  declension,  rarely  or  never  amongst 
such  causes  has  been  found  any  open  exhibition  of 
violence.     The  gay  mythologic  religion  of  Greece 

*  Coleridge,  as  may  be  seen  in  his  '*  Notes  on  Enghsh  Di- 
vines," though  free  in  a  remarkable  degree,  for  one  so  cloudy  in 
his  speculative  flights,  from  any  spirit  of  licentious  tampering  with 
ihe  text  of  the  New  Testament,  or  with  its  orthodox  explanation, 
was  yet  deeply  impressed  with  the  belief  that  the  Apostles  had  gone 
far  astray  in  their  first  provision  for  the  pecuniary  necessities  of 
the  infant  church ,  and  he  went  so  far  as  to  think  that  they  had 
even  seriously  crippled  its  movements,  by  accumulations  of  debt 
that  might  have  been  evaded. 


404 


PROTESTANTISM. 


melted  away  in  silence  ;  that  of  Egypt,  more  revolting 
to  un familiarised  sensibilities,  more  gloomy,  and  ap- 
parently reposing  on  some  basis  of  more  solemn  and 
less  allegoric  reality,  exhaled  like  a  dream — ^.  e., 
without  violence,  by  internal  decay.  I  mean,  that  no 
violence  existed  where  the  religion  fell,  and  there  was 
violence  where  it  did  not.  For  even  the  dreadful  fanat- 
icism of  the  early  Mahometan  sultans  in  Hindostan, 
before  the  accession  of  Baber  and  his  Mogul  successors 
from  the  house  of  Timour,  failed  to  crush  the  mon- 
strous idolatries  of  the  Hindoos.  All  false  religions 
have  perished  by  their  own  hollowness,  and  by  internal 
decay,  under  the  searching  trials  applied  by  life  and 
the  changes  of  life,  by  social  mechanism  and  the 
changes  of  social  mechanism,  which  wait  in  ambush 
upon  every  mode  of  religion.  False  modes  of  religion 
could  not  respond  to  the  demands  exacted  from  them, 
or  the  questions  emerging.  One  after  one  they  have 
collapsed,  as  if  by  palsy,  and  have  sunk  away  under 
new  aspects  of  society  and  new  necessities  of  man 
which  they  were  not  able  to  face.  Commencing  in  one 
condition  of  society,  in  one  set  of  feelings,  and  in  one 
system  of  ideas,  they  sank  instinctively  under  any 
great  change  in  these  elements,  to  which  they  had  no 
natural  power  of  plastic  self-accommodation.  A  false 
religion  furnished  always  a  key  to  one  subordinate  lock ; 
but  a  religion  that  is  true  will  prove  a  master-key  for 
all  locks  alike.  This  transcendental  principle,  through 
which  Christianity  transfers  herself  so  readily  from 
climate  to  climate,^'  from  land  to  land,  from  century  to 

*  **  From  climate  to  climate  ;  "  —  Sagacious  Mahometans  are 
cften  troubled  and  scandalized  by  the  secret  misgiving  that,  after 


PROTESTANTISM. 


405 


century,  from  the  simplicity  of  shepherds  to  the  utmost 
refinement  of  philosophers,  carries  with  it  a  corres- 
ponding necessity  (corresponding,  I  mean,  to  such  in- 
finite flexibility)  of  an  indefinite  development.  The 
Paganism  of  Rome,  so  flattering  and  so  sustaining  to 
the  Roman  nationality  and  pride,  satisfied  no  spiritual 
necessity  :  dear  to  the  Romans  as  citizens,  it  was  at 
last  killing  to  them  as  men. 

all,  their  Prophet  must  have  been  an  ignorant  man.  It  is  clear 
that  the  case  of  a  cold  climate  had  never  occurred  to  him;  and 
even  a  hot  one  was  conceived  by  him  under  conditions  too  palpa- 
bly limited.  Many  of  the  Bedouin  Arabs  complain  of  ablutions 
incompatible  with  their  half- waterless  position.  Mahomet  coming 
from  the  Hedjas,  a  rich  tract,  and  through  that  benefit  the  fruit- 
ful mother  of  noble  horses,  knew  no  more  of  the  arid  deserts 
and  Zaarrahs  than  do  I.  These  oversights  of  its  founder  would 
have  proved  fatal  to  Islamism  had  Islamism  succeeded  in  produc- 
ing a  high  civilization. 


SECESSION 


FROM 

THE  CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND.* 

A  GREAT  revolution  has  taken  place  in  Scotland.  A 
greater  has  been  threatened.  Nor  is  that  danger  even 
yet  certainly  gone  by.  Upon  the  accidents  of  such 
events  as  may  arise  for  the  next  five  years,  whether 
fitted  or  not  fitted  to  revive  discussions  in  which  many 
of  the  Non-seceders  went  in  various  degrees  along  with 
the  Seceders,  depends  the  final  (and,  in  a  strict  sense, 
the  very  awful)  question,  What  is  to  be  the  fate  of 
the  Scottish  church  ?  Lord  Aberdeen's  Act  is  well 
qualified  to  tranquillize  the  agitations  of  that  body ; 
and  at  an  earlier  stage,  if  not  intercepted  by  Lord 
Melbourne,  might  have  prevented  them  in  part.  But 
Lord  Aberdeen  has  no  power  to  stifle  a  conflagration 
once  thoroughly  kindled.  That  must  depend  in  a 
great  degree  upon  the  favorable  aspect  of  events  yet  in 
the  rear. 

Meantime  these  great  disturbances  are  not  understood 
in  England ;  and  chiefly  from  the  differences  between 
the  two  nations  as  to  the  language  of  their  several 
[*  Written  in  1844.    The  reader  will  find  a  graphic  narrative 
the.  event  in  Hanna's    Life  of  Dr.  Thomas  Cba'mer^,"] 


408 


SECESSION   FROM  THE 


churclies  and  law  courts.  The  process  of  ordination 
and  induction  is  totally  different  under  the  diffeient 
ecclesiastical  administrations  of  the  two  kingdoms. 
And  tho  chiixcli  couris  of  Scotland  do  not  exist  in 
England.  We  write,  therefore,  with  an  express  view  to 
the  better  information  of  England  proper.  And,  with 
this  purpose,  we  shall  lead  the  discussion  through 
four  capital  questions  :  — 

I.  What  is  it  that  has  been  done  by  the  moving 
party  r 

II.  How  was  it  done?  By  what  agencies  and 
influence  ? 

III.  What  were  the  immediate  results  of  these  acts} 

IV.  What  are  the  remote  results  yet  to  be  appre- 
hended ? 

I.  First,  then,  What  ts  it  that  has  heen  done  ? 

Up  to  the  month  of  May  in  1834,  the  fathers  and 
brothers  of  the  Kirk  "  were  in  harmony  as  great  as 
humanity  can  hope  to  see.  Since  May,  1834,  the 
church  has  been  a  fierce  crater  of  volcanic  agencies, 
throwing  out  of  her  bosom  one-third  of  her  children ; 
and  these  children  are  no  sooner  born  into  their  earthly 
atmosphere,  than  they  turn,  with  unnatural  passions, 
to  the  destruction  of  their  brethren.  What  can  be  the 
grounds  upon  which  an  acharnement  so  deadly  has 
arisen  ? 

It  will  read  to  the  ears  of  a  stranger  almost  as  an 
experiment  upon  his  credulity,  if  we  tell  the  simple 
truth.  Being  incredible,  however,  it  is  not  the  less 
true ;  and,  being  monstrous,  it  will  yet  be  recorded  in 
history,  that  the  Scottish  church  has  split  into  mortaj 


CHUKCH  OF  SCOTLAND. 


409 


feuds  upon  two  points  absolutely  without  interest  to 
the  nation ;  first,  upon  a  demand  for  creating  clergy- 
men by  a  new  process ;  secondly,  upon  a  demand  for 
Papal  latitude  of  jurisdiction.  Even  the  order  of  suc- 
cession in  these  things  is  not  without  meaning.  Had 
the  second  demand  stood  first,  it  would  have  seemed 
possible  that  the  two  demands  might  have  grown  up 
independently,  and  so  far  conscientiously.  But,  ac- 
cording to  the  realities  of  the  case,  this  is  not  possible  ; 
the  second  demand  grew  out  of  the  first.  The  interest 
of  the  Seceders,  as  locked  up  in  their  earliest  requisition, 
was  that  which  prompted  their  second.  Almost  every- 
body was  contented  with  the  existing  mode  of  creating 
the  pastoral  relation.  Search  through  Christendom, 
lengthways  and  breadthways,  there  was  not  a  public 
usage,  an  institution,  an  economy,  which  more  pro- 
foundly slept  in  the  sunshine  of  divine  favor  or  of  civil 
prosperity,  than  the  peculiar  mode  authorized  and 
practised  in  Scotland  of  appointing  to  every  parish  its 
several  pastor.  Here  and  there  an  ultra- Presbyterian 
spirit  might  prompt  a  murmur  against  it.  But  the 
wise  and  intelligent  approved ;  and  those  who  had  the 
appropriate  —  that  is,  the  religious  interest —  confessed 
that  it  was  practically  successful.  From  whom,  then, 
came  the  attempt  to  change  ?  Why,  from  those  only 
who  had  an  alien  interest,  an  indirect  interest,  an  in- 
terest of  ambition  in  its  subversion.  As  matters  stood 
in  the  spring  of  1834,  the  patron  of  each  benefice, 
acting  under  the  severest  restraints  —  restraints  which 
(if  the  church  courts  did  their  duty)  left  no  room  or 
possibility  for  an  unfit  man  to  creep  in  —  nominated 
the  incumbent.    In  a  spiritual  sense,  the  church  had  all 


410 


SECESSION   EROM  THE 


power  :  by  refusing,  first  of  all,  to  *'  license  "  unqualified 
persons  ;  secondly,  by  refusing  to  "  admit  "  out  of  these 
licensed  persons  such  as  might  have  become  warped 
from  the  proper  standard  of  pastoral  fitness,  the  church 
had  a  negative  voice,  all-potential  in  the  creation  of 
clergymen  ;  the  church  could  exclude  whom  she  pleased. 
But  this  contented  her  not.  Simply  to  shut  out  was 
an  ungracious  office,  though  mighty  for  the  interests 
of  orthodoxy  through  the  land.  The  children  of  this 
world,  who  became  the  agitators  of  the  church,  clam- 
ored for  something  more.  They  desired  for  the  church 
that  she  should  become  a  lady  patroness ;  that  she 
should  give  as  well  as  take,  away  ;  that  she  should 
wield  a  sceptre,  courted  for  its  bounties,  and  not 
merely  feared  for  its  austerities.  Yet  how  should  this 
be  accomplished  ?  Openly  to  translate  upon  the  church 
the  present  power  of  patrons — that  were  too  revolu- 
tionary, that  would  have  exposed  its  own  object.  For 
the  present,  therefore,  let  this  device  prevail  —  let  the 
power  nominally  be  transferred  to  congregations  :  let 
this  be  done  upon  the  plea  that  each  congregation  un- 
derstands best  what  mode  of  ministrations  tends  to  its 
own  edification.  There  lies  the  semblance  of  a  Chris- 
tian plea  ;  the  congregation,  it  is  said,  has  become 
anxious  for  itself ;  the  church  has  become  anxious  for 
the  congregation.  And  then,  if  the  translation  should 
be  efi'ected,  the  church  has  already  devised  a  means  for 
appropriating  the  power  which  she  has  unsettled  ;  for 
she  limits  this  power  to  the  communicants  at  the  sacra- 
mental table.  Now,  in  Scotland,  though  not  in  England, 
the  character  of  communicants  is  notoriously  created  or 
suspended  by  the  clergyman  of  each  parish  ;  so  that,  by 


CHUECH   OF  SCOTLAND. 


411 


the  briefest  of  circuits,  the  church  causes  the  power  to 
revolve  into  her  own  hands. 

That  was  the  first  change  —  a  change  full  of  Jaco- 
binism ;  and  for  which  to  be  published  was  to  be 
denounced.  It  was  necessary,  therefore,  to  place  thia 
Jacobin  change  upon  a  basis  privileged  from  attack. 
How  should  that  be  done  ?  The  object  was  to  create  a 
new  clerical  power  ;  to  shift  the  election  of  clergymen 
from  the  lay  hands  in  which  law  and  usage  had  lodged 
it ;  and,  under  a  plausible  mask  of  making  the  election 
popular,  circuitously  to  make  it  ecclesiastical.  Yet, 
if  the  existing  patrons  of  church  benefices  should  see 
themselves  suddenly  denuded  of  their  rights,  and 
within  a  year  or  two  should  see  these  rights  settling 
determinately  into  the  hands  of  the  clergy,  the  fraud, 
the  fraudulent  purpose,  and  the  fraudulent  machinery, 
would  have  stood  out  in  gross  proportions  too  palpably 
revealed.  In  this  dilemma  the  reverend  agitators  devised 
a  second  scheme.  It  w^as  a  scheme  bearing  triple  har- 
vests ;  for,  at  one  and  the  same  time,  it  furnished  the 
motive  which  gave  a  constructive  coherency  and  mean- 
ing to  the  original  purpose,  it  threw  a  solemn  shadow 
over  the  rank  worldliness  of  that  purpose,  and  it 
opened  a  diffusive  tendency  towards  other  purposes  of 
the  same  nature,  as  yet  undeveloped.  The  device  was 
this :  in  Scotland,  as  in  England,  the  total  process  by 
which  a  parish  clergyman  is  created,  subdivides  itself 
into  several  successive  acts.  The  initial  act  belongs  to 
the  patron  of  the  benefice  :  he  must  ''present  ;  "  that 
is,  he  notifies  the  fact  of  his  having  conferred  the 
benefice  upon  A  B,  to  a  public  body  which  officially 
takes  cognizance  of  this  act  ;  and  that  body  is,  not 


412 


SECESSION   FROM  THE 


the  particular  parish  concerned,  but  the  presbytery  of 
the  district  in  which  the  parish  is  seated.  Thus  far 
the  steps,  merely  legal,  of  the  proceedings,  were  too 
definite  to  be  easily  disturbed.  These  steps  are  sus- 
tained by  Lord  Aberdeen  as  realities,  and  even  by  the 
Non-intrusionists  were  tolerated  as  formalities. 

But  at  this  point  commence  other  steps  not  so  rigor- 
ously defined  by  law  or  usage,  nor  so  absolutely  within 
one  uniform  interpretation  of  their  value.  In  prac- 
tice they  had  long  sunk  into  forms.  But  ancient 
forms  easily  lend  themselves  to  a  revivification  by 
meanings  and  applications,  new  or  old,  under  the  gal- 
vanism of  democratic  forces.  The  disturbers  of  the 
church,  passing  by  the  act  of  "  presentation  "as  an 
obstacle  too  formidable  to  be  separately  attacked  on 
its  own  account,  made  their  stand  upon  one  of  the 
two  acts  which  lie  next  in  succession.  It  is  the  regu- 
lar routine,  that  the  presbytery,  having  been  warned 
of  the  patron's  appointment,  and  having  "  received  " 
(in  technical  language)  the  presentee  —  that  is,  having 
formally  recognized  him  in  that  character —  next  ap- 
point a  day  on  which  he  is  to  preach  before  the  con- 
gregation. This  sermon,  together  with  the  prayers  by 
which  it  is  accompanied,  constitute  the  probationary 
act  according  to  some  views  ;  but,  according  to  the 
general  theory,  simply  the^inaugural  act  by  which  the 
new  pastor  places  himself  officially  before  his  future 
parishioners.  Decorum,  and  the  sense  of  proportion, 
seem  to  require  that  to  every  commencement  of  a  very 
weighty  relation,  imposing  new  duties,  there  should 
be  a  corresponding  and  ceremonial  entrance.  The  new 
pastor,  until  this  public  introduction,  could  not  be 


rHUUCH  OF  SCOTLAND. 


U3 


legitimately  assumed  for  known  to  the  parishioners. 
And  accordingly  at  this  point  it  was  —  viz.,  subse- 
quently to  his  authentic  publication,  as  we  may  call  it 
' —  that,  in  the  case  of  any  grievous  scandal  known 
to  the  parish  as  outstanding  against  him,  arose  the 
proper  opportunity  furnished  by  the  church  for  lodg- 
ing the  accusation,  and  for  investigating  it  before  the 
church  court.    In  default,  however,  of  any  grave  ob- 
jection to  the  presentee,  he  was  next  summoned  by 
the  presbytery  to  what  really  tvas  a  probationary  act  at 
their  bar  :  —  viz.,  an  examination  of  his  theological 
sufficiency.    But  in  this  it  could  not  be  expected  that 
he  should  fail,  because  he  must  previously  have  satis- 
fied the  requisitions  of  the  church  in  his  original  ex- 
amination for  a  license  to  preach.     Once  dismissed 
with  credit  from  this  bar,  he  was  now  beyond  all  fur- 
ther probation  whatsoever  ;  in  technical  phrase,  he  was 
entitled  to  "  admission."    Such  were  the  steps,  ac- 
cording to  their  orderly  succession,  by  which  a  man 
consummated    the   pastoral  tie  with  any  particular 
parish.     And  all  of  these  steps,  subsequent  to  the 
reception  "  and  inaugural  preaching,  were  now  sum- 
marily characterized  by  the  revolutionists  as  spirit- 
ual ;  "  for  the  sake  of  sequestering  them  into  their  own 
hands.    As  to  the  initiatory  act  of  presentation,  that 
might  be  secular,  and  to  be  dealt  with  by  a  secular 
law.    But  tne  rest  were  acrs  which  belonged  not  to  a 
kingdom  of  this  world.    "  These,"  with  a  new-born 
scrupulosity  never  heard  of  until  the  revolution  of 
1834,  clamored  for  new,  casuistries  ;  "  these,"  said  the 
agitators,  "  we  cannot  consent  any  longer  to  leave  in 
their  state  of  collapse  as  mere  inert  or  ceiemonial 


114 


SECESSION    rrvO.M  THE 


forms.  They  must  be  revivified.  By  all  means,  ]et 
the  patron  present  as  heretofore.  But  the  acts  of  '  ex- 
amination '  and  '  admission,'  together  with  the  power 
of  altogether  refusing  to  enter  upon  either,  under  a 
protest  against  the  candidate  from  a  clear  majority  of 
the  parishioners  —  these  are  acts  falling  within  the 
spiritual  jurisdiction  of  the  church.  And  these  pow- 
ers we  must,  for  the  future,  see  exercised  according  to 
spiritual  views."  ' 

Here,  then,  suddenly  emerged  a  perfect  ratification 
for  their  own  previous  revolutionary  doctrine  upon  the 
creation  of  parish  clergymen.  This  new  scruple  was, 
in  relation  to  former  scruples,  a  perfect  linch-pin  for 
locking  their  machinery  into  cohesion.  P'or  vainly 
would  they  have  sought  to  defeat  the  patron's  right  of 
presenting,  unless  through  this  sudden  pause  and  in- 
terdict imposed  upon  the  latter  acts  in  the  process  of 
induction,  under  the  pretext  that  these  were  acts  com- 
petent only  to  a  spiritual  jurisdiction.  This  plea,  by 
its  tendency,  rounded  and  secured  all  that  they  had 
yet  advanced  in  the  way  of  claim.  But,  at  the  same 
time,  though  indispensable  negatively,  positively  it 
stretched  so  much  further  than  any  necessity  or  inter- 
est inherent  in  their  present  innovations,  that  not  im- 
probably they  faltered  and  shrank  back  at  first  from 
the  immeasurable  field  of  consequences  upon  wdiich  it 
opened.  They  would  willingly  have  accepted  less. 
But,  unfortunately,  it  sometimes  happens,  that,  to  gain 
as  much  as  is  needful  in  one  direction,  you  must  take 
a  great  deal  more  than  you  wish  for  in  another.  Any 
principle,  which  could  carry  them  over  the  immediate 
difficulty,  would,  by  a  mere  necessity,  carry  them  in- 


CHURCH   OF   SCOTLAND.  415 

calculably  beyond  it.  For,  if  every  act  bearing  in  any 
one  direction  a  spiritual  aspect,  showing  at  any  angle 
a  relation  to  spiritual  things,  is  therefore  to  be  held 
spiritual  in  a  sense  excluding  the  interference  of  the 
civil  power,  there  falls  to  the  ground  at  once  the 
whole  fabric  of  civil  authority  in  any  independent 
-form.  Accordingly,  we  are  satisfied  that  the  claim  to 
a  spiritual  jurisdiction,  in  collision  with  the  claims  of 
the  state,  would  not  probably  have  offered  itself  to  the 
ambition  of  the  agitators,  otherwise  than  as  a  measure 
ancillary  to  their  earlier  pretension  of  appointing  vir- 
tually all  parish  clergymen.  The  one  claim  was  found 
to  be  the  integration  or  sine  qua  non  complement  of 
the  other.  In  order  to  sustain  the  power  of  appoint- 
ment in  their  own  courts,  it  was  necessary  that  they 
should  defeat  the  patron's  power  ;  and,  in  order  to 
defeat  the  patron's  power,  ranging  itself  (as  sooner  or 
later  it  would)  under  the  law  of  the  land,  it  was  neces- 
sary that  they  should  decline  that  struggle,  by  attempt- 
ing to  take  the  question  out  of  all  secular  jurisdictions 
whatever. 

In  this  way  grew  up  that  two-fold  revolution  which 
has  been  convulsing  the  Scottish  church  since  1834  ; 
first,  the  audacious  attempt  to  disturb  the  settled  mode 
of  appointing  the  parish  clergy,  through  a  silent  rob- 
bery perpetrated  on  the  crown  and  great  landed  aris- 
tocracy ;  secondly,^  and  in  prosecution  of  that  primary 
purpose,  the  far  more  frantic  attempt  to  renew  in  a 
practical  shape  the  old  disputes  so  often  agitating  the 
forum  of  Christendom,  as  to  the  bounds  of  civil  and 
spiritual  power. 

In  our  rehearsal  of  the  stages  through  which  the 


416 


SECESSION  TKOM  THE 


process  of  induction  ordinarily  travels,  we  have  pur- 
posely omitted  one  possible  interlude  or  parenthesis  in 
the  series  ;  not  as  wishing  to  conceal  it,  but  for  the 
very  opposite  reason.  It  is  right  to  withdraw  from  a 
representative  account  of  any  transaction  such  varieties 
of  the  routine  as  occur  but  seldom  :  in  this  way  they 
are  more  pointedly  exposed.  Now,  having  made  that 
explanation,  we  go  on  to  inform  the  Southern  reader 
—  that  an  old  traditionary  usage  has  prevailed  in 
Scotland,  but  not  systematically  or  uniformly,  of  send- 
ing to  the  presentee,  through  the  presbytery,  what  is 
designated  a  "  call,''  subscribed  by  members  of  the 
parish  congregation.  This  call  is  simply  an  invitation  to 
the  office  of  their  pastor.  It  arose  in  the  disorders  of 
the  seventeenth  century  ;  but  in  practice  it  is  generally 
admitted  to  have  sunk  into  a  mere  formality  throughout 
the  eighteenth  century  ;  and  the  very  position  which  it 
holds  in  the  succession  of  steps,  not  usually  coming 
forward  until  after  the  presentation  has  been  notified 
(supposing  that  it  comes  forward  at  all),  compels  us  to 
regard  it  in  that  light.  Apparently  it  bears  the  same 
relation  to  the  patron's  act  as  the  Address  of  the  two 
Houses  to  the  Speech  from  the  Throne  :  it  is  rather  a 
courteous  echo  to  the  personal  compliment  involved  in 
the  presentation,  than  capable  of  being  regarded  as 
any  original  act  of  invitation.  And  yet,  in  defiance 
of  that  notorious  fact,  some  people  go  so  far  as  to 
assert,  that  a  call  is  not  good  unless  where  it  is  sub- 
scribed by  a  clear  majority  of  the  congregation.  This 
Is  amusing.  We  have  already  explained  that,  except 
as  a  liberal  courtesy,  the  very  idea  of  a  call  destined 
to  be  inoperative,  is  and  must  be  moonshine.  Yet 


CHURCH   OF  SCOTLA.ND. 


417 


between  two  moonshines,  some  people,  it  seems,  can 
tell  which  is  the  denser.  We  have  all  heard  of  Bar- 
mecide banquets,  where,  out  of  tureens  filled  to  the 
brim  with — nothing,  the  fortunate  guest  was  helped  to 
vast  messes  of  —  air.  For  a  hungry  guest  to  take  this 
tantalization  in  good  part,  was  the  sure  way  to  win  the 
esteem  of  the  noble  Barmecide.  But  the  Barmecide 
himself  would  hardly  approve  of  a  duel  turning  upon 
a  comparison  between  two  of  his  tureens,  question 
being  —  which  had  been  the  fuller,  or  of  two  nihilities 
which  had  been  seasoned  the  more  judiciously.  Yet 
this,  in  effect,  is  the  reasoning  of  those  who  say  that  a 
call,  signed  by  fifty-one  persons  out  of  a  hundred,  is 
more  valid  than  another  signed  only  by  twenty-six,  or 
by  nobody  :  it  being  in  the  meantime  fully  understood 
that  neither  is  valid  in  the  least  possible  degree.  But 
if  the  "  call,''  was  a  Barmecide  call,  there  was  another 
act  open  to  the  congregation  which  was  not  so. 

For  the  English  reader  must  now  understand,  that 
over  and  above  the  passive  and  less  invidious  mode  of 
discountenancing  or  forbearing  to  countenance  a  pre- 
sentee, by  v/ithdrawing  from  the  direct  "  call  "  upon 
him,  usage  has  sanctioned  another  and  stronger  sort 
of  protest  ;  one  which  takes  the  shape  of  distinct  and 
clamorous  ohjections.  We  are  speaking  of  the  routine 
in  this  place,  according  to  the  course  which  it  did 
travel  or  could  travel  under  that  law  and  that  practice 
ivhich  furnished  the  pleas  for  complaint.  Now,  it  was 
upon  these  objections,"  as  may  well  be  supposed,  that 
the  main  battle  arose.  Simply  to  want  the  "  call," 
being  a  mere  zero,  could  not  much  lay  hold  upon 
Dublic  feeling.  It  was  a  case  not  fitted  for  efFectr 
27 


418 


SECESSION  FROJVI  THE 


You  cannot  bring  a  blank  privation  strongly  befoie  tne 
public  eye.  "  The  '  call '  did  not  take  place  last 
week  ;  "  well,  perhaps  it  will  take  place  next  week.  Or 
again^  if  it  should  never  take  place,  perhaps  it  may  be 
religious  carelessness  on  the  part  of  the  parish.  Many 
parishes  notoriously  feel  no  interest  in  their  pastor, 
except  as  a  quiet  member  of  their  community.  Con- 
sequently, in  two  or  three  cases  that  might  occur, 
there  was  nothing  to  excite  the  public  ;  the  parish  had 
either  agreed  with  the  patron,  or  had  not  noticeably 
dissented.  But  in  the  third  case  of  positive  "  objections," 
which  (in  order  to  justify  themselves  as  not  frivolous 
and  vexatious)  were  urged  with  peculiar  emphasis,  the 
attention  of  all  men  was  arrested.  Newspapers  rever- 
bei'ated  the  fact :  sympathetic  groans  arose :  the  patron 
was  an  oppressor  :  the  parish  was  under  persecution: 
and  the  poor  clergyman,  whose  case  was  the  most  to 
be  pitied,  as  being  in  a  measure  endowed  with  a  lasting 
fund  of  dislike,  had  the  mortification  to  find,  over  and 
above  this  resistance  from  within,  that  he  bore  the 
name  of  "  intruder  "  from  without.  He  was  supposed 
by  -the  fiction  of  the  case  to  be  in  league  with  his 
patron  for  the  persecution  of  a  godly  parish ;  whilst  in 
reality  the  godly  parish  was  persecuting  Imn,  and 
hallooing  the  world  ah  extra  to  join  in  the  hunt. 

In  such  cases  of  pretended  objections  to  men  who 
have  not  been  tried,  we  need  scarcely  tell  the  reader, 
that  usually  they  are  mere  cabals  and  worldly  in- 
trigues. It  is  next  to  impossible  that  any  parish  or 
congregation  should  sincerely  agree  in  their  opinion 
of  a  clergyman.  What  one  man  likes  in  such  cases, 
inother  man  detests.    Mr.  A.,  with  an  ardent  nature 


CHUKCH   OF  bOOTLAND. 


419 


and  something  of  a  histrionic  turn,  doats  upon  a  fince 
rhetorical  display.  Mr.  B.,  with  more  simplicity  of 
taste,  pronounces  this  little  better  than  theatrical  osten- 
tation. Mr.  C.  requires  a  good  deal  of  critical  schol- 
arship. Mr.  D.  quarrels  with  this  as  unsuitable  to  a 
rustic  congregation,  Mrs.  X.,  who  is  "  under  concern  " 
/or  sin,  demands  a  searching  and  (as  she  expresses  it) 
X  ''faithnd  "  style  of  dealing  with  consciences.  Mrs. 
Y.,  an  aristocratic  lady,  who  cannot  bear  to  be  mixed 
up  in  any  common  charge  together  with  low  people, 
abominates  such  words  as  sin,"  and  wills  that  the 
parson  should  confine  his  observations "  to  the 
''shocking  demoralization  of  the  lower  orders." 

Now,  having  stated  the  practice  of  Scottish  in- 
duction as  it  was  formerly  sustained  in  its  first  stage 
by  law,  in  its  second  stage  by  usage,  let  us  finish 
that  part  of  the  subject  by  reporting  the  existing 
practice  as  regulated  in  all  its  stages  by  law.  What 
law  r  The  law  as  laid  dowji  in  Lord  Aberdeen's  late 
Act  of  Parliament.  This  statement  should,  histori- 
cally speaking,  have  found  itself  under  our  third  head, 
as  being  one  amongst  the  consequences  immediately 
following  the  final  rupture.  But  it  is  better  placed 
at  this  point ;  because  it  closes  the  whole  review  of 
that  topic  ;  and  because  it  reflects  light  upon  the 
former  practice  —  the  practice  which  led  to  the  whole 
mutinous  tumult:  every  alteration  forcing  more  keenly 
upon  the  reader's  attention  what  had  been  the  pre- 
vious custom,  and  in  what  respect  it  was  held  by 
any  man  to  be  a  grievance. 

This  act,  then,  of  Lord  Aberdeen's,  removes  all 
i^gal  effect  from  the    call.''    Common  sense  required 


420 


SECESSION   FEOM  THE 


that.  For  wliat  was  to  be  done  with  patronage  ?  Was 
it  to  be  sustained,  or  was  it  not  ?  If  not,  then  why 
quarrel  with  the  Non-intrusionists  ?  Why  suffer  a 
schism  to  take  place  in  the  church  ?  Give  legal  effect 
to  the  "  call,"  and  the  original  cause  of  quarrel  is 
gone.  For,  with  respect  to  the  opponents  of  the  Non- 
intrusfonists,  they  would  bow  to  the  law.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  patronage  is  to  be  sustained,  then  why 
allow  of  any  lingering  or  doubtful  force  to  what  must 
often  operate  as  a  conflicting  claim?  "  A  call,"  which 
carries  v»dth  it  any  legal  force,  annihilates  patronage. 
Patronage  would  thus  be  exercised  only  on  sufferance. 
Do  we  mean  then,  that  a  "call"  should  sink  into  a 
pure  fiction  of  ceremony,  like  the  English  conge-d' elire 
addressed  to  a  dean  and  chapter,  calling  on  them  to 
elect  a  bishop,  when  all  the  world  knows  that  already 
the  see  has  been  filled  by  a  nomination  from  the 
crown '  Not  at  all ;  a  moral  weight  will  still  attach 
to  the  "  call,"  though  no  iegal  coercion  :  and  what  is 
chiefly  important,  all  those  doubts  will  be  removed  by 
express  legislation,  which  could  not  but  arise  between 
a  practice  pointing  sometimes  in  one  direction,  and 
sometimes  in  another,  between  legal  decisions  again 
upholding  one  view,  whilst  something  very  like  legal 
prescription  was  occasionally  pleaded  for  the  other. 
Behold  the  evil  of  written  laws  not  rigorously  in 
harmony  with  that  sort  of  customary  law  founded  upon 
vague  tradition  or  irregular  practice.  And  here,  by 
the  way,  arises  the  place  for  explaining  to  the  reader 
that  irreconcilable  dispute  amongst  Parliamentary  law- 
yers as  to  the  question  whether  Lord  Aberdeen's  bill 
were  enactory^  that  is,  created  a  new  law,  or  declara- 


CHCJECH   OF   SCOTLAND  421 

tory^  that  is,  simply  expounded  an  old  one.  If  enac- 
tory,  then  why  did  the  House  of  Lords  give  judgment 
against  those  who  allowed  weight  to  the  "  call "  ? 
That  might  need  altering  ;  that  might  be  highly  inex- 
pedient ;  bat  if  it  required  a  new  law  to  make  it 
illegal,  how  could  those  parties  be  held  in  the  wrong 
previously  to  the  new  act  of  legislation  ?  On  the  other 
hand,  if  declaratory,  then  show  us  any  old  law  which 
made  the  "call"  illegal.  The  fact  is,  that  no  man 
can  decide  whether  the  act  established  a  new  law,  or 
merely  expounded  an  old  one.  And  the  reason  why 
he  cannot,  is  this  :  the  practice,  the  usage,  which 
often  is  the  law,  had  grown  up  variously  during  the 
troubles  of  the  seventeenth  century.  In  many  places 
political  reasons  had  dictated  that  the  elders  should 
nominate  the  incumbent.  But  the  ancient  practice 
had  authorized  patronage  :  by  the  act  of  Queen  Anne 
(10th  chap.)  it  was  even  formally  restored;  and  yet 
the  patron  in  known  instances  was  said  to  have  waived 
his  right  in  deference  to  the  "  call."  But  why?  Did 
he  do  so  in  courteous  compliance  with  the  parish,  as 
a  party  whose  reasonable  wishes  ought,  for  the  sake 
of  all  parties,  to  meet  with  attention  ?  Or  did  he  do 
so,  in  humble  submission  to  the  parish,  as  having  by 
their  majorities  a  legal  right  to  the  presentation? 
There  lay  the  question.  The  presumptions  from  ^ 
Uquity  were  all  against  the  call.  The  more  modern 
practice  had  occasionally  been  for  it.  Now,  we  all 
know  how  many  colorable  claims  of  right  are  created 
by  prescription.  What  was  the  exact  force  of  the 
'  call,"  no  man  could  say.  In  like  manner,  the  exact 
\jharacter  and  limit  of  allowable  objections  had  been 


422  SECESSION   FROM  THE 

ill-defined  in  practice,  and  rested  more  on  a  vague 
tradition  than  on  any  settled  rule.  This  also  made  it 
hard  to  say  whether  Lord  Aberdeen's  Act  were  enactory 
or  declaratory,  a  predicament,  however,  which  equally 
affects  all  statutes /or  removing  doubts. 

The  "  call,"  then,  we  consider  as  no  longer  recog- 
nized by  law.  But  did  Lord  Aberdeen  by  that  change 
establish  the  right  of  the  patron  as  an  unconditional 
right  ?  By  no  means.  He  made  it  strictly  a  condi- 
tional right.  The  presentee  is  now  a  candidate,  and 
no  more.  He  has  the  most  important  vote  in  his 
favor,  it  is  true  ;  but  that  vote  may  still  be  set  aside, 
though  still  only  with  the  effect  of  compelling  the 
patron  to  a  new  choice.  "  Calls''^  are  no  longer 
doubtful  in  their  meaning,  but  objections  "  have  a 
fair  field  laid  open  to  them.  All  reasonable  objections 
are  to  be  weighed.  But  who  is  to  judge  whether  they 
are  reasonable  ?  The  presbytery  of  the  district.  And 
now  pursue  the  action  of  the  law,  and  see  how  little 
ground  it  leaves  upon  which  to  hang  a  complaint. 
Everybody's  rights  are  secured.  Whatever  be  the 
event,  first  of  all  the  presentee  cannot  complain,  if  he 
is  rejected  only  for  proved  insufficiency.  He*  is  put 
on  his  trial  as  to  these  points  only  :  L  Is  he  orthodox? 
2.  Is  he  of  good  moral  reputation?  3.  Is  he  suffi- 
dently  learned  ?  And  note  this  (which  in  fact  Sir 
James  Graham  remarked  in  his  official  letter  to  the 
Assembly),  strictly  speaking,  he  ought  not  to  be  under 
challenge  as  respects  the  third  point,  for  it  is  your 
own  fault,  the  fault  of  your  own  licensing  courts  (the 
presbyteries),  if  he  is  not  qualified  so  far.  You  should 
not  have  created  him  a  licentiate,  should  not  have 


CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND. 


423 


given  him  a  license  to  preach,  as  must  have  been  done 
in  an  earlier  stage  of  his  progress,  if  he  were  not 
learned  enough.  Once  learned,  a  man  is  learned  for 
life.  As  to  the  other  points,  he  may  change,  and 
therefore  it  is  that  an  examination  is  requisite.  But 
how  can  he  complain  if  he  is  found  by  an  impartial 
court  of  venerable  men  objectionable  on  any  score? 
If  it  were  possible,  however,  that  he  should  be  wronged, 
he  has  his  appeal.  Secondly,  how  can  the  patron 
complain  ?  His  case  is  the  same  as  his  presentee's 
case  ;  his  injuries  the  same  ;  his  relief  the  same.  Be- 
sides, if /us  man  is  rejected,  it  is  not  the  parish  man 
that  takes  his  place.  No  ;  but  a  second  man  of  his 
own  choice :  and,  if  again  he  chooses  amiss,  who  is  to 
blame  for  that  ?  Thirdly,  can  the  congregation  com- 
plain ?  They  have  a  general  interest  in  their  spiritual 
guide.  But  as  to  the  preference  for  oratory  —  for  loud 
or  musical  voice  —  for  peculiar  views  in  religion  — 
these  things  are  special :  they  interest  but  an  exceed- 
ingly small  minority  in  any  parish ;  and,  what  is 
worse,  that  which  pleases  one  is  often  offensive  to 
another.  There  are  cases  in  which  a  parish  would 
reject  a  man  for  being  a  married  man:  some  of  the 
parish  have  unmarried  daughters.  But  this  case 
clearly  belongs  to  the  small  minority ;  and  we  have 
little  doubt  that,  where  the  objections  lay  "for  cause 
not  shown,"  it  was  often  for  this  cause.  Fourthly, 
can  the  church  complain  ?  Her  interest  is  represented, 
1,  not  by  the  presentee  ;  2,  not  by  the  patron  ;  3,  not 
by  the  congregation  ;  but  4,  by  the  presbytery.  And, 
whatever  the  presbytery  say,  thai  is  supported.  Speak- 
mg  either  for  the  patron,  for  the  presentee,  for  the 


424 


SECESSION   PROM  THE 


congregation,  or  for  themselves  as  conservators  of  the 
church,  that  court  is  heard ;  what  more  would  they 
have  ?  And  thus  in  turn  every  interest  is  protected. 
Now  the  point  to  be  remarked  is  —  that  each  party  in 
turn  has  a  separate  influence.  But  on  any  other  plan, 
giving  to  one  party  out  of  the  four  an  absolute  oi 
unconditional  power,  no  matter  which  of  the  four  it  be 
—  all  the  rest  have  none  at  all.  Lord  Aberdeen  has 
reconciled  the  rights  of  patrons  for  the  first  time  with 
those  of  all  other  parties  interested.  Nobody  has 
more  than  a  conditional  power.  Everybody  has  that. 
And  the  patron,  as  necessity  requires,  if  property  is  to 
be  protected,  has,  in  all  circumstances,  the  revisionary 
power. 

II.  Secondly,  How  were  these  things  done  7  By 
what  means  were  the  hands  of  any  party  strengthened, 
so  as  to  find  this  revolution  possible  ? 

We  seek  not  to  refine  :  but  all  moral  power  issues 
out  of  moral  forces.  And  it  may  be  well,  therefore, 
rapidly  to  sketch  the  history  of  religion,  whidi  is  the 
greatest  of  moral  forces,  as  it  sank  and  rose  in  this 
island  through  the  last  two  hundred  years. 

It  is  well  known  that  the  two  great  revolutions  of 
the  seventeenth  century  —  that  in  1649,  accomplished 
by  the  Parliament  armies  (including  its  reaction  in 
1660),  and  secondly,  that  in  1688  -9  —  did  much  to 
imsettle  the  religious  tone  of  public  morals.  His- 
torians and  satirists  ascribe  a  large  efiect  in  this  change 
to  the  personal  influence  of  Charles  II.,  and  the  foreign 
character  of  his  court.  We  do  not  share  in  their 
views,  and  one  eminent  proof  that  they  are  wrongs 
Ilea  in  the  following  fact  —  viz.,  that  the  sublimes t  act 


CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND. 


425 


of  self-sacrifice  which  the  world  has  ever  seen,  arose 
precisely  in  the  most  triumphant  season  of  Charles's 
career,  a  time  when  the  reaction  of  hatred  had  not 
yet  neutralized  the  sunny  joyousness  of  his  Restora- 
tion. Surely  the  reader  cannot  be  at  a  loss  to  know 
what  we  mean  —  the  renunciation  in  one  hour,  on 
St.  Bartholomew's  Day  in  1662,  of  two  thousand  bene- 
fices by  the  non-conforming  clergymen  of  England. 
In  the  same  year  occurred  a  similar  renunciation  of 
three  hundred  and  sixty  benefices  in  Scotland.  These 
great  sacrifices,  wdiether  called  for  or  not,  argue  a 
great  strength  in  the  religious  principle  at  that  era. 
Yet  the  decay  of  external  religion  towards  the  close  of 
that  century  is  proved  incontestably.  We  ourselves 
are  inclined  to  charge  this  upon  two  causes  :  first,  that 
the  times  were  controversial  ;  and  usually  it  happens  — 
that,  where  too  much  energy  is  carried  into  the  con- 
troversies or  intellectual  part  of  religion,  a  very  dimin- 
ished fervor  attends  the  culture  of  its  moral  and  prac- 
tical part.  This  was  perhaps  one  reason  ;  for  the 
dispute  with  the  Papal  church,  partly,  perhaps,  with  a 
secret  reference  to  the  rumored  apostasy  of  the  royal 
family,  was  pursued  more  eagerly  in  the  latter  half  of 
\he  seventeenth  than  even  in  any  section  of  the  six- 
teenth century.  But,  doubtless,  the  main  reason  was 
the  revolutionary  character  of  the  times.  Morality  is 
at  all  periods  fearfully  shaken  by  intestine  wars,  and 
!  by  instability  in  a  government.  The  actual  duration 
'  of  war  in  England  was  not  indeed  longer  than  three 
and  a  half  years  — •  viz.,  from  Edgehill  Fight  in  the 
autumn  of  1642,  to  the  defeat  of  the  king's  last  force 
mder  Sir  Jacob  Astley  at  Stow-in-the-walds  in  the 


426 


SECESSION   FHOM  THE 


spring  of  1646,  Any  other  fighting  in  that  century 
beh)nged  to  mere  insulated  and  discontinuous  war. 
But  the  insecurity  of  every  government  between  I608 
and  1702,  kept  the  popular  mind  in  a  state  of  fermen- 
tation. Accordingly,  Queen  Anne's  reign  might  be 
said  to  open  upon  an  irreligious  people.  The  condi- 
tion of  things  was  further  strengthened  by  the  unavoid- 
able interweaving  at  that  time  of  politics  with  religion. 
They  could  not  be  kept  separate;  and  the  favor  shown 
even  by  religious  people  to  such  partisan  zealots  as 
Dr.  Sacheverell,  evidenced,  and  at  the  same  time  pro- 
moted, the  public  irreligion.  This  was  the  period  in 
which  the  clergy  thought  too  little  of  their  duties,  but 
too  much  of  their  professional  rights ;  and  if  we  may 
credit  the  indirect  report  of  the  contemporary  litera- 
ture, all  apostolic  or  missionary  zeal  for  the  extension 
of  religion,  was  in  those  days  a  thing  unknown.  It 
may  seem  unaccountable  to  many,  that  the  same  state 
of  things  should  have  spread  in  those  days  to  Scotland  ; 
but  this  is  no  more  than  the  analogies  of  all  experience 
entitled  us  to  expect.  Thus  we  know  that  the  instincts 
of  religious  reformation  ripened  everywhere  at  the 
same  period  of  the  sixteenth  century  from  one  end  of 
Europe  to  the  other  ;  although  between  most  of  the 
European  kingdoms  there  was  nothing  like  so  much 
intercourse  as  between  England  and  Scotland  in  the 
eighteenth  century.  In  both  countries,  a  cold  and  life- 
less state  of  public  religion  prevailed  up  to  the  Ameri- 
can and  French  Revolutions.  These  great  events  gave 
a  shock  everywhere  to  the  meditative,  and,  conse- 
quently, to  the  religious  impulses  of  men.  And,  in  the 
meantime,  an   irregular   channel   had   been  already 


CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND. 


427 


opened  to  these  impulses  by  the  two  founders  of 
Methodism.  A  century  has  now  passed  since  Wesley 
and  Whitefield  organized  a  more  spiritual  machinery 
of  preaching  than  could  then  be  found  in  England,  for 
the  benefit  of  the  poor  and  laboring  classes.  These 
Methodist  institutions  prospered,  as  they  were  sure  of 
doing,  amongst  the  poor  and  the  neglected  at  any  time, 
much  more  when  contrasted  with  the  deep  slumbers  of 
the  Established  Church.  And  another  ground  of  pros- 
perity soon  arose  out  of  the  now  expanding  manufac- 
turing system.  Vast  multitudes  of  men  grew  up  under 
that  system  —  humble  enough  by  the  quality  of  their 
education  to  accept  with  thankfulness  the  ministrations 
of  Methodism,  and  rich  enough  to  react,  upon  that 
beneficent  institution,  by  continued  endowments  in 
money.  Gradually,  even  the  church  herself,  that 
mighty  establishment,  under  the  cold  shade  of  which 
Methodism  had  grown  up  as  a  neglected  weed,  began 
to  acknowledge  the  power  of  an  extending  Methodistic 
influence,  which  originally  she  had  haughtily  despised. 
First,  she  murmured ;  then  she  grew  anxious  or  fear- 
ful ;  and  finally,  she  began  to  find  herself  invaded  or 
modified  from  within,  by  influences  springing  up  from 
Methodism.  This  last  eflect  became  more  conspicu- 
ously evident  after  the  French  P  evolution.  The  church 
of  Scotland,  which,  as  a  whole  had  exhibited,  with 
much  unobtrusive  piety,  the  same  outward  torpor  as 
the  Church  of  England  during  the  eighteenth  century, 
betrayed  a  corresponding  resuscitation  about  the  same 
time.  At  the  opening  of  this  present  century,  both  of 
these  national  churches  began  to  show  a  marked,  re- 
kindling of  religious  fervor.    In    vrhat  extent  this 


m 


SECESSION   FROM  THE 


change  in  the  Scottish  church  had  been  due,  mediately 
or  immediately,  to  Methodism,  we  do  not  pretend  to 
calculate  ;  that  is,  we  do  not  pretend  to  settle  the  pro- 
portions. But  mediately  the  Scottish  church  must  have 
been  affected,  because  she  was  greatly  affected  by  her 
intercourse  with  the  English  church  (as  e.  g.,  in  Bible 
Societies,  Missionary  Societies,  &c.)  ;  and  the  English 
church  had  been  previously  affected  by  Methodism. 
Immediately  she  must  also  have  been  affected  by  Meth  • 
odism,  because  Whitefield  had  been  invited  to  preach 
in  Scotland,  and  did  preach  in  Scotland.  But,  what- 
ever may  have  been  the  cause  of  this  awakening  from 
slumber  in  the  two  established  churches  of  this  island, 
the  fact  is  so  little  to  be  denied,  that,  in  both  its  aspects, 
it  is  acknowledged  by  those  most  interested  in  denying 
it.  The  two  churches  slept  the  sleep  of  torpor  through 
the  eighteenth  century  ;  so  much  of  the  fact  is  acknowl- 
edged by  their  own  members.  The  two  churches 
awoke,  as  from  a  trance,  in  or  just  before  the  dawning 
of  the  nineteenth  century  ;  this  second  half  of  the  fact 
is  acknowledged  by  their  opponents.  The  Wesleyan 
Methodists,  that  formidable  power  in  England  and 
Wales,  who  once  reviled  the  Establishment  as  the 
CiO^-mitory  of  spiritual  drones,  have  for  many  years 
hailed  a  very  large  section  in  that  establishment  — 
viz.,  the  section  technically  known  by  the  name  of  the 
Evangelical  clergy  —  as  brothers  after  their  own 
hearts,  and  corresponding  to  their  own  strictest  model 
of  a  spiritual  clergy.  That  section  again,  the  Evan- 
gelical section  in  the  English  church,  as  men  more 
highly  educated,  took  a  direct  interest  in  the  Scottish 
clergy,  upon  general  principles  of  liberal  interest  in  all 


CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND. 


429 


fchat  could  affect  religion,  beyond  what  could  be  ex- 
pected from  the  Methodists.  And  in  this  way  grew  up 
a  considerable  action  and  reaction  between  the  two 
classical  churches  of  the  British  soil. 

Such  was  the  varying  condition,  when  sketched  in 
outline,  of  the  Scottish  and  English  churches.  Two 
centuries  ago,  and  for  half  a  century  beyond  that,  we 
find  both  churches  in  a  state  of  trial,  of  turbulent 
agitation,  and  of  sacrifices  for  conscience,  which  in- 
volved every  fifth  or  sixth  beneficiary.  Then  came  a 
century  of  languor,  and  the  carelessness  which  belongs 
to  settled  prosperity.  And  finally,  for  both  has  arisen 
a  half  century  of  new  light  —  new  zeal  —  and,  spirit- 
ually speaking,  of  n*ew  prosperity.  This  deduction  it 
was  necessary  to  bring  down,  in  order  to  explain  the 
new  power  which  arose  to  the  Scottish  church,  during 
the  last  generation  of  suppose  thirty  years. 

When  two  powerful  establishments,  each  separately 
fitted  to  the  genius  and  needs  of  its  several  people,  are 
pulling  together  powerfully  towards  one  great  spiritual 
object,  vast  must  be  the  results.  Our  ancestors  would 
have  stood  aghast  as  at  some  fabulous  legend  or  some 
mighty  miracle,  could  they  have  heard  of  the  scale  on 
which  our  modern  contributions  proceed  for  the  pur- 
poses of  missions  to  barbarous  nations,  of  circulating 
the  Scriptures  (whether  through  the  Bible  Society), 
that  is,  the  National  Society,  or  Provincial  Societies), 
of  translating  the  Scriptures  into  languages  scarcely 
known  by  name  to  scholars,  of  converting  Jews,  of 
organizing  and  propagating  education.  Towards  these 
great  objects  the  Scottish  clergy  had  worked  with 
^lie^'g'y?  and  with  little  disturbance  to  their  unanimity. 


130 


SECESSION   FROM  THE 


Confidence  was  universally  felt  in  their  piety  and  in 
their  discretion.  This  confidence  even  reached  the 
supreme  rulers  of  the  state.  Very  much  through 
ecclesiastical  influence,  new  plans  for  extending  the 
religious  power  of  the  Scottish  church,  and  indirectly 
of  extending  their  secular  power,  were  countenanced 
by  the  government.  Jealousy  had  been  disarmed  by 
the  upright  conduct  of  the  Scottish  clergy,  and  their 
remarkable  freedom  hitherto  from  all  taint  of  ambition. 
It  was  felt,  besides,  that  the  temper  of  the  Scottish 
nation  was  radically  indisposed  to  all  intriguing  or 
modes  of  temporal  ascendency  m  ecclesiastical  bodies. 
The  nation,  therefore,  was  in  some  degree  held  as  a 
guarantee  for  the  discretion  of  their  clergy.  And 
hence  it  arose,  that  much  less  caution  was  applied  to 
the  first  encroachment  of  the  non-intrusionists,  than 
would  have  been  applied  under  circumstances  of  more 
apparent  doubt.  Hence,  it  arose,  that  a  confidence 
from  the  Scottish  nation  was  extended  to  this  clergy, 
which  too  certainly  has  been  abused. 

In  the  years  1824-5,  Parliament  had  passed  acts 
for  building  additional  places  of  worship  in  the  high- 
lands and  islands  of  Scotland."  These  acts  may  be 
looked  upon  as  one  section  in  that  general  extension 
of  religious  machinery  which  the  British  people,  by 
their  government  and  their  legislature,  have  for  many 
years  been  promoting.  Not,  as  is  ordinarily  said,  that 
the  weight  of  this  duty  had  grovvu  upon  them  simply 
through  their  own  treacherous  neglect  of  it  during  the 
'atter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century;  but  that  no 
reasonable  attention  to  that  duty  could  have  kept  pace 
with  the  scale  upon  which  the  claims  of  a  new  manu- 


CHURCH   OF  SCOTLAND. 


431 


facturing  population  bad  increased.  In  mere  equity 
must  admit  —  not  that  the  British  nation  had 
fallen  behind  its  duties  (though  naturally  it  might 
have  done  so  under  the  religious  torpor  prevalent  at 
the  original  era  of  manufacturing  extension),  but  that 
the  duties  had  outstripped  all  human  power  of  over 
taking  them.  The  efforts,  however,  have  been  pro- 
digious in  this  direction  for  many  years.  Amongst 
those  applied  to  Scotland,  it  had  been  settled  by  Par- 
liament that  forty-two  new  churches  should  be  raised 
in  the  highlands,  with  an  endowment  from  the  govern- 
ment of  £120  annually  for  each  incumbent.  There 
were  besides  more  than  two  hundred  chapels  of  ease 
to  be  founded*;  and  towards  this  scheme  the  Scottish 
public  subscribed  largely.  The  m.oney  was  intrusted 
to  the  clergy.  That  was  right,  but  mark  what  followed. 
It  had  been  expressly  provided  by  Parliament  —  that 
any  district  or  circumjacent  territory,  allotted  to  such 
parliamentary  churches  as  the  range  within  which  the 
incumbent  v/as  to  exercise  his  spiritual  ministration, 
should  not  be  separate  parishes  for  any  civil  or  legal 
effects.  Here  surely  the  intentions  and  directions 
of  the  legislature  were  plain  enough,  and  decisive 
enough. 

How  did  the  Scottish  clergy  obey  them?  They 
erected  all  these  jurisdictions  into  ho7id  fide  parish- 
es," enjoying  the  plenary  rights  (as  to  church  govern- 
ment) of  the  other  parishes,  and  distinguished  from 
them  in  a  merely  nominal  way  as  parishes  quoad  sacra. 
There  were  added  at  once  to  the  presbyteries,  which 
are  the  organs  of  the  church  power,  two  hundred  and 
three  clerical  persons  for  the  chapels  of  ease,  and 


432 


SECESSION   FROM  THE 


forty-two  for  the  highland  churches  —  making  a  total 
of  two  hundred  and  forty-five  new  members.  By  the 
constitution  of  the  Scottish  church,  an  equal  number 
of  lay  elders  (called  ruling  elders)  accompany  the 
clerical  elders.  Consequently  four  hundred  and  ninety- 
new  members  were  introduced  at  once  into  that  par- 
ticular class  of  courts  (presbyteries)  which  form  the 
electoral  bodies  in  relation  to  the  highest  court  of 
General  Assembly.  The  effect  of  this  change,  made 
in  the  very  teeth  of  the  law,  was  twofold.  First,  it 
threw  into  many  separate  presbyteries  a  considerable 
accession  of  voters  —  all  owing  their  apj)ointments  to 
the  General  Assembly,  This  would  at  once  give  a 
large  bias  favorable  to  their  party  views  in  every 
election  for  members  to  serve  in  the  Assembly.  Even 
upon  an  Assembly  numerically  limited,  this  innovation 
would  have  told  most  abusively.  But  the  Assembly 
was  not  limited;  and  therefore  the  whole  effect  was, 
at  the  same  moment,  greatly  to  extend  the  electors 
and  the  elected. 

Here,  then,  was  the  machinery  by  which  the  faction 
worked.  They  drew  that  power  from  Scotland  re- 
kindled into  a  temper  of  religious  anxiety,  which  they 
never  could  have  drawn  from  Scotland  lying  torpid, 
as  she  had  lain  through  the  eighteenth  century.  The 
new  machinery  (created  by  Parliament  in  order  to 
meet  the  wishes  of  the  Scottish  nation),  the  money  of 
that  nation,  the  awakened  zeal  of  that  nation  ;  all 
these  were  employed,  honorably  in  one  sense,  that  is, 
not  turned  aside  into  private  channels  for  purposes  of 
individuals,  but  factiously  in  the  result,  as  being  for 
the  benefit  of  a  faction ;  honorably  as  regarded  the 


CIIUECH  OF   SCOTLAND.  433 

open  mode  of  applying  such  influence  —  a  mode  which 
did  not  shrink  from  exposure  ;  but  most  dishonorably, 
in  so  far  as  privileges,  which  had  been  conceded  alto 
gether  for  a  spiritual  object,  were  abusively  transferred 
to  the  furtherance  of  a  temporal  intrigue.  Such  were 
the  methods  by  which  the  new-born  ambition  of  the 
clergy  moved ;  and  that  ambition  had  become  active, 
simply  because  it  had  suddenly  seemed  to  become 
practicable.  The  presbyteries,  as  being  the  effectual 
electoral  bodies,  are  really  the  main  springs  of  the 
ecclesiastical  administration.  To  govern  them^  was  in 
effect  to  govern  the  church.  A  new  scheme  for  ex- 
tending religion  had  opened  a  new  avenue  to  this 
control  over  the  presbyteries.  That  opening  was 
notoriously  unlawful.  But  not  the  less  the  church 
faction  precipitated  themselves  ardently  upon  it ;  and 
but  for  the  faithfulness  of  the  civil  courts,  they  would 
never  have  been  dislodged  from  what  they  had  so 
suddenly  acquired.  Such  was  the  extraordinary  leap 
taken  by  the  Scottish  clergy,  into  a  power,  of  which, 
hitherto,  they  had  never  enjoyed  a  fraction.  It  was  a 
movement  per  saltum,  beyond  all  that  history  has 
recorded.  At  cock-crow  they  had  no  power  at  all ; 
when  the  sun  went  down,  they  had  gained  (if  they 
could  have  held)  a  papal  supremacy.  And  a  thing  not 
less  memorably  strange  is,  that  even  yet  the  ambitious 
j  leaders  were  not  disturbed ;  what  they  had  gained 
'  was  viewed  by  the  public  as  a  collateral  gain,  indirectly 
adhering  to  a  higher  object,  but  forming  no  part  at  all 
of  what  the  clergy  had  sought.  It  required  the  scru- 
tiny of  law  courts  to  unmask  and  d-ecompose  their  true 
object.  The  obstinacy  of  the  defence  betrayed  the 
28 

i 


434 


SECESSION  EEOM  THE 


real  animus  of  the  attempt.  It  was  an  attempt  which, 
in  connection  with  the  Veto  Act  (supposing  that  to 
have  prospered),  would  have  laid  the  whole  power  of 
the  church  at  their  feet.  What  the  law  had  distrib- 
uted amongst  three  powers,  patron,  parish,  and  presby- 
ter, would  have  been  concentrated  in  themselves.  The 
quoad  sacra  parishes  would  have  riveted  their  majori- 
ties in  the  presbyteries  ;  and  the  presbyteries,  under 
the  real  action  of  the  Veto,  would  have  appointed 
nearly  every  incumbent  in  Scotland.  And  this  is  the 
answer  to  the  question,  when  treated  merely  in  out- 
line —  How  were  these  things  done  ?  The  reUgion  of 
the  times  had  created  new  machineries  for  propagating 
a  new  religious  influence.  These  fell  into  the  hands 
of  the  clergy ;  and  the  temptation  to  abuse  these 
advantages  led  them  into  revolution. 

III.  Having-  now  stated  what  was  done,  as  well 
as  HOW  it  was  done,  let  us  estimate  the  consequences 
of  these  acts  ;  under  this  present,  or  third  section, 
reviewing  the  immediate  consequences  which  have 
taken  effect  already,  and  under  the  next  section  an- 
ticipating the  more  remote  consequences  yet  to  be  ex- 
pected. 

In  the  spring  of  1834,  as  we  have  sufficiently  ex- 
plained, the  General  Assembly  ventured  on  the  fatal 
attempt  to  revolutionize  the  church,  and  (as  a  prelimi- 
nary towards  that)  on  the  attempt  to  revolutionize  the 
property  of  patronage.  There  lay  the  extravagance  of 
the  attempt  ;  its  short-sightedness,  if  they  did  not  see 
its  civil  tendencies  ;  its  audacity,  if  they  did.  It  was 
one  revolution  marching  to  its  object  through  another  ; 
It  was  a  vote,  which,  if  at  all  sustained,  must  entail  a 


CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND. 


435 


ong  inheritance  of  contests  with  the  whole  civil  polity 
of  Scotland. 

^'  Heu  quantum  fati  parva  tabella  vehit ! " 

It  might  seem  to  strangers  a  trivial  thing,  that  an 
obscure  court,  like  the  presbytery,  should  proceed  in 
the  business  of  induction  by  one  routine  rather  than 
by  another  ;  but  was  it  a  trivial  thing  that  the  power 
of  appointing  clergymen  should  lapse  into  this  perilous 
dilemma  —  either  that  it  should  be  intercepted  by  the 
Scottish  clerical  order,  and  thus,  that  a  lordly  hier- 
archy should  be  suddenly  created,  disposing  of  in- 
comes which,  in  the  aggregate,  approach  to  half  a 
million  annually ;  or,  on  the  other  hand,  that  this 
dangerous  power,  if  defeated  as  a  clerical  power,  should 
settle  into  a  tenure  exquisitely  democratic?  Was 
that  trivial  ?  Doubtless,  the  Scottish  ecclesiastical 
revenues  are  not  equal,  nor  nearly  equal,  to  the  Eng- 
lish ;  still,  it  is  true,  that  Scotland,  supposing  all  her 
benefices  equalized,  gives  a  larger  average  to  each  in- 
cumbent than  England,  of  the  year  1830.  England, 
in  that  year,  gave  an  average  of  £299  to  each  bene- 
ficiary;  Scotland  gave  an  average  of  £303.  That 
body,  therefore,  which  wields  patronage  in  Scotland, 
wields  a  greater  relative  power  than  the  corresponding 
body  in  England.  Now  this  body,  in  Scotland,  must 
finally  have  been  the  clerus ;  but  supposing  the 
patronage  to  have  settled  nominally  where  the  Veto 
Act  had  placed  it,  then  it  would  have  settled  into  the 
keeping  of  a  fierce  democracy.  Mr.  Forsyth  has  justly 
remarked,  that  in  such  a  case  the  hired  ploughmen  of 
\  parish,  mercenary  hands  that  quit  their  engagements 


436 


SECESSION    FKOM  THE 


at  Martinmas,  and  can  have  no  filial  interest  in  the 
parish,  would  generally  succeed  in  electing  the  clergy- 
man. That  man  would  be  elected  generally,  who  had 
canvassed  the  parish  with  the  arts  and  means  of  an  elec- 
tioneering candidate  ;  or  else,  the  struggle  would  lie  be- 
tween the  property  and  the  Jacobinism  of  the  district. 

In  respect  to  Jacobinism,  the  condition,  of  Scotland 
is  much  altered  from  what  it  was ;  pauperism  and 
great  towns  hav^  worked  "  strange  defeatures  "  in 
Scottish  society.  A  vast  capital  has  arisen  in  the 
west,  on  a  level  with  the  first-rate  capitalists  of  the 
Continent  —  with  Vienna  or  with  Naples ;  far  superior 
in  size  to  Madrid,  to  Lisbon,  to  Berlin  ;  more  than 
equal  to  Rome  and  Milan  ;  or  again  to  Munich  and 
Dresden,  taken  by  couples  :  and,  in  this  point,  be- 
yond comparison  with  any  one  of  these  capitals,  that 
whilst  they  are  connected  by  slight  ties  with  the  cir- 
cumjacent country,  Glasgow  keeps  open  a  commu- 
nication with  the  whole  land.  Vast  laboratories  of 
encouragement  to  manual  skill,  too  often  dissociated 
from  consideration  of  character  ;  armies  of  mechanics, 
gloomy  and  restless,  having  no  interfusion  amongst 
their  endless  files  of  any  gradations  corresponding  to 
a  system  of  controlling  ofiicers  ;  these  spectacles, 
which  are  permanently  offered  by  the  castra  stativa  of 
combined  mechanics  in  Glasgow  and  its  dependencies 
Paisley,  Greenock,  &c.),  supported  by  similar  dis- 
tricts, and  by  turbulent  collieries  in  other  parts  of 
that  kingdom,  make  Scotland,  when  now  developing 
her  strength,  no  longer  the  safe  and  docile  arena  for 
popular  movements  which  once  she  was,  with  a  people 
that  were  scattered  and  habits  that  were  pastoral 


CHUECH   or  SCOTLAND. 


437 


4nd  at  tliis  moment,  so  fearfully  increased  is  the  over- 
Dearance  of  democratic  impulses  in  Scotland,  that 
perhaps  in  no  European  natiofi  —  hardly  excepting 
France  —  has  it  become  more  important  to  hang 
weights  and  retarding  forces  upon  popular  movements 
amongst  the  laboring  classes. 

This  being  so,  we  have  never  been  able  to  under- 
stand the  apparent  apathy  with  which  the  landed 
body  met  the  first  promulgation  of. the  Veto  Act  in 
May,  1834.  Of  this  apathy,  two  insufficient  explana- 
tions suggest  themselves  :  —  1st,  It  seemed  a  matter 
of  delicacy  to  confront  the  General  Assembly,  upon  a 
field  w^hich  they  had  clamorously  challenged  for  their 
own.  The  question  at  issue  was  tempestuously  pub- 
lished to  Scotland  as  a  question  exclusively  spiritual. 
And  by  whom  Avas  it  thus,  published  ?  The  Southern 
reader  must  here  not  be  careless  of  dates.  At  present 
—  viz.,  in  1844  — those  w^ho  fulminate  such  views  of 
spiritual  jurisdiction,  are  simply  dissenters  ;  and  those 
who  vehemently  withstand  them  are  the  church,  armed 
with  the  powers  of  the  church.  Such  are  the  relations 
between  the  parties  in  1844.  But  in  1834,  the  revo- 
lutionary party  were  not  only  in  the  church,  but 
(being  the  majority)  they  came  forward  as  the  church. 
The  new  doctrines  presented  themselves  at  first,  not 
as  those  of  a  faction,  but  of  the  Scottish  kirk  assem- 
bled in  her  highest  court.  The  prestige  of  that  ad- 
\antage  has  vanished  since  then;  for  this  faction,  after 
first  of  all  falling  into  a  minority,  afterwards  ceased  to 
be  any  part  or  section  of  the  church  ;  but  in  that  year 
1834,  such  a  prestige  did  really  operate  ;  and  this 
•Must  be  received  as  one  of  the  reasons  which  partially 


4:38 


SECESSION   FKOM  THE 


explain  the  torpor  of  the  landed  body.  No  one  liked 
to  raoYeJirst,  even  amongst  those  who  meant  to  move. 
But  another  reason  find  in  the  conscientious  scru- 
ples of  many  landholders,  who  hesitated  to  move  at 
all  upon  a  question  then  insufficiently  discussed,  and 
in  which  their  own  interest  was  by  so  many  degrees 
the  largest. 

These  reasons,  however,  though  sufficient  for  sus- 
pense, seem  hardly  sufficient  for  not  having  solemnly 
protested  against  the  Veto  Act  immediately  upon  its 
passing  the  Assembly.  Whatever  doubts  a  few  per- 
sons might  harbor  upon  the  expediency  of  such  an  act, 
evidently  it  was  contrary  to  the  law  of  the  land.  The 
General  Assembly  could  have  no  power  to  abrogate  a 
law  passed  by  the  three  estates  of  the  realm.  But 
probably  it  was  the  deep  sense  of  that  truth  which 
reined  up  the  national  resistance.  Sure  of  a  speedy 
collision  between  some  patron  and  the  infringers  of 
his  right,  other  parties  stood  back  for  the  present,  to 
watch  the  form  which  such  a  collision  might  assume. 

In  that  same  year  of  18o4,  not  many  months  after 
the  passing  of  the  Assembly's  Act,  came  on  the  first 
case  of  collision ;  and  some  time  subsequently  a 
second.  These  two  cases,  Auchterarder  and  Marnoch, 
commenced  in  the  very  same  steps,  but  immediately 
afterwards  diverged  as  widely  as  was  possible.  In 
both  cases,  the  rights  of  the  patron  and  of  the  pre- 
sentee were  challenged  peremptorily  ;  that  is  to  sa}^, 
in  both  cases,  parishioners  objected  to  the  presentee 
vvithout  reason  shown.  The  conduct  of  the  people 
ivas  the  same  in  one  case  as  in  the  other ;  that  of  the 
bWO  presbyteries  travelled  upon  linos  diametrically  op' 


CHURCH   OF  SCOTLAND. 


439 


posite.  The  iirst  case  was  that  of  Auchterarder.  The 
parish  and  presbytery  concerned,  both  belonged  to 
Auchterarder  ;  and  there  the  presbytery  obeyed  the 
new  law  of  the  Assembly;  they  rejected  the  presentee, 
refusing  to  take  him  on  trial'  of  his  qualifications : 
And  why?  we  cannot  too  often  repeat  —  simply  be- 
cause a  majority  of  a  rustic  congregation  had  rejected 
him,  without  attempting  to  show  reason  for  his  rejec- 
tion. The  Auchterarder  presbytery,  for  tlieir  part  in 
this  affair,  Avere  prosecuted  in  the  Court  of  Session  by 
the  injured  parties  —  Lord  Kinnoul,  the  patron,  and 
Mr,  Young,  the  presentee.  Twice,  upon  a  different 
form  of  action,  the  Court  of  Session  gave  judgment 
against  the  presbytery;  twice  the  case  went  up  by 
appeal  to  the  Lords  ;  twice  the  Lords  affirmed  the 
judgment  of  the  court  below.  In  the  other  case  of 
Marnoch,  the  presbytery  of  Strathbogie  took  precisely 
the  opposite  course.  So  far  from  abetting  the  unjust 
congregation  of  rustics,  they  rebelled  against  the  new 
law  of  the  Assembly,  and  declared,  by  seven  of  their 
number  against  three,  that  they  were  ready  to  proceed 
with  the  trial  of  the  presentee,  and  to  induct  him  (if 
found  qualified)  into  the  benefice.  Upon  this,  the 
General  Assembly  suspended  the  seven  members  of 
presbytery.  By  that  mode  of  proceeding,  the  Assem- 
bly fancied  that  they  should  be  able  to  elude  the  in- 
tentions of  the  presbytery ;  it  being  supposed  that, 
whilst  suspended,  the  presbytery  had  no  power  to  or- 
dain ;  and  that,  without  ordination,  there  was  no  pos- 
sibility of  giving  induction.  But  here  the  Assembly 
had  miscalculated.  Suspension  would  indeed  have 
had  the  effects  ascribed  to  it ;  but  in  the  meantime, 


no 


SECESSION  EKOM  THE 


the  suspension,  as  being  originally  illegal,  was  found 
to  be  void  ;  and  the  presentee,  on  that  ground,  ob- 
tained a  decree  from  the  Court  of  Session,  ordaining 
the  presbytery  of  Strathbogie  to  proceed  with  the 
settlement.  Three  of  ftie  ten  members  composing  this 
presbytery,  resisted ;  and  they  were  found  liable  in 
expenses.  The  other  seven  completed  the  settlement 
in  the  usual  form.  Here  was  plain  rebellion  ;  and  re- 
bellion triumphant.  If  this  were  allowed,  all  was 
gone.  What  should  the  Assembly  do  for  the  vindica- 
tion of  their  authority  ?  Upon  deliberation,  they  de- 
posed the  contumacious  presbytery  from  their  func- 
tions as  clergymen,  and  declared  their  churches  vacant. 
But  this  sentence  was  found  to  be  a  hrutum  fulmen  ; 
the  crime  was  no  crime,  the  punishment  turned  out  no 
punishment :  and  a  minority,  even  in  this  very  As- 
sembly, declared  publicly  that  they  would  not  consent 
to  regard  this  sentence  as  any  sentence  at  all,  but 
would  act  in  all  respects  as  if  no  such  sentence  had 
been  carried  by  vote.  Within  their  own  high  Court 
I  f  Assembly,  it  is,  however,  difficult  to  see  how  this 
refusal  to  recognize  a  sentence  voted  by  a  majority 
could  be  valid.  Outside,  the  civil  courts  came  into 
play  ;  but  within  the  Assembly,  surely  its  own  laws 
and  votes  prevailed.  However,  this  distinction  could 
bring  little  comfort  to  the  Assembly  at  present ;  for 
the  illegality  of  the  deposal  was  now  past  all  dispute  ; 
and  the  attempt  to  punish,  or  even  ruin  a  number  of 
professional  brethren  for  not  enforcing  a  by-law,  when 
the  by-law  itself  had  been  found  irreconcilable  to  the 
law  of  the  land,  greatly  displeased  the  public,  as  vin- 
dictive, oppressive,  and  useless  to  the  purposes  of  the 
Assembly. 


CHrRCH   OF  SCOTLAND. 


441 


Nothing  was  gained,  except  the  putting  on  record 
an  implacability  that  was  confessedly  impotent.  This 
was  the  very  lunacy  of  malice.  Mortifying  it  might 
certainly  seem  for  the  members  of  a  supreme  court, 
like  the  General  Assem.bly,  to  he  baffled  by  those  of  a 
subordinate  court  :  but  still  since  each  party  must  be 
regarded  as  representing  far  larger  interests  than  any 
personal  to  themselves,  trying  on  either  side,  not  the 
energies  of  their  separate  wits,  but  the  available  re- 
sources of  law  in  one  of  its  obscurer  chapters,  there 
really  seemed  no  more  room  for  humiliation  to  the 
one  party,  or  for  triumph  to  the  other,  than  there  is 
amongst  reasonable  men  in  the  result  from  a  game, 
where  the  game  is  one  exclusively  of  chance. 

From  this  period  it  is  probable  that  the  faction  of 
Non-intrusionists  resolved  upon  abandoning  the  church. 
It  was  the  one  sole  resource  left  for  sustaining  their 
own  importance  to  men  who  were  now  sinking  fast  in 
public  estimation.  At  the  latter  end  of  1842,  they 
summoned  a  convocation  in  Edinburgh.  The  dis- 
cussions were  private  ;  but  it  was  generally  understood 
that  at  this  time  they  concerted  a  plan  for  going  out 
from  the  church,  in  the  event  of  their  faihng  to  alarm 
the  government  by  the  notification  of  this  design. 
We  do  not  pretend  to  any  knowledge  of  secrets. 
What  is  known  to  everybody  is  —  that,  on  the  an- 
nual meeting  of  the  General  Assembly,  in  May,  1843, 
the  great  body  of  the  Non-intrusionists  moved  out 
in  procession.  The  sort  of  theatrical  interest  which 
gathered  round  the  Seceders  for  a  few  hurried  days  in 
May,  was  of  a  kind  which  should  naturally  have  made 
wise  men  both  ashamed  and  disgusted.    If  was  the 


^42 


SECESSION   FROM  THE 


merest  efFervescence  from  that  state  of  exidtement 
which  is  nursed  by  novelty,  by  expectation,  by  the 
vague  anticipation  of  a  scene,"  possibly  of  a  quarrel, 
together  with  the  natural  interest  in  seeing  men  whose 
names  had  been  long  before  the  public  in  books  and 
periodical  journals. 

The  first  measure  of  the  Seceders  was  to  form  them- 
selves into  a  pseudo  General  Assembly.  When  there 
are  two  suns  visible,  or  two  moons,  the  real  one  and 
its  duplicate,  we  call  the  mock  sun  a  parhelios,  and 
the  mock  moon  a  paraselene.  On  that  principle,  we 
must  call  this  mock  Assembly  a  para-synodos.  Rarely, 
indeed,  can  we  applaud  the  Seceders  in  the  fabrication 
of  names.  They  distinguish  as  quoad  sacra  parishes 
those  which  were  peculiarly  quoad  politica  parishes  ; 
for  in  that  view  only  they  had  been  interesting  to  the 
Non-intvusionists.  Again,  they  style  themselves  The 
Free  Church,  by  way  of  taunting  the  other  side  with 
being  a  servile  church.  But  how  are  they  any  church 
at  all  r  By  the  courtesies  of  Europe,  and  according 
to  usage,  a  church  means  a  religious  incorporation, 
protected  and  privileged  by  the  state.  Those  who  are 
not  so  privileged  are  usually  content  with  the  title  of 
Separatists,  Dissenters,  or  Nonconformists.  No  wise 
man  will  see  either  good  sense  or  dignity  in  assuming 
cities  not  appropriate.  The  very  position  and  aspect 
tov/ards  the  church  (legally  so  called)  which  has  been 
assumed  by  the  Non-intrusionists  —  viz.,  the  position 
of  protesters  against  that  body,  not  merely  as  bearing, 
amongst  other  features,  a  certain  relation  to  the  state, 
6ut  specifically  because  they  bear  that  relation,  makes 
it  incongruous,  and  even  absurd,  for  these  Dissenters 


CHURCH   OF  SCOTLAND. 


443 


to  denominate  themselves  a  church."  But  there  is 
ai.  )ther  objection  to  this  denomination — the  ''Free 
Church  "  have  no  peculiar  and  separate  Confession  of 
Faith.  Nobody  knows  ^what  are  their  credenda  — 
what  they  hold  indispensable  for  fellow-membership, 
either  as  to  faith  in  mysteries  or  in  moral  doctrines. 
Now,  if  they  reply  —  "  Oh  !  as  to  that,  we  adopt  for 
our  faith  all  that  ever  we  did  profess  when  members 
of  the  Scottish  kirk  "  —  then  in  effect  they  are  hardly 
so  much  as  a  dissenting  body,  except  in  some  elliptic 
sense.  There  is  a  grievous  hiatus  in  their  own  title- 
doeds  and  archives ;  they  supply  it  by  referring  people 
to  the  muniment  chest  of  the  kirk.  Would  it  not  be 
a  scandal  to  a  Protestant  church  if  she  should  say  to 
communicants  —  "We  have  no  sacramental  vessels,  or 
even  ritual  ;  but  you  may  borrow  both  from  Papal 
Rome.''  Not  only,  however,  is  the  kirk  to  lend  her 
Confession,  &c. ;  but  even  then  a  plain  rustic  will  not 
be  able  to  guess  how  many  parts  in  his  Confession  are 
or  may  be  affected  by  the  "  reformation  "  of  the  Non- 
intrusionists.  Surely,  he  will  think,  if  this  reformation 
were  so  vast  that  it  drove  them  out  of  the  national 
church,  absolutely  exploded  them,  then  it  follows  that 
it  must  have  intervened  and  indirectly  modified  innu- 
merable questions  :  a  difference  that  was  punctually 
limited  to  this  one  or  these  two  clauses,  could  not  be 
such  a  difference  as  justified  a  rupture.  Besides,  if 
they  have  altered  this  one  or  these  two  clauses,  or 
have  altered  their  interpretation,  how  is  any  man  to 
know  (except  from  a  distinct  Confession  of  Faith)  that 
they  have  not  even  directly  altered  much  more  ? 
Notoriety  through  newspapers  is  surely  no  ground  to 


SECESSION   FROISi  THE 


stand  upon  in  religion.  And  now  it  appears  that  the 
unlettered  rustic  needs  two  guides  —  one  to  show  him 
exactly  how  much  they  have  altered,  whether  two 
points  or  two  hundred,  as  jvell  as  which  two  or  two 
hundred  ;  another  to  teach  him  how  far  these  original 
changes  may  have  carried  with  them  secondary  changes 
as  consequences  into  other  parts  of  the  Christian 
system.  One  of  the  known  changes  —  yiz,,  the  doc- 
trine of  popular  election  as  the  proper  qualification 
for  parish  clergymen,  possibly  is  not  fitted  to  expand 
itself  or  ramify,  except  by  analogy.  But  the  other 
change,  the  infinity  which  has  been  suddenly  turned 
off  like  a  jet  of  gas,  or  like  the  rushing  of  wind  through 
the  tubes  of  an  organ,  upon  the  doctrine  and  applica- 
tion of  spirituality,  seems  fitted  for  derivative  effects 
that  are  innumerable.  Consequently,  we  say  of  the 
Non-intrusionists  —  not  only  that  they  are  no  church  ; 
but  that  they  are  not  "even  any  separate  body  of  Dis- 
senters, until  they  have  published  a  "  Confession"  or  a 
revised  edition  of  the  Scottish  Confession. 

IV.  Lastly,  we  have  to  sum  and  to  appreciate  the 
ultimate  consequences  of  these  things.  Let  us  pursue 
them  to  the  end  of  the  vista.  —  First  in  order  stands  the 
vlreadful  shock  to  the  National  Church  Establishment  ; 
and  that  is  twofold :  it  is  a  shock  from  without,  acting 
through  opinion,  and  a  shock  from  within,  acting 
through  the  contagion  of  example.  Each  case  is  sepa- 
rately perfect.  Through  the  opinion  of  men  standing 
outside  of  the  church,  the  church  herself  suffers  wrong 
in  her  authority.  Through  the  contagion  of  sympathy 
stealing  over  men  inside  of  the  church,  peril  arises  of 
other  shocks  in  a  second  series,  which  woidd  so  ex- 


CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND 


445 


haust  the  church  by  reiterated  convulsions,  as  to  leave 
her  virtually  dismembered  and  shattered  for  all  her 
great  national  functions. 

As  to  that  evil  which  acts  through  opinion,  it  acts  by 
a  machinery  —  viz.,  the  press  and  social  centralization 
m  great  cities,  which  in  these  days  is  perfect.  Right 
or  wrong,  justified  or  not  justified  by  the  acts  of  the 
majority,  it  is  certain  that  every  public  body  —  how 
much  more,  then,  a  body  charged  with  the  responsi- 
bility of  upholding  the  truth  in  its  standard  !  —  suffers 
dreadfully  in  the  world's  opinion  by  any  feud,  schism, 
or  shadow  of  change  among  its  members.  This  is  what 
the  New  Testament,  a  code  of  philosophy  fertile  in 
new  ideas,  first  introduced  under  the  name  of  scandal; 
that  is,  any  occasion  of  serious  offence  ministered  to  the 
weak  or  to  the  sceptical  by  differences  irreconcilable  in 
the  acts  or  the  opinions  of  those  whom  they  are  bound 
to  regard  as  spiritual  authorities.  Now  here,  in  Scot- 
land, is  a  feud  past  all  arbitration  :  here  is  a  schism 
no  longer  theoretic,  neither  beginning  nor  ending  in 
mere  speculation ;  here  is  a  change  of  doctrine,  on  one 
side  or  the  other,  which  throws  a  sad  umbrage  of  doubt 
and  perplexity  over  the  pastoral  relation  of  the  church 
to  every  parish  in  Scotland.  Less  confidence  there 
must  always  be  henceforward  in  great  religious  incor- 
porations. Was  there  any  such  incorporation  reputed 
to  be  more  internally  harmonious  than  the  Scottish 
church?  None  has  been  so  tempestuously  agitated. 
Was  any  church  more  deeply  pledged  to  the  spirit  oi 
meekness  ?  None  has  split  asunder  so  irreconcilably. 
As  to  the  grounds  of  quarrel,  could  any  questions  or 
speculations  be  found  so  little  fitted  for  a  popular  in- 


446 


SECESSION   FROM  THE 


temperance  ?  Yet  no  breach  of  unity  has  ever  propa- 
gated itself  by  steps  so  sudden  and  irrevocable.  One 
short  decennium  has  comprehended  within  its  circuit 
the  beginning  and  the  end  of  this  unparalleled  hurri- 
cane. In  1834,  the  first  light  augury  of  mischief 
skirted  the  horizon — a  cloud  no  bigger  than  a  man's 
hand.  In  1843,  the  evil  had  "  travelled  on  from  birth 
to  birth."  Already  it  had  failed  in  what  may  be  called 
one  conspiracy  ;  already  it  had  entered  upon  a  second 
—  viz.,  to  rear  up  an  Anti-Kirk^  or  spurious  establish- 
ment, which  should  twist  itself  with  snake-like  folds 
about  the  legal  establishment ;  surmount  it  as  a  Roman 
vinea  surmounted  the  fortifications  which  it  belea- 
guered ;  and  which,  under  whatsoever  practical  issue 
for  the  contest,  should  at  any  rate  overlook,  molest, 
and  insult  the  true  church  for  ever.  Even  this  briet 
period  of  development  would  have  been  briefer,  had 
not  the  law  courts  interposed  many  delays.  Demurs 
of  law  process  imposed  checks  upon  the  uncharitable 
haste  of  the  odium  tlieologicum  and  though  in  a  ques- 
tion of  schism  it  would-  be  a  petit io  principii  for  a 
neutral  censor  to  assume  that  either  party  had  been 
originally  in  error,  yet  it  is  within  our  competence  to 
say,  that  the  Seceders  it  was  whose  bigotry  carried  the 
dispute  to  that  sad  issue  of  a  final  separation.  The  es- 
tablishment would  have  been  well  content  to  stop 
short  of  that  consummation  :  and  temperaments  might 
have  been  found,  compromises  both  safe  and  honorable, 
had  the  minority  built  less  of  their  reversionary  hopes 
upon  the  policy  of  a  fanciful  martyrdom.  Martyrs 
they  insisted  upon  becoming:  and  that  they  might  be 
^nartyrs,  it  was  necessary  for  them  to  secede.  Tha* 


CHURCH   OF  SCOTLAND. 


447 


Europe  thinks  at  present  with  less  reverence  of  Prot- 
estant institutions  than  it  did  ten  years  ago,  is  due  to 
one  of  these  institutions  in  particular  —  viz.,  to  the  Scot- 
tish kirk,  and  specifically  to  the  minority  in  that  body. 
They  it  was  who  spurned  all  mutual  toleration,  all 
brotherly  indulgence  from  either  side  to  what  it  re- 
garded as  error  in  the  other.  Consequently  upon  their 
consciences  lies  the  responsibility  of  having  weakened 
the  pillars  of  the  reformed  churches  throughout  Chris- 
tendom. 

Had  those  abuses  been  really  such,  which  the  Seced- 
ers  denounced,  were  it  possible  that  a  primary  law  of 
pure  Christianity  had  been  set  aside  for  generations, 
how  came  it  that  evils  so  gross  had  stirred  no  whispers 
of  reproach  before  1834  ?  How  came  it  that  no  aurora 
of  early  light,  no  prelusive  murmurs  of  scrupulosity 
even  from  themselves,  had  run  before  this  wild  levanter 
of  change  ?  Heretofore  or  now  there  must  have  been 
huge  error  on  their  own  showing.  Heretofore  they 
must  have  been  traitorously  below  their  duty,  or  now 
mutinously  beyond  it. 

Such  conclusions  are  irresistible,  and  upon  any  path, 
seceding  or  not  seceding,  they  menace  the  Avorldly 
credit  of  ecclesiastical  bodies.  That  evil  is  now  past 
remedy.  As  for  the  other  evil,  that  which  acts  upon 
church  establishments,  not  through  simple  failure  in 
the  guarantees  of  public  opinion,  but  through  their 
own  internal  vices  of  composition  ;  here  undeniably  we 
see  a  chasm  traversing  the  Scottish  church  from  the 
very  gates  to  the  centre.  And  unhappily  the  same 
chasm,  which  marks  a  division  of  the  church  internally, 
is  a  link,  connecting  it  externally  with  the  Seceders, 


448 


SECESSION   FROM  THE 


For  how  stands  the  case  ?  Did  the  Scottish  kirk,  at 
the  late  crisis,  divide  broadly  into  two  mutually  ex- 
cluding sections  ?  Was  there  one  of  these  bisections 
tvhich  said  Yes,  whilst  the  other  responded  No  ?  Was 
the  affirmative  and  negative  shared  between  them  as 
between  the  black  chessmen  and  the  white  ?  Not  so  ; 
and  unhappily  not  so.  The  two  extremes  there  were, 
but  these  shaded  off  into  each  other.  Many  were  the 
nuances  ;  multiplied  the  combinations.  Here  stood  a 
section  that  had  voted  for  all  the  changes,  with  two  or 
three  exceptions  ;  there  stood  another  that  went  the 
whole  length  as  to  this  change,  but  no  part  of  the  way 
as  to  that ;  between  these  sections  arose  others  that 
had  voted  arbitrarily,  or  eclectically,  that  is,  by  no  law 
generally  recognized.  And  behind  this  eclectic  school 
were  grouped  others  who  had  voted  for  all  novelties  up 
to  a  certain  day,  but  after  that  had  refused  to  go  fur- 
ther with  a  movement  party  whose  tendencies  they  had 
begun  to  distrust.  In  this  last  case,  therefore,  the  di- 
visional line  fell  upon  no  principle,  but  upon  the  acci- 
dent of  having,  at  that  particular  moment,  first  seen 
grounds  of  conscientious  alarm.  The  principles  upon 
which  men  had  divided  were  various,  and  these  various 
principles  were  variously  combined.  But  on  the  other 
hand,  those  who  have  gone  out  were  the  men  who  ap- 
proved totally,  not  partially  —  unconditionally,  not 
within  limits  —  up  to  the  end,  and  not  to  a  given  day. 
Consequently  those  who  stayed  in  comprehended  all 
the  shades  and  degrees  which  the  men  of  violence  ex- 
cluded. The  Seceders  were  unanimous  to  a  man,  and 
of  necessity  ;  for  he  who  approves  the  last  act,  the 
extreme  act,  which  is  naturally  the  most  violent  act, 


CHUUCH  OF   SCOTLAND.  449 

a  fortiori  approves  all  lesser  acts.  But  the  establish- 
ment, by  parity  of  reason,  retained  upon  its  rolls  all  the 
degrees,  all  the  modifications,  all  who  had  exercised  a 
wise  discretion,  who,  in  so  great  a  cause,  had  thought 
it  a  point  of  religion  to  be  cautious  ;  whose  casuistry 
had  moved  in  the  harness  of  peace,  and  who  had  pre- 
ferred an  interest  of  conscience  to  a  triumph  of  parti- 
sanship. We  honor  them  for  that  policy ;  but  we 
cannot  hide  from  ourselves,  that  the  very  principle 
which  makes  such  a  policy  honorable  at  the  moment, 
makes  it  dangerous  in  reversion.  For  he  who  avows 
that,  upon  public  motives,  he  once  resisted  a  tempta- 
tion to  schism,  makes  known  by  that  avowal  that  he 
still  harbors  in  his  mind  the  germ  of  such  a  temptation  : 
and  to  that  scruple,  which  once  he  resisted,  hereafter 
he  may  see  reason  for  yielding.  The  principles  of 
schism,  which  for  the  moment  were  suppressed,  are 
still  latent  in  the  church.  It  is  urged  that,  in  quest  of 
unity,  many  of  these  men  succeeded  in  resisting  the 
instincts  of  dissension  at  the  moment  of  crisis.  True  : 
but  this  might  be  because  they  presumed  on  winning 
from  their  own  party  equal  concessions  by  means  less 
violent  than  schism ;  or  because  they  attached  less 
weight  to  the  principle  concerned,  than  they  may  see 
cause  for  attaching  upon  future  considerations  ;  or  be- 
cause they  would  not  allow  themselves  to  sanction  the 
cause  of  the  late  Secession,  by  going  out  in  company 
with  men  whose  principles  they  adopted  only  in  part, 
or  whose  manner  of  supporting  those  principles  they 
abhorred.  Universally  it  is  evident,  that  little' stress 
is  to  be  laid  on  a  negative  act;  simply  to  have  declined 
^oing  out  with  the  Seceders  proves  nothing,  for  it  is 
29 


450 


SECESSION   FEOM  THE 


equivocal.  It  is  an  act  which  may  cover  indifferently 
a  marked  hostility  to  the  Secession  party,  or  an  abso- 
lute friendliness,  but  a  friendliness  not  quite  equal  to 
so  extreme  a  test.  And,  again,  this  negative  act  may 
be  equivocal  in  a  different  way ;  the  friendliness  may 
not  only  have  existed,  but  may  have  existed  in  suffi- 
cient strength  for  any  test  whatever ;  not  the  princi- 
ples of  the  Seceders,  but  their  Jacobinical  mode  of 
asserting  them,  may  have  proved  the  true  nerve  of  the 
repulsion  to  many.  What  is  it  that  we  wish  the  Eng- 
lish reader  to  collect  from  these  distinctions  ?  Simply 
that  the  danger  is  not  yet  gone  past.  The  earthquake, 
says  a  great  poet,  when  speaking  of  the  general  ten- 
dency in  all  dangers  to  come  round  by  successive  and 
reiterated  shocks  — 

**  The  earthquake  is  not  satisfied  at  once." 

All  dangers  which  lie  deeply  seated  are  recurrent  dan- 
gers ;  they  intermit,  only  as  the  revolving  lamps  of  a 
light-house  are  periodically  eclipsed.  The  General 
Assembly  of  1843,  when  closing  her  gates  upon  the 
Seceders,  shut  in,  perhaps,  more  of  the  infected  than 
at  the  time  she  succeeded  in  shutting  out.  As  re- 
spected the  opinion  of  the  world  outside,  it  seemed 
advisable  to  shut  out  the  least  number  possible  ;  for 
in  proportion  to  the  number  of  the  Seceders,  was  the 
danger  that  they  should  carry  with  them  an  authentic 
impression  in  their  favor.  On  the  other  hand,  as  re- 
spected a  greater  danger  (the  danger  from  internal 
contagion),  it  seemed  advisable  that  the  church  should 
have  shut  out  (if  she  could)  very  many  of  those  who, 
for  the  present,  adhered  to  her.    The  broader  the  sep- 


CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND. 


451 


aration,  and  the  more  absolute,  between  the  church 
and  the  secession,  so  much  the  less  anxiety  there  would 
have  survived  lest  the  rent  should  spread.  That  the 
anxiety  in  this  respect  is  not  visionary,  the  reader 
may  satisfy  himself  by  looking  over  a  remarkable 
pamphlet,  which  professes  by  its  title  to  separate  the 
wheat  from  the  chaff.  By  the  wheat/'  in  the  view  of 
this  writer,  is  meant  the  aggregate  of  those  who  per- 
severed in  their  recusant  policy  up  to  the  practical 
result  of  secession.  All  who  stopped  short  of  that 
consummation  (on  whatever  plea),  are  the  "  chaff.'' 
The  vmter  is  something  of  an  incendiary,  or  something 
of  a  fanatic  ;  but  he  is  consistent  with  regard  to  his 
own  principles,  and  so  elaborately  careful  in  his  details 
as  to  extort  admiration  of  his  energy  and  of  his  patiencr 
in  research. 

But  the  reason  for  which  we  notice  this  pamphlet, 
is,  with  a  view  to  the  proof  of  that  large  intestine  mis- 
chief which  still  lingers  behind  in  the  vitals  of  the 
Scottish  establishment.  No  proof,  in  a  question  of 
that  nature,  can  be  so  showy  and  osiensive  to  a  stranger 
as  that  which  is  supplied  by  this  vindictive  pamphlet. 
For  every  past  vote  recording  a  scruple,  is  the  pledge 
of  a  scruple  still  existing,  though  for  the  moment  sup- 
pressed. Since  the  secession,  nearly  four  hundred  and 
fifty  new  men  may  have  entered  the  church.  This 
supplementary  body  has  probably  diluted  the  strength 
of  the  revolutionary  principles.  But  they  also  may, 
pel  haps,  have  partaken  to  some  extent  in  the  contagion 
of  these  principles.  True,  there  is  this  guarantee  for 
caution,  on  the  part  of  these  new  men,  that  as  yet 
they  are  pledged  to  nothing;  and  that,  seeing  experi 


452 


SECESSIOiq'   PHOM  THE 


mentally  how  fearfully  many  of  their  older  brethren 
are  now  likely  to  be  fettered  by  the  past,  they  have 
every  possible  motive  for  reserve,  in  committing  them- 
selves, either  by  their  votes  or  by  their  pens.  In  their 
situation,  there  is  a  special  inducement  to  prudence, 
because  there  is  a  prospect,  that  for  them  prudence  is 
in  time  to  be  effectual.  But  for  many  of  the  older 
men,  prudence  comes  too  late.  They  are  already  fet- 
tered. And  what  we  are  now  pointing  out  to  the  at- 
tention of  our  readers,  is,  that  by  the  past,  by  the 
absolute  votes  of  the  past,  too  sorrowfully  it  is  made 
evident,  that  the  Scottish  church  is  deeply  tainted  with 
the  principles  of  the  Secession.  These  germs  of  evil 
and  of  revolution,  speaking  of  them  in  a  personal  sense, 
cannot  be  purged  off  entirely  until  one  generation 
shall  have  passed  away.  But  speaking  of  them  as 
'principles  capable  of  vegetation,  these  germs  may  or 
may  not  expand  into  whole  forests  of  evil,  according 
to  the  accidents  of  coming  events,  whether  fitted  to 
tranquillize  our  billowy  aspects  of  society;  or,  on  the 
other  hand,  largely  to  fertilize  the  many  occasions  of 
agitation,  which  political  fermentations  are  too  sure  to 
throw  off.  Let  this  chance  turn'  out  as  it  may,  we 
repeat  for  the  information  of  Southerns  —  that  the 
church,  by  shutting  off  the  persons  of  particular  agi- 
tators, has  not  shut  off  the  principles  of  agitation  ; 
and  that  the  cordon  sanitaire,  supposing  the  sponta- 
neous exile  of  the  Non-intrusionists  to  be  regarded  in 
that  light,  was  not  drawn  about  the  church  until  the 
disease  had  spread  widely  loithin  the  lines. 

Past  votes  may  not  absolutely  pledge  a  man  to  a 
future  course  of  action  :  warned  in  time,  such  a  man 


CHUKCH  OF  SCOTLAND. 


453 


may  stand  neutral  in  practice  ;  but  thus  far  they  poison 
the  fountains  of  wholesome  unanimity  —  that,  if  a  man 
can  evade  the  necessity  of  squaring  particular  actions  to 
his  past  opinions,  at  least  he  must  find  himself  tempted 
to  square  his  opinions  themselves,  or  his  counsels,  to 
such  past  opinions  as  he  may  too  notoriously  have 
placed  on  record  by  his  votes. 

-  But,  if  such  are  the  continual  dangers  from  reac- 
tions in  the  establishment,  so  long  as  men  survive  in 
that  establishment  who  feel  upbraided  by  past  votes, 
and  so  long  as  enemies  survive  who  will  not  sufier 
these  upbraidings  to  slumber — dangers  which  much 
mutual  forbearance  and  charity  can  alone  disarm  ;  on 
the  other  hand,  how  much  profounder  is  the  inconsist- 
ency to  whicii  the  Free  Church  is  doomed  !  They 
have  rent  the  unity  of  that  church,  to  which  they  had 
pledged  their  faith  —  but  on  what  plea  ?  On  the  plea 
that  in  cases  purely  spiritual,  they  could  not  in  con- 
science submit  to  the  award  of  the  secular  magistrate. 
Yet  how  merely  impracticable  is  this  principle,  as  an 
abiding  principle  of  action  !  Churches,  that  is,  the 
charge  of  particular  congregations,  will  be  with  thein 
(as  with  other  religious  communities)  the  means  of 
livelihood.  Grounds  innumerable  will  arise  for  exclud- 
ing or  attempting  to  exclude,  each  other  from  these 
official  stations.  No  possible  form  regulating  the 
business  of  ordination,  or  of  induction,  can  anticipate 
♦.he  infinite  objections  which  may  arise.  But  no  man 
interested  in  such  a  case  will  submit  to  a  judge  ap- 
pointed by  insufficient  authority.  Daily  bread  for  his 
family  is  what  few  men  will  resign  without  a  struggle, 
^nd  that  struggle  will  of  necessity  come  for  final  ad- 


454 


SECESSION   FROM  THE 


iudication  to  the  law  courts  of  the  land,  whose  inter- 
ference in  any  question  affecting  a  spiritual  interest, 
the  Free  Church  has  for  ever  pledged  herself  to  refuse. 
But  in  the  case  supposed,  she  will  not  have  the  power 
to  refuse  it.  She  will  be  cited  before  the  tribunals, 
and  can  elude  that  citation  in  no  way  but  by  surren- 
dering the  point  in  litigation  ;  and  if  she  should  adopt 
the  notion,  that  it  is  better  for  her  to  do  that,  than  to 
acknowledge  a  sufficient  authority  in  the  court  by 
pleading  at  its  bar,  upon  this  principle  once  made  pub- 
lic, she  will  soon  be  stripped  of  everything,  and  will 
cease  to  be  a  church  at  all.  She  cannot  continue  to  be 
a  depository  of  any  faith,  or  a  champion -of  any  doctrines, 
if  she  lose  the  means  of  defending  her  own  incorpora- 
tions. But  how  can  she  maintain  the  defenders  of  her 
rights,  or  the  dispensers  of  her  truths,  if  she  refuses, 
upon  immutable  principle,  to  call  in  the  aid  of  the 
magistrate  on  behalf  of  rights,  which,  under  any  as- 
pect, regard  spiritual  relations  ?  Attempting  to  main- 
tain these  rights  by  private  arbitration  within  a  forum 
of  her  own,  she  will  soon  find  such  arbitration  not 
binding  at  all  upon  the  party  who  conceives  himself 
aggrieved.  The  issue  will  be  as  in  Mr.  O'Connell's 
courts,  where  the  parties  played  at  going  to  law ;  from 
the  moment  when  they  ceased  to  play,  and  no  longer 
''made  believe"  to  be  disputing,  the  award  of  the 
judge  became  as  entire  a  mockery,  as  any  stage  mimicry 
of  such  a  transaction. 

This  should  be  the  natural  catastrophe  of  the  case ; 
and  the  probable  evasion  of  that  destructive  consum- 
mation, to  which  she  is  carried  by  her  principles,  will 
be  —  that  as  soon  as  her  feelings  of  rancor  shall  have 


CHURCH  OF  SCOTLAND. 


455 


cooled  down,  these  principles  will  silently  drop  out  of 
use  ;  and  the  very  reason  will  be  suffered  to  perish  for 
which  she  ever  became  a  dissenting  body.  With  this, 
however,  we,  that  stand  outside,  are  noways  concerned. 
But  an  evil,  in  which  we  are  concerned,  is  the  head- 
long tendency  of  the  Free  Church,  and  of  all  churches, 
adulterating  with  her  principle,  to  an  issue  not  merely 
dangerous  in  a  political  sense,  but  ruinous  in  an  anti- 
social sense.  The  artifice  of  the  Free  Church  lies  in 
pleading  a  spiritual  relation  of  any  case  whatever, 
whether  of  doing  or  suffering,  whether  positive  or  nega- 
tive, as  a  reason  for  taking  -it  out  of  all  civil  control. 
Now  we  may  illustrate  the  peril  of  this  artifice,  by  a 
reality  at  this  time  impending  over  society  in  Ireland* 
Dr.  Higgins,  titular  bishop  of  Ardagh,  has  undertaken 
upon  this  very  plea  of  a  spiritual  power  not  amenable  to 
civil  control,  a  sort  of  warfare  with  government,  upon 
the  question  of  their  power  to  suspend  or  defeat  the 
O'Connell  agitation.  For,  says  he,  if  government 
should  succeed  in  thus  intercepting  the  direct  power 
of  haranguing  mobs  in  open  assemblies,  then  will  I 
harangue  them,  and  cause  them  to  be  harangued,  in 
the  same  spirit,  upon  the  same  topics,  from  the  altar  or 
the  pulpit.  An  immediate  extension  of  this  principle 
would  be  —  that  every  disaffected  clergyman  in  the 
three  kingdoms,  would  lecture  his  congregation  upon 
the  duty  of  paying  no  taxes.  This  he  would  denomi- 
note  passive  resistance;  and  resistance  to  bad  govern- 
ment would  become,  in  his  language,  the  most  sacred 
of  duties.  In  any  argument  with  such  a  man,  he 
would  be  found  immediately  falling  back  upon  the 
principle  of  the  Free  Church ;  he  would  insist  upon  it 


456 


SECESSION   mOM  THE 


as  a  spiritual  right,  as  a  case  entirely  between  liis  con- 
science and  God,  whether  he  should  press  to  an  ex- 
tremity any  and  every  doctrine,  though  tending  to  the 
instant  disorganization  of  society.  To  lecture  against 
war,  and  against  taxes  as  directly  supporting  war, 
would  wear  a  most  colorable  air  of  truth  amongst  all 
weak-minded  persons.  And  these  would  soon  appear 
to  have  been  but  the  first  elements  of  confusion  under 
the  improved  views  of  spiritual  rights.  The  doctrines 
of  the  Levellers  in  Cromwell's  time,  of  the  Anabaptists 
in  Luther's  time^  would  exalt  themselves  upon  the 
ruins  of  society,  if  governments  were  weak  enough  to 
recognize  these  spiritual  claims  in  the  feeblest  of  their 
initial  advances.  If  it  were  possible  to  suppose  such 
chimeras  prevailing,  the  natural  redress  would  soon  be 
seen  to  lie  through  secret  tribunals,  like  those  of  the 
dreadful  Fehmgericht  in  the  middle  ages.  It  would 
be  absurd,  however,  seriously  to  pursue  these  anti- 
social chimeras  through  their  consequences.  Stern 
remedies  would  summarily  crush  so  monstrous  an  evil. 
Our  purpose  is  answered,  when  the  necessity  of  such 
insupportable  consequences  is  shown  to  link  itself  with 
that  distinction  upon  which  the  Free  Church  has  laid 
the  foundations  of  its  own  establishment.  Once  for 
all,  there  is  no  act  or  function  belonging  to  an  officer 
of  a  church  which  is  not  spiritual  by  one  of  its  two 
Janus  faces.  And  every  examination  of  the  case  con- 
vinces us  more  and  more  that  the.Seceders  took  up 
the  old  papal  distinction,  as  to  acts  spiritual  or  not 
spiritual,  not  under  any  delusion  less  or  more,  but 
under  a  simple  necessity  of  finding  some  evasion  or 
other  which  should  meet  and  embody  the  whole  rancor 
9f  the  moment. 


CHURCH   OF  SCOTLAND. 


457 


But  beyond  any  otlier  evil  consequence  prepared  by 
the  Free  Church,  is  the  appalling  spirit  of  Jacobinism 
which  accompanies  their  whole  conduct,  and  which 
latterly  has  avowed  itself  in  their  words.  The  case 
began  Jacobinically,  for  it  began  in  attacks  upon  the 
rights  of  property.  But  since  the  defeat  of  this  faction 
by  the  law  courts,  language  seems  to  fail  them,  for  the 
expression  of  their  hatred  and  affected  scorn  towards 
the  leading  nobility  of  Scotland.  Yet  why  ?  The 
case  lies  in  the  narrowest  compass.  The  Duke  of 
Sutherland,  and  other  great  landholders,  had  refused 
sites  for  their  new  churches.  Upon  this  occurred  a 
strong  fact,  and  strong  in  both  directions ;  first,  for  the 
Seceders ;  secondly,  upon  better  information  against 
them.  The  Record  newspaper,  a  religious  journal, 
ably  and  conscientiously  conducted,  took  part  with  the 
Secession,  and  very  energetically ;  for  they  denounced 
the  noble  duke's  refusal  of  land  as  an  act  of  "  persecu- 
tion ;  "  and  upon  this  principle  —  that,  in  a  county 
where  his  grace  was  pretty  nearly  the  sole  landed  pro- 
prietor, to  refuse  land  (assuming  that  a  fair  price  had 
been  tendered  for  it)  was  in  effect  to  show  such  intoler- 
ance as  might  easily  tend  to  the  suppression  of  truth. 
Intolerance,  however,  is  not  persecution ;  and,  if  it 
were,  the  casuistry  of  the  question  is  open  still  to  much 
discussion.  But  this  is  not  necessary  ;  for  the  ground 
is  altogether  shifted  when  the  duke's  reason  for  refus- 
ing the  land  comes  to  be  stated ;  he  had  refused  it,  not 
unconditionally,  not  in  the  spirit  of  non-intrusion  courts, 
"  without  reason  shown,' ^  but  on  this  unanswerable 
argument  —  that  the  whole  efforts  of  the  new  church 
were  pointed  (and  professedly  pointed)  to  the  one 


458 


SECESSIOIV  FEOM  THE 


object  of  destroying  the  establishment,  and  sweeping 
it  from  the  land."  Could  any  guardian  of  public  in- 
terests, under  so  wicked  a  threat,  hesitate  as  to  the  line 
of  his  duty  ?  By  granting  the  land  to  parties  uttering 
such  menaces,  the  Duke  of  Sutherland  would  have 
made  himself  an  accomplice  in  the  unchristian  con- 
spiracy. Meantime,  next  after  this  fact,  it  is  the 
strongest  defence  which  we  can  offer  for  the  duke  — 
that  in  a  day  or  two  after  this  charge  of  "  persecution," 
the  Record  was  forced  to  attack  the  Seceders  in  terms 
which  indirectly  defended  the  duke.  And  this,  not  in 
any  spirit  of  levity,  but  under  mere  conscientious  con- 
straint. For  no  journal  has  entered  so  powerfully  or 
so  eloquently  into  the  defence  of  the  general  principle 
involved  in  the  Secession  (although  questioning  its 
expediency),  as  this  particular  Recoi^d,  Consequently, 
any  word  of  condemnation  from  so  earnest  a  friend, 
comes  against  the  Seceders  with  triple  emphasis.  And 
this  is  shown  in  the  tone  of  the  expostulations  ad- 
dressed to  the  Record  by  some  of  the  Secession  leaders. 
It  spares  us,  indeed,  all  necessity  of  quoting  the  vile 
language  uttered  by  members  of  the  Free  Church  As- 
sembly, if  we  say,  that  the  neutral  witnesses  of  such 
unchristian  outrages  have  murmured,  remonstrated, 
protested  in  every  direction  ;  and  that  'Dr.  Macfarlane, 
who  has  since  corresponded  with  the  Duke  of  Suther- 
land upon  the  whole  case  — viz.,  upon  the  petition  for 
land,  as  affected  by  the  shocking  menaces  of  the  Sece- 
ders —  has,  in  no  other  way,  been  able  to  evade  the 
double  mischief  of  undertaking  a  defence  for  the  inde- 
fensible, and  at  the  same  time  of  losing  the  land  irre- 
trievably, than  by  affecting  an  unconsciousness  of  Ian- 


CHUECH   OF  SCOTLAND. 


459 


guage  used  by  his  party  little  suited  to  his  own  sacred 
calling,  or  to  the  noble  simplicities  of  Christianity. 
Certainly  it  is  unhappy  for  the  Seceders,  that  the  only 
disavowal  of  the  most  fiendish  sentiments  heard  in  our 
days,  has  come  from  an  individual  not  authorized  or  at 
all  commissioned  by  his  party  —  from  an  individual 
not  showing  any  readiness  to  face  the  whole  charges, 
disingenuously  dissembling  the  worst  of  them,  and 
finally  offering  his  very  feeble  disclaimer,  which  equivo- 
cates between  a  denial  and  a  palliation — not  until 
after  he  found  himself  in  the  position  of  a  petitioner 
for  favors. 

Specifically  the  great  evil  of  our  days,  is  the  abiding 
temptation,  in  every  direction,  to  popular  discontent, 
to  agitation,  and  to  systematic  sedition.  Now,  we  say 
it  with  sorrow,  that  from  no  other  incendiaries  have 
we  heard  sentiments  so  wild,  fierce,  or  maliciously 
democratic,  as  from  the  leaders  of  the  Secession.  It 
was  the  Eeform  Bill  of  1832,  and  the  accompanying 
agitation,  which  first  suggested  the  veto  agitation  of 
1834,  and  prescribed  its  tone.  From  all  classes  of  our 
population  in  turn,  there  have  come  forward  individ- 
uals to  disgrace  themselves  by  volunteering  their  aid 
to  the  chief  conspirators  of  the  age.  We  have  earls, 
we  have  marquesses,  coming  forward  as  Corn-League 
agents  ;  we  have  magistrates  by  scores  angling  for 
popularity  as  Repealers.  But  these  have  been  pri- 
vate parties,  insulated,  disconnected,  disowned.  When 
we  hear  of  Christianity  prostituted  to  the  service  of 
Jacobinism  —  of  divinity  becoming  the  handmaid 
to  insurrection  —  and  of  clergymen  in  masses  offering 
themselves  as  promoters  of  anarchy,  we  go  back  in 


IGO 


SECESSION   FKOM  THE 


thought  to  that  ominous  organization  of  irreligion, 
which  gave  its  most  fearful  aspects  to  the  French 
Revolution. 

Other  evils  are  in  the  rear  as  likely  to  arise  out  of 
the  funds  provided  for  the  new  Seceders,  were  the  dis- 
tribution of  those  funds  confessedly  unobjectionable, 
but  more  immediately  under  the  present  murmurs 
'against  that  distribution.  There  are  two  funds  :  one 
subscribed  expressly  for  the  building  of  churches,  the 
other  limited  to  the  "  sustentation  "  of  incumbents. 
And  the  complaint  is  —  that  this  latter  fund  has  been 
invaded  for  purposes  connected  with  the  first.  The 
reader  can  easily  see  the  motive  to  this  injustice :  it  is 
a  motive  of  ambition.  Far  more  display  of  power  is 
made  by  the  annunciation  to  the  world  of  six  hundred 
churches  built,  than  of  any  difference  this  v^ay  or  that 
in  the  comfort  and  decorous  condition  of  the  clergy. 
This  last  is  a  domestic  feature  of  the  case,  not  fitted  for 
public  efiect.  But  the  number  of  the  churches  will 
resound  through  Europe.  Meantime,  at  present,  the 
allowance  to  the  great  body  of  Seceding  clergy  aver- 
ages but  £80  a-year ;  and  the  allegation  is  —  that,  but 
for  the  improper  interference  with  the  fund  on  the 
motive  stated,  it  would  have  averaged  £150  a-year. 
If  anywhere  a  town  parish  has  raised  a  much  larger 
provision  for  its  pastor,  even  that  has  now  become  a 
part  of  the  general  grievance.  For  it  is  said  that  all 
such  special  contributions  ought  to  have  been  thrown 
into  one  general  fund  —  liable  to  one  general  principle 
of  distribution.  Yet  again,  will  even  this  fund,  par- 
tially as  it  seems  to  have  been  divided,  continue  to  be 
available  ?    Much  of  it  lies  in  annual  subscriptions 


CHURCH   OF  SCOTLAND. 


461 


now,  in  the  next  generation  of  subscribers,  a  son  will 
possibly  not  adopt  the  views  of  his  father  ;  but  assur- 
edly he  will  not  adopt  his  father's  zeal.  Here,  how- 
ever (though  this  is  not  probable),  there  may  arise 
some  compensatory  cases  of  subscribers  altogether  new. 
But  another  question  is  pressing  for  decision,  which 
menaces  a  frightful  shock  to  the  schismatical  church  : 
female  agency  has  been  hitherto  all  potent  in  promot- 
ing the  subscriptions ;  and  a  demand  has  been  made 
in  consequence  —  that  women  shall  be  allowed  to  vote 
in  the  church  courts.  Grant  this  demand — for  it 
cannot  be  evaded,  and  what  becomes  of  the  model 
for  church  government  as  handed  down  from  John 
Knox  and  Calvin  ?  Refuse  it,  and  what  becomes  of 
the  future  subscriptions  ? 

But  these  are  evils,  it  may  be  said,  only  for  the 
Seceders.  Not  so :  we  are  all  interested  in  the  re- 
spectability of  the  national  teachers,  whatever  be  their 
denomination  :  we  are  all  interested  in  the  mainten- 
ance of  a  high  standard  for  theological  education. 
These  objects  are  likely  to  suffer  at  any  rate.  But  it 
is  even  a  worse  result  which  we  may  count  on  from 
the  changes,  than  a  practical  approximation  is  thus 
already  made  to  what  is  technically  known  as  Volun- 
\aryism. 

The  "United  Succession,''  that  is  the  old  collective 
body  of  Scottish  Dissenters,  who,  having  no  regular 
provision,  are  carried  into  this  voluntary  system, 
already  exult  that  this  consummation  of  the  case  can- 
not be  far  off.  Indeed,  so  far  as  the  Seceders  are 
dependent  upon  animal  subscriptions,  and  coupling 
that  relation  to  the  public  with  the  great  dof^trine  of 


462 


SECESSION  EEOM  THE 


these  Seceders,  that  congregations  are  universally  to 
appoint  their  own  pastors,  we  do  not  see  how  such  an 
issue  is  open  to  evasion.  The  leaders  of  the  new 
Secession  all  protest  against  Voluntaryism :  but  to 
that  complexion  of  things  they  travel  rapidly  by  the 
mere  mechanic  action  of  their  dependent  (or  semi- 
dependent)  situation,  combined  with  one  of  their  two 
characteristic  principles. 

The  same  United  Secession  journal  openly  antici- 
pates another  and  more  diffusive  result  from  this  great 
movement  —  viz.,  the  general  disruption  of  church 
establishments.  We  trust  that  this  anticipation  will 
be  signally  defeated.  And  yet  there  is  one  view  of 
the  case  which  saddens  us  when  we  turn  our  eyes  in 
that  direction.  Among  the  reasonings  and  expostula- 
tions of  the  Schismatic  church,  one  that  struck  us  as 
the  most  eminently  hypocritical,  and  ludicrously  so, 
was  this  :  "You  ought,"  said  they,  when  addressing 
the  government,  and  exposing  the  error  of  the  law 
proceedings,  "  to  have  stripped  us  of  the  temporalities 
arising  from  the  church,  stipend,  glebe,  parsonage, 
but  not  of  the  spiritual  functions.  We  had  no  right  to 
the  emoluments  of  our  stations,  when  the  law  courts 
had  decided  against  us,  but  we  had  sl  right  to  the 
laborious  duties  of  the  stations."  No  gravity  could 
refuse  to  smile  at  this  complaint  —  verbally  so  much 
in  the  spirit  of  primitive  Christianity,  yet  in  its  ten- 
dency so  insidious.  For  could  it  be  possible  that  a 
competitor  introduced  by  the  law,  and  leaving  the 
duties  of  the  pastoral  office  to  the  old  incumbent,  but 
pocketing  the  salary,  should  not  be  hooted  on  the 
public  roads  by  many  who  might  otherwise  have  taken 


CHUECH   OF  SCOTLAND. 


463 


no  part  in  the  feud?  This  specious  claim  was  a  sure 
and  brief  way  to  secure  the  hatefulness  of  their  suc- 
cessors. Now  we  cannot  conceal  from  ourselves  that 
something  like  this  invidious  condition  of  things  might 
be  realized  under  two  further  revolutions.  We  have 
said,  that  a  second  schism  in  the  Scottish  church  is  not 
impossible.  It  is  also  but  too  possible  that  Puseyism 
may  yet  rend  the  English  establishment,  by  a  similar 
convulsion.  But  in  such  contingencies,  we  should  see 
a  very  large  proportion  of  the  spiritual  teachers  in 
both  nations  actually  parading  to  the  public  eye,  and 
rehearsing  something  very  like  the  treacherous  pro- 
posal of  the  late  Seceders  —  viz.,  the  spectacle  of  one 
party  performing  much  of  the  difficult  duties,  and 
another  party  enjoying  the  main  emoluments.  This 
would  be  a  most  unfair  mode  of  recommending  Vol- 
untaryism. Falling  in  with  the  infirmities  of  many  in 
these  days,  such  a  spectacle  would  give  probably  a 
a  fatal  bias  to  that  system  in  our  popular  and  Parlia- 
mentary counsels.  This  would  move  the  sorrow  of 
the  Seceders  themselves  :  for  they  have  protested 
against  the  theory  of  all  Voluntaries  with  a  vehemence 
which  that  party  even  complain  of  as  excessive.  Their 
leaders  have  many  times  avowed,  that  any  system 
\vhich  should  leave  to  men  in  general  the  estimate  of 
their  own  religious  wants  as  a  pecuniary  interest, 
would  be  fatal  to  the  Christian  tone  of  our  national 
morals.  Checked  and  overawed  by  the  example  of  an 
establishment,  the  Voluntaries  themselves  are  far  more 
fervent  in  their  Christian  exertions  than  they  could  be 
when  liberated  from  that  contrast.  The  religious  spirit 
of  both  England  and  Scotland  under  such  a  change 


464  SECESSION  PROM  THE  CHUUCH  OF  SCOTLAND. 

would  droop  for  generations.  And  in  that  one  evil, 
let  US  hope,  the  remotest  and  least  probable  of  the 
many  evils  threatened  by  the  late  schism,  these  nations 
would  have  reason  by  comparison  almost  to  forget 
the  rest. 


THE  PAGAN  OEACLES. 


It  is  remarkable  — and,  without  a  previous  explar 
nation,  it  might  seem  paradoxical  to  say  it  —  that 
oftentimes  under  a  continual  accession  of  light  im- 
portant subjects  grow  more  and  more  enigmatical. 
In  times  when  nothing  was  explained,  the  student, 
torpid  as  his  teacher,  saw  nothing  which  called  for 
explanation  —  all  appeared  one  monotonous  blank. 
But  no  sooner  had  an  early  twilight  begun  to  solicit 
the  creative  faculties  of  the  eye,  than  many  dusky 
objects,  with  outlines  imperfectly  defined,  began  to 
converge  the  eye,  and  to  strengthen  the  nascent 
interest  of  the  spectator.  It  is  true  that  light,  in  its 
final  plenitude,  is  calculated  to  disperse  all  dark- 
ness. But  this  effect  belongs  to  its  consummation. 
In  its  earlier  and  struggling  states,  light  does  but 
reveal  darkness.  It  makes  the  darkness  palpable 
and  visible.^' Of  which  we  may  see  a  sensible 
illustration  in  a  gloomy  glass-house,  where  the  sullen 
lustre  from  the  furnace  does  but  mass  and  accumu- 
late the  thick  darkness  in  the  rear  upon  which  the 
moving  figures  are  relieved.  Or  we  may  see  au 
intellectual  illustration  in  the  mind  of  the  savage,  on 
whose  blank  surface  there  exists  no  doubt  or  per 
olexity  at  all,  none  of  the  pains  connected  with 
30 


466 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


ignorance  ;  he  is  conscious  of  no  darkness,  simply 
because  for  Mm  there  exists  no  visual  ray  of  specu- 
lation—  no  vestige  of  prelusive  light. 

Similar,  and  continually  more  similar,  has  been  the 
condition  of  ancient  history.  Once  yielding  a  mere 
barren  crop  of  facts  and  dates,  slowly  it  has  been 
kindling  of  late  years  into  life  and  deep  interest 
under  superior  treatment.  And  hitherto,  as  the  light 
has  advanced,  pari  passu  have  the  masses  of  dark- 
ness strengthened.  Every  question  solved  has  been 
the  parent  of  three  new  questions  unmasked.  And 
the  power  of  breathing  life  into  dry  bones  has  but 
seemed  to  multiply  the  skeletons  and  lifeless  re- 
mains ;  for  the  very  natural  reason  —  that  these  dry 
bones  formerly  (whilst  viewed  as  incapable  of  revivi- 
fication) had  seemed  less  numerous,  because  every- 
where confounded  to  the  eye  with  stocks  and  stones, 
so  long  as  there  was  no  motive  of  hope  for  marking 
the  distinction  between  them. 

Amongst  all  the  illustrations  which  might  illum- 
inate this  truth,  none  is  so  instructive  as  the  large 
question  of  Pagan  Oracles.  Every  part,  indeed,  of 
the  Pagan  religion,  the  course,  geographically  or 
ethnographically,  of  its  traditions,  the  vast  labyrinth 
of  its  mythology,  the  deductions  of  its  contradictory 
genealogies,  the  disputed  meaning  of  its  many  se- 
cret mysteries [relejaL  —  symbolic  rites  or  initia- 
tions] ,  all  these  have  been  submitted  of  late  years 
to  the  scrutiny  of  glasses  more  powerful,  applied 
under  more  combined  arrangements,  and  directed 
according  to  new  principles  more  comprehensively 
framed.  AVe  cannot  in  sincerity  affirm  —  always 
with  immediate  advantage.    But  even  where  the 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


i67 


individual  effort  may  have  been  a  failure  as  regarded 
the  immediate  object,  rarely,  indeed,  it  has  happened 
but  that  much  indirect  illumination  has  resulted  — 
which,  afterwards  entering  into  combination  with 
other  scattered  currents  of  light,  has  issued  in  dis- 
coveries of  value  ;  although,  perhaps,  any  one  con- 
tribution, taken  separately,  had  been,  and  would 
have  remained,  inoperative.  Much  has  been  accom- 
plished, chiefly  of  late  years  ;  and,  confining  our 
view  to  ancient  history,  almost  exclusively  amongst 
the  Germans  —  by  the  Savignys,  the  Niebuhrs,  the 
Otfried  Muellers.  And,  if  that  much  has  left  still 
more  to  do,  it  has  also  brought  the  means  of  working 
upon  a  scale  of  far  accelerated  speed. 

The  books  now  existing  upon  the  ancient  oracles, 
above  all,  upon  the  Greek  oracles,  amount  to  a  small 
library.  The  facts  have  been  collected  from  all 
quarters,  —  examined,  sifted,  winnowed.  Theories 
have  been  raised  upon  these  facts  under  every  angle 
of  aspect ;  and  yet,  after  all,  we  profess  ourselves  to 
be  dissatisfied.  Amongst  much  that  is  sagacious,  we 
feel  and  we  resent  with  disgust  a  taint  of  falsehood 
diffused  over  these  recent  speculations  from  vulgar 
and  even  counterfeit  incredulity ;  the  one  gross  vice 
of  German  philosophy,  not  less  determinate  or  less 
misleading  than  that  vice  which,  heretofore,  through 
many  centuries,  had  impoverished  this  subject,  and 
had  stopped  its  discussion  under  the  anile  super- 
stition of  the  ecclesiastical  fathers. 

These  fathers,  both  Greek  and  Latin,  had  the  ill 
fortune  to  be  extravagantly  esteemed  by  the  church 
of  Rome  ;  whence,  under  a  natural  reaction,  they 
were  systematically  depreciated  by  the  great  loaders 


468 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


of  the  Protestant  Reformation.  And  yet  hardly  in  a 
corresponding  degree.  For  there  was,  after  all,  even 
among  the  reformers,  a  deep-seated  prejudice  in  be- 
half of  all  that  was  primitive  in  Christianity; 
under  which  term,  by  some  confusion  of  ideas,  the 
fathers  often  benefited.  Primitive  Christianity  was 
reasonably  venerated  ;  and,  on  this  argument,  that, 
for  the  first  three  centuries,  it  was  necessarily  more 
sincere.  We  do  not  think  so  much  of  that  sincerity 
which  affronted  the  fear  of  persecution  ;  because, 
after  all,  the  searching  persecutions  were  rare  and 
intermitting,  and  not,  perhaps,  in  any  case,  so  fiery 
as  they  have  been  represented.  We  think  more  of 
that  gentle  but  insidious  persecution  which  lay  in 
the  solicitations  of  besieging  friends,  and  more  still 
of  the  continual  temptations  which  haunted  the  ir- 
resolute Christian  in  the  fascinations  of  the  public 
amusements.  The  theatre,  the  circus,  and,  far  beyond 
both,  the  cruel  amphitheatre,  constituted,  for  the 
ancient  world,  a  passionate  enjoyment,  that  by  many 
authors,  and  especially  through  one  period  of  time, 
is  described  as  going  to  the  verge  of  frenzy.  And 
we,  in  modern  times,  are  far  too  little  aware  in  what 
degree  these  great  carnivals,  together  with  another 
attraction  of  great  cities,  the  pomps  and  festivals  of 
the  Pagan  worship,  broke  the  monotony  of  domestic 
life,  which,  for  the  old  world,  was  even  more  oppress- 
ive  than  it  is  for  us.  In  all  principal  cities,  so  as  to 
be  within  the  reach  of  almost  all  provincial  inhab- 
itants, there  was  a  hippodrome,  often  uniting  the 
functions  of  the  circus  and  the  amphitheatre  ;  and 
there  was  a  theatre.  From  all  such  pleasures  the 
Christian  was  sternly  excluded  by  his  very  pro- 


THE  PA5AN  ORACLES. 


469 


fession  of  faith.  From  the  festivals  of  the  Pagan 
religion  his  exclusion  was  even  more  absolute  ; 
against  them  he  was  a  sworn  militant  protester  from 
the  hour  of  his  baptism.  And  when  these  modes 
of  pleasurable  relaxation  had  been  subtracted  from 
ancient  life,  what  could  remain  ?  Even  less,  per- 
haps, than  most  readers  have  been  led  to  consider. 
For  the  ancients  had  no  such  power  of  extensive 
locomotion,  of  refreshment  for  their  wearied  minds, 
by  travelling  and  change  of  scene,  as  we  children  of 
modern  civilization  possess.  No  ships  had  then  been 
fitted  up  for  passengers,  nor  public  carriages  estab- 
lished, nor  roads  opened  extensively,  nor  hotels  so 
much  as  imagined  hypothetically  ;  because  the  rela- 
tion of  or  the  obligation  to  reciprocal  hospi- 
tality, and  latterly  the  Roman  relation  of  patron  and 
client,  had  stifled  the  first  motions  of  enterprise  of 
the  ancients  ;  in  fact,  no  man  travelled  but  the 
soldier,  and  the  man  of  political  authority.  Con- 
sequently, in  sacrificing  public  amusements,  the 
Christians  sacrificed  all  pleasure  whatsoever  that  was 
not  rigorously  domestic  ;  whilst  in  facing  the  contin- 
gencies of  persecutions  that  might  arise  under  the 
rapid  succession  of  changing  emperors,  they  faced  a 
perpetual  anxiety  more  trying  to  the  fortitude  than 
any  fixed  and  measurable  evil.  Here,  certainly,  we 
have  a  guarantee  for  the  deep  faithfulness  of  early 
Christians,  such  as  never  can  exist  for  more  mixed 
bodies  of  professors,  subject  to  no  searching  trials. 

Better  the  primitive  Christians  were  (by  no  means 
individually  better,  but  better  on  the  total  body), 
fct  they  were  not  in  any  intellectual  sense  wiser. 
Unquestionably  the  elder  Christians  participated  iu 


470 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


the  local  follies,  prejudices,  superstitions,  cif  their 
several  provinces  and  cities,  except  "where  any  of 
these  happened  to  be  too  conspicuously  at  war  with 
the  spirit  of  love  or  the  spirit  of  purity  which  ex- 
haled  at  every  point  from  the  Christian  faith  ;  and, 
in  all  intellectual  features,  as  were  the  Christians 
generally,  such  were  the  fathers.  Amongst  the 
Greek  fathers,  one  might  be  unusually  learned,  as 
Clement  of  Alexandria  ;  and  another  might  be  re- 
puted unusually  eloquent,  as  Gregory  Nazianzen,  or 
Basil.  Amongst  the  Latin  fathers,  one  might  be  a 
man  of  admirable  genius,  as  far  beyond  the  poor, 
vaunted  Rousseau  in  the  impassioned  grandeur  of 
his  thoughts,  as  he  was  in  truth  and  purity  of  heart ; 
we  speak  of  St.  Augustine  (usually  called  St.  Aus- 
tin), and  many  might  be  distinguished  by  various 
literary  merits.  But  could  these  advantages  antici- 
pate a  higher  civilization  ?  Most  unquestionably 
some  of  the  fathers  were  the  elite  of  their  own  age, 
but  not  in  advance  of  their  age.  They,  like  all  their 
contemporaries,  were  besieged  by  errors,  ancient, 
inveterate,  traditional ;  and  accidentally,  from  one 
cause  special  to  themselves,  they  were  not  merely 
liable  to  error,  but  usually  prone  to  error.  This 
cause  lay  in  the  polemic  form  which  so  often  they 
found  a  necessity,  or  a  convenience,  or  a  temptation 
for  assuming,  as  teachers  or  defenders  of  the  truth. 

He  who  reveals  a  body  of  awful  truth  to  a  candid 
and  willing  auditory  is  content  with  the  grand  sim- 
l)licities  of  truth  in  the  quality  of  his  proofs.  And 
truth,  where  it  happens  to  be  of  a  high  order,  is  gen- 
i^rally  its  own  witness  to  all  who  approach  it  in  the 
spirit  of  childlike  docility.    But  far  different  is  the 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


471 


position  of  that  teacher  who  addresses  an  audience 
composed  in  various  proportions  of  sceptical  inquir- 
ers, obstinate  opponents,  and  malignant  scoffers. 
Less  than  an  apostle  is  unequal  to  the  suppression 
of  all  human  reactions  incident  to  wounded  sensibili- 
ties. Scorn  is  too  naturally  met  by  retorted  scorn  : 
malignity  in  the  Pagan,  which  characterized  all  the 
known  cases  of  signal  opposition  to  Christianity, 
could  not  but  hurry  many  good  men  into  a  vindic- 
tive pursuit  of  victory.  Generally,  where  truth  is 
communicated  polemically  (this  is,  not  as  it  exists  in 
its  own  inner  simplicity,  but  as  it  exists  in  external 
relation  to  error),  the  temptation  is  excessive  to  use 
those  arguments  which  will  tell  at  the  moment  upon 
the  crowd  of  bystanders,  by  preference  to  those 
vvhich  will  approve  themselves  ultimately  to  enlight- 
ened disciples.  Hence  it  is,  that,  like  the  profes- 
sional rhetoricians  of  Athens,  not  seldom  the  Chris- 
tian fathers,  when  urgently  pressed  by  an  antagonist 
equally  mendacious  and  ignorant,  could  not  resist 
the  human  instinct  for  employing  arguments  such  as 
would  baffle  and  confound  the  unprincipled  oppo- 
nent, rather  than  such  as  would  satisfy  the  mature 
Christian.  If  a  man  denied  himself  all  specious  ar- 
guments, and  all  artifices  of  dialectic  subtlety,  he 
must  renounce  the  hopes  of  present  triumph;  for 
the  light  of  absolute  truth  on  moral  or  on  spiritual 
themes  is  too  dazzling  to  be  sustained  by  the  dis- 
eased optics  of  those  habituated  to  darkness.  And 
hence  we  explain  not  only  the  many  gross  delusions 
of  the  fathers,  their  sophisms,  their  errors  of  fact  and 
chronology,  their  attempts  to  build  great  truths  upon 
^ntastic  etymologies,  or  upon  popular  conceits  in 


m 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


science  that  have  long  since  exploded,  but  also  their 
occasional  unchristian  tempers.  To  contend  with  an 
unprincipled  and  malicious  liar,  such  as  Julian  the 
Apostate,  in  its  original  sense  the  first  deliberate 
miscreant,  offered  a  dreadful  snare  to  any  man^s 
charity.  And  he  must  be  a  furious  bigot  who  will 
justify  the  rancorous  lampoons^^  of  Gregory  Nazian- 
zen.  Are  we,  then,  angry  on  behalf  of  Julian  ?  So 
far  as  he  was  interested,  not  for  a  moment  would  we 
have  suspended  the  descending  scourge.  Cut  him 
to  the  bone,  we  should  have  exclaimed  at  the  time ! 
Lay  the  knout  into  every  raw  that  can  be  found ! 
For  we  are  of  opinion  that  Julianas  duplicity  is  not 
yet  adequately  understood.  But  what  was  right  as 
regarded  the  claims  of  the  criminal,  was  not  right  as- 
regarded  the  duties  of  his  opponent.  Even  in  this 
mischievous  renegade,  trampling  with  his  orang- 
outang hoofs  the  holiest  of  truths,  a  Christian  bishop 
ought  still  to  have  respected  his  sovereign,  through 
the  brief  period  that  he  ivas  such,  and  to  have  com- 
miserated his  benighted  brother,  however  wilfully 
astray,  and  however  hatefully  seeking  to  quench  that 
light  for  other  men,  which,  for  his  own  misgiving 
heart,  we  could  undertake  to  show  that  he  never  did 
succeed  in  quenching.  We  do  not  wish  to  enlarge 
upon  a  theme  both  c#pious  and  easy.  But  here,  and 
everywhere,  speaking  of  the  fathers  as  a  body,  we 
charge  them  with  anti-christian  practices  of  a  two-fold 
order  :  sometimes  as  supporting  their  great  cause  in 
a  spirit  alien  to  its  own,  retorting  in  a  temper  not 
less  uncharitable  than  that  of  their  opponents  ;  some- 
times, again,  as  adopting  arguments  that  are  un- 
christian in  their  ultimate  grounds ;  resting  upon 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


473 


errors  the  reputation  of  errors  ;  upon  superstition?' 
the  overthrow  of  superstitions  ;  and  drawing  upor* 
the  armories  of  darkness  for  weapons  that,  to  be  dur 
able,  ought  to  have  been  of  celestial  temper.  Alter- 
nately, in  short,  the  fathers  trespass  against  those 
aftections  which  furnish  to  Christianity  its  moving 
powers,  and  against  those  truths  which  furnish  to 
Christianity  its  guiding  lights.  Indeed,  Milton^s 
memorable  attempt  to  characterize  the  fathers  as  a 
body,  contemptuous  as  it  is,  can  hardly  be  chal- 
lenged as  overcharged. 

Never  in  any  instance  were  these  aberrations  of 
the  fathers  more  vividly  exemplified  than  in  their 
theories  upon  the  Pagan  Oracles.  On  behalf  of  God, 
they  were  determined  to  be  wiser  than  God  ;  and,  in 
demonstration  of  scriptural  power,  to  advance  doc- 
trines which  the  Scriptures  had  nowhere  warranted. 
At  this  point,  however,  we  shall  take  a  short  course  ; 
and,  to  use  a  vulgar  phrase,  shall  endeavor  to  ''kill 
two  birds  with  one  stone. It  happens  that  the  ear- 
liest book  in  our  modern  European  literature,  which 
has  subsequently  obtained  a  station  of  authority  on 
the  subject  of  the  ancient  Oracles,  applied  itself  en- 
tirely to  the  erroneous  theory  of  the  fathers.  This  is 
the  celebrated  Antonii  Van  Dale,  "  Be  Eihnicorum 
Oraculis  Bissertationes,^^  which  was  published  at 
Amsterdam  at  least  as  early  as  the  year  1682  ;  that 
is,  one  hundred  and  sixty  years  ago.  And  upon  the 
same  subject  there  has  been  no  subsequent  book 
which  maintains  an  equal  rank.  Van  Dale  might 
nave  treated  his  theme  simply  with  a  view  to  the 
'investigation  of  the  truth,  as  some  rec^^nt  inquirers 
have  preferred  doing ;  and,  in  that  case,  the  fathers 


174 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES, 


would  have  been  noticed  only  as  incidental  occasions 
might  bring  forward  their  opinions  —  true  or  false. 
But  to  this  author  the  errors  of  the  fathers  seemed 
capital :  worthy,  in  fact,  of  forming  his  principal 
object :  and,  knowing  their  great  authority  in  the 
Parpal  church,  he  anticipated,  in  the  plan  of  attaching 
Lis  own  views  to  the  false  views  of  the  fathers,  an 
opening  to  a  double  patronage  —  that  of  the  Protest- 
ants, in  the  first  place,  as  interested  in  all  doctrines 
seeming  to  be  anti-papal :  that  of  the  sceptics,  in  the 
second  place,  as  interested  in  the  exposure  of  what- 
ever had  once  commanded,  but  subsequently  lost,  the 
supersritious  reverence  of  mankind.  On  this  policy, 
he  determined  to  treat  the  subject  polemically.  He 
fastened,  therefore,  upon  the  fathers  with  a  deadly 
acharnement,  that  evidently  meant  to  leave  no  ar- 
rears of  work  for  any  succeeding  assailant ;  and  it 
must  be  acknowledged  that,  simply  in  relation  to 
this  purpose  of  hostility,  his  work  is  triumphant. 
So  much  was  not  difficult  to  accomplish  ;  for  barely 
to  enunciate  the  leading  doctrine  of  the  fathers  is,  in 
the  ear  of  any  chronologist,  to  overthrow  it.  But, 
though  successful  enough  in  its  functions  of  destruc- 
tion, on  the  other  hand,  as  an  affirmative  or  con- 
Btructive  work,  the  long  treatise  of  Van  Dale  is  most 
unsatisfactory.  It  leaves  us  with  a  hollow  sound 
ringing  in  the  ear,  of  malicious  laughter  from  gnomes 
and  imps  grinning  over  the  weaknesses  of  man  —  his 
paralytic  facility  in  believing  —  his  fraudulent  villany 
in  abusing  this  facility  —  but  in  no  point  accounting 
for  those  real  effects  of  diffusive  social  benefits  from 
the  Oracle  machinery,  which  must  arrest  the  atten 
tion  of  candid  students,  amidst  some  opposite  monu 


THE   PAGAN  ORACLES 


475 


moDts  of  incorrigible  credulitV;  or  of  elaborate  impos- 
ture. 

As  a  book;  however;  belonging  to  that  small  cycle 
(not  numbering,  perhaps,  on  cdl  subjects,  above  three 
score),  which  maybe  said  to  have  moulded  and  con- 
trolled the  public  opinion  of  Europe  through  the  last 
five  generations,  already  for  itself  the  work  of  Van 
Dale  merits  a  special  attention.  It  is  confessedly 
the  classical  book  —  the  origin al/ir/K//,/ .5  for  the  argu- 
ments and  facts  applicable  to  this  question  :  and  an 
accident  has  greatly  strengthened  its  authority. 
Fontenelle,  the  most  fashionable  of  European  authors, 
at  the  opening  of  the  eighteenth  century,  writing  in 
a  language  at  that  time  even  more  predominant  than 
at  present,  did  in  effect  employ  all  his  advantages  to 
propagate  and  popularize  the  views  of  Van  Dale. 
Scepticism  naturally  courts  the  patronage  of  France  ; 
and  in  effect  that  same  remark  vrhich  a  learned  Bel- 
gian (Van  Brouwer)  has  found  frequent  occasion  to 
make  upon  single  sections  of  Fontenelle 's  work,  may 
be  fairly  extended  into  a  representative  account  of 
the  whole  —  Uon  trouve  les  memes  arguments  chez 
Fontenelle,  moAs  degages  des  longueurs  du  savant  Van 
Dale,  et  exprimes  avec  plus  elegance. This  rifac- 
draento  did  not  injure  the  original  work  in  reputa- 
tion :  it  caused  Van  Dale  to  be  less  read,  but  to  be 
more  esteemed  :  since  a  man  confessedly  distin- 
guished for  his  powers  of  composition  had  not 
thought  it  beneath  his  ambition  to  adopt  and  recom- 
pose  Van  Dale's  theory.  This  important  position  of 
Van  Dale  with  regard  to  the  effectual  creed  of  Europe 
—  so  that,  whether  he  were  read  directly  or  were 
filighted  for  a  more  fashionable  expounder,  equally 


i76 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


in  either  case  it  was  his  doctrines  which  prevailed  — 
must  always  confer  a  circumstantial  value  upon  the 
original  dissertations,    De  Ethnicorum  Oraculis.^^ 

This  original  work  of  Van  Dale  is  a  book  of  consid- 
erable extent.  But,  in  spite  of  its  length,  it  divides 
substantially  into  two  great  chapters,  and  no  more, 
which  coincide,  in  fact,  with  the  two  separate  disser- 
tations. The  first  of  these  dissertations,  occupying 
one  hundred  and  eighty-one  pages,  inquires  into  the 
failure  and  extinction  of  the  Oracles  ;  when  they 
failed,  and  under  what  circumstances.  The  second  of 
these  dissertations  inquires  into  the  machinery  and 
resources  of  the  Oracles  during  the  time  of  their  pros- 
perity. In  the  first  dissertation,  the  object  is  to 
expose  the  folly  and  gross  ignorance  of  the  fathers, 
who  insisted  on  representing  the  history  of  the  case 
roundly  in  this  shape  —  as  though  all  had  prospered 
with  the  Oracles  up  to  the  nativity  of  Christ ;  but 
that,  after  his  crucifixion,  and  simultaneously  with 
the  first  promulgation  of  Christianity,  all  Oracles  had 
suddenly  drooped  ;  or,  to  tie  up  their  language  to 
the  rigor  of  their  theory,  had  suddenly  expired.  All 
this  Van  Dale  peremptorily  denies;  and,  in  these 
days,  it  is  scarcely  requisite  to  add,  triumphantly 
denies  ;  the  whole  hypothesis  of  the  fathers  having 
literally  not  a  leg  to  stand  upon  ;  and  being,  in  fact, 
the  most  audacious  defiance  to  historical  records 
that,  perhaps,  the  annals  of  human  folly  present.^ 

In  the  second  dissertation.  Van  Dale  combats  the 
other  notion  of  the  fathers  —  that,  during  their  pros- 
perous ages,  the  Oracles  had  moved  by  an  agency  of 
evil  spirits.  He,  on  the  contrary,  contends  that,  fron: 
the  first  hour  to  the  last  of  their  long  domination 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


477 


over  the  minds  and  practice  of  the  Pagan  world, 
they  had  moved  by  no  agencies  whatever,  but  those 
of  human  fraud,  intrigue,  collusion,  applied  to  human 
blindness,  credulity,  and  superstition. 

We  shall  say  a  word  or  two  upon  each  question. 
As  to  the  first,  namely,  when  it  was  that  the  Oracles 
fell  into  decay  and  silence,  thanks  to  the  headlong 
rashness  of  the  Fathers,  Van  Dale^s  assault  cannot 
be  refused  or  evaded.  In  reality,  the  evidence 
against  them  is  too  flagrant  and  hyperbolical.  If  we 
were  to  quote  from  Juvenal — ''Delphis  et  Oracula 
cessant,''  in  that  case,  the  fathers  challenge  it  as  an 
argument  on  their  side,  for  that  Juvenal  described  a 
state  of  things  immediately  posterior  to  Christianity ; 
yet  even  here  the  word  cessant  points  to  a  distinction 
of  cases  which  already  in  itself  is  fatal  to  their  doc- 
trine. By  cessant  Juvenal  means  evidently  what  we, 
in  these  days,  should  mean  in  saying  of  a  ship  in 
action  that  her  fire  was  slackening.  This  power- 
ful poet,  therefore,  wiser  so  far  than  the  Christian 
fathers,  distinguishes  two  separate  cases  :  first,  the 
state  of  torpor  and  languishing  which  might  be  (and 
in  fact  was)  the  predicament  of  many  famous  Oracles 
through  centuries  not  fewer  than  five,  six,  or  even 
eight ;  secondly,  the  state  of  absolute  dismantling 
and  utter  extinction  which,  even  before  his  time,  had 
confounded  individual  Oracles  of  the  inferior  class, 
not  from  changes  affecting  religion,  whether  true  or 
false,  but  from  political  revolutions.  Here,  there- 
fore, lies  the  first  blunder  of  the  fathers,  that  they 
confound  with  total  death  the  long  drooping  which 
befell  many  great  Oracles  from  languor  in  the  popular 
sympathies,  under  changes  hereafter  to  be  noticed  ; 


478 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES 


aud,  consequently,  from  revenues  and  machinery 
continually  decaying.  That  the  Delphic  Oracle  it- 
self —  of  all  oracles  the  most  illustrious  —  had  not 
expired,  but  simply  slumbered  for  centuries,  the 
fathers  might  have  been  convinced  themselves  by 
innumerable  passages  in  authors  contemporary  v/ith 
themselves  ;  and  that  it  was  continually  throwing 
out  fitful  gleams  of  its  ancient  power,  when  any  very 
great  man  (suppose  a  C^sar)  thought  fit  to  stimulate 
its  latent  vitality,  is  notorious  from  such  cases  as  that 
of  Hadrian.  He,  in  his  earlier  days,  whilst  yet  only 
dreaming  of  the  purple,  had  not  found  the  Oracle 
superannuated  or  palsied.  On  the  contrary, he  found 
it  but  too  clear-sighted;  and  it  was  no  contempt 
in  him,  but  too  ghastly  a  fear  and  jealousy,  which 
labored  to  seal  up  the  grander  ministrations  of  the 
Oracle  for  the  future.  What  the  Pythia  had  fore- 
shown to  himself,  she  might  foreshow  to  others  ; 
and,  when  tempted  by  the  same  princely  bribes,  she 
might  authorize  and  kindle  the  same  aspiring  views 
in  other  great  officers.  Thus,  in  the  new  condition 
of  the  Roman  power,  there  was  a  perpetual  peril, 
lest  an  oracle,  so  potent  as  that  of  Delphi,  should 
absolutely  create  rebellions,  by  first  suggesting 
hopes  to  men  in  high  commands.  Even  as  it  was, 
all  treasonable  assumptions  of  the  purple,  for  many 
generations,  commenced  in  the  hopes  inspired  by 
auguries,  prophecies,  or  sortileges.  And  had  the 
great  Delphic  Oracle,  consecrated  to  inen^s  feelings 
by  hoary  superstition,  and  privileged  by  secrecy,  come 
forward  to  countersign  such  hopes,  many  more  would 
have  been  the  wrecks  of  ambition,  and  even  bloodier 
would  have  been  the  blood-polluted  line  of  the  impe- 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


479 


rial  successions.  Prudence,  therefore,  it  was,  and 
state  policy,  not  the  power  of  Christianity,  which 
gave  the  final  shock  (of  the  original  shock  we  shall 
speak  elsewhere)  to  the  grander  functions  of  the 
Delphic  Oracle.  But,  in  the  mean  time,  the  humbler 
and  more  domestic  offices  of  this  oracle,  though  nat- 
urally making  no  noise  at  a  distance,  seem  long  to 
have  survived  its  state  relations.  And,  apart  from 
the  sort  of  galvanism  notoriously  applied  by  Ha- 
drian, surely  the  fathers  could  not  have  seen  Plu- 
tarch's account  of  its  condition,  already  a  century 
later  than  our  Saviour's  nativity.  The  Pythian 
priestess,  as  we  gather  from  him,  had  by  that  time 
become  a  less  select  and  dignified  personage  ;  she 
was  no  longer  a  princess  in  the  land  —  a  change 
which  was  proximately  due  to  the  impoverished  in- 
come of  the  temple  ;  but  she  was  still  in  existence  ; 
still  held  in  respect ;  still  trained,  though  at  inferior 
cost,  to  her  difficult  and  showy  ministrations.  And 
the  whole  establishment  of  the  Delphic  god,  if  neces- 
sarily contracted  from  that  scale  which  had  been 
suitable  when  great  kings  and  commonwealths  were 
constant  suitors  within  the  gates  of  Delphi,  still 
clung  (like  the  Venice  of  modern  centuries)  to  her 
old  ancestral  honors,  and  kept  up  that  decent  house- 
hold of  ministers  which  corresponded  to  the  altered 
ministrations  of  her  temple.  In  fact,  the  evidences 
on  behalf  of  Delphi  as  a  princely  house,  that  had 
indeed  partaken  in  the  decaying  fortunes  of  Greece, 
but  naturally  was  all  the  prouder  from  the  irritating 
contrast  of  her  great  remembrances,  are  so  plenti- 
fully dispersed  through  books,  that  the  fathers  must 
lave  been  willingly  duped.    That  in  some  way  they 


480 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


were  duped  is  too  notorious  from  the  facts,  and  might 
be  suspected  even  from  their  own  occasional  lan- 
guage ;  take,  as  one  instance,  amongst  a  whole  har- 
mony of  similar  expressions,  this  short  passage  from 
Eusebius  —  ol  ^EWrjves  oiJioXoyowres  CKAcAotTremt  avTOJV 
Ta  xpi](nr}pia:  the  Greeks  admitting  that  their  Ora- 
cles have  failed  (there  is,  however,  a  disingenuous 
vagueness  in  the  very  word  cKAeAotTrevai),  ovh'  oXkort 
TTore  €^  ai(jjvos  —  and  when  ?  why,  at  no  other  crisis 
through  the  total  range  of  their  existence  —  rj  Kara 
Tovs  xpovovs  TT}^  evayyeXiKrjs  St8ao-/<aAtas  —  than  precisely 
at  the  epoch  of  the  evangelical  dispensation,  etc. 
Eusebius  was  a  man  of  too  extensive  reading  to  be 
entirely  satisfied  with  the  Christian  representations 
upon  this  point.  And  in  such  indeterminate  phrases 
as  ^(^ra  785  xiovm  (which  might  mean  indifferently 
the  entire  three  centuries  then  accomplished  from 
the  first  promulgation  of  Christianity,  or  specifically 
that  narrow  punctual  limit  of  the  earliest  promul- 
gation), it  is  easy  to  trace  an  ambidextrous  artifice 
of  compromise  between  what  would  satisfy  his  own 
brethren,  on  the  one  hand,  and  what,  on  the  other 
hand,  he  could  hope  to  defend  against  the  assaults 
of  learned  Pagans. 

In  particular  instances  it  is  but  candid  to  acknowl- 
edge that  the  fathers  may  have  been  misled  by  the 
remarkable  tendencies  to  error  amongst  the  ancients, 
from  their  want  of  public  journals,  combined  with 
territorial  grandeur  of  empire.  The  greatest  possi- 
ble defect  of  harmony  arises  naturally  in  this  way 
amongst  ancient  authors,  locally  remote  from  each 
other ;  but  more  especially  in  the  post-christian  pe- 
riods, when  leporting  any  aspects  of  change;  or  any 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES 


481 


results  from  a  revolution  variable  and  advancing 
under  the  vast  varieties  of  the  Roman  empire.  Hav- 
ing no  newspapers  to  effect  a  level  amongst  the  ine- 
qualities  and  anomalies  of  their  public  experience  in 
regard  to  the  Christian  revolution,  when  collected 
from  innumerable  tribes  so  widely  differing  as  to 
civilization,  knowledge,  superstition,  &c.  ;  hence  it 
happened  that  one  writer  could  report  with  truth  a 
change  as  having  occurred  within  periods  of  ten  to 
sixty  years,  which  for  some  other  province  would 
demand  a  circuit  of  six  hundred.  For  example,  in 
Asia  Minor,  all  the  way  from  the  sea-coast  to  the 
Euphrates,  towns  were  scattered  having  a  dense 
population  of  Jews.  Sometimes  these  were  the  most 
malignant  opponents  of  Christianity  ;  that  is,  where- 
ever  they  happened  to  rest  in  the  letter  of  their  pecu- 
liar religion.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  where  there 
happened  to  be  a  majority  (or,  if  not  numerically  a 
majority,  yet  influentially  an  overbalance)  in  that 
section  of  the  Jews  who  were  docile  children  of  their 
own  preparatory  faith  and  discipline,  no  bigots,  and 
looking  anxiously  for  the  fulfilment  of  their  prophe- 
cies (an  expectation  at  that  time  generally  diffused), 
—  under  those  circumstances,  the  Jews  were  such 
ready  converts  as  to  account  naturally  for  sudden 
local  transitions,  which  in  other  circumstances  or 
places  might  not  have  been  credible. 

This  single  consideration  may  serve  to  explain  the 
apparent  contradictions,  the  irreconcilable  discrepan- 
cies, between  the  statements  of  contemporary  Chris- 
tian bishops,  locally  at  a  vast  distance  from  each 
other,  or  (which  is  even  more  important)  reporting 
from  communities  occupying  different  stages  of  civil- 

31 


482 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


ization.  There  was  no  harmoaizing  orgaji  of  inter^i 
pretation,  in  Christian  or  in  Pagan  newspapers,  to 
bridge  over  the  chasms  that  divided  different  prov- 
inces. A  devout  Jew,  abeady  possessed  by  the 
purest  idea  of  the  Supreme  Being,  stood  on  the  very 
threshold  of  conversion :  he  might,  by  one  hour^s 
(.conversation  with  an  apostle,  be  transfigured  into  an 
enlightened  Christian  ;  whereas  a  Pagan  could  sel- 
dom in  one  generation  pass  beyond  the  infirmity  of 
his  novitiate.  His  heart  and  affections,  his  will  and 
the  habits  of  his  understanding,  were  too  deeply 
diseased  to  be  suddenly  transmuted.  And  hence 
arises  a  phenomenon,  which  has  too  languidly  ar- 
rested the  notice  of  historians  ;  namely,  that  already, 
and  for  centuries  before  the  time  of  Constantino, 
wherever  the  Jews  had  been  thickly  sown  as  col- 
onists, the  most  potent  body  of  Christian  zeal  stood 
ready  to  kindle  under  the  first  impulse  of  encourage- 
ment from  the  state  ;  whilst  iji  the  great  capitals  of 
Rome  and  Alexandria,  where  the  Jews  were  hated 
and  neutralized  politically  by  Pagan  forces,  not  for 
a  hundred  years  later  than  Constantino  durst  the 
whole  power  of  the  government  lay  hands  on  the 
Pagan  machinery,  except  with  timid  precautions,  and 
by  graduations  so  remarkably  adjusted  to  the  cir- 
cumstances, that  sometimes  they  wear  the  shape  of 
compromises  with  idolatry.  We  must  know  the 
grou.nd,  the  quality  of  the  population,  concerned  in 
any  particular  report  of  the  fathers,  before  we  can 
judge  of  its  probabilities.  Under  local  advantages, 
insulated  cases  of  Oracles  suddenly  silenced,  of  tem- 
ples and  their  idol-worship  overthrown,  as  by  a  rup- 
ture of  new-born  zeal,  were  not  less  certain  to  arise 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


483 


IS  rare  accidents  from  rare  privileges,  or  from  rare 
coincidences  of  unanimity  in  the  leaders  of  the  place, 
than  on  the  other  hand  they  were  certain  not  to  arise 
in  that  unconditional  universality  pretended  by  the 
fathers.  Wheresoever  Paganism  was  interwoven 
with  the  whole  moral  being  of  a  people,  as  it  was  in 
Egypt,  or  with  the  political  tenure  and  hopes  of  a 
people,  as  it  was  in  Rome,  there  a  long  struggle  was 
inevitable  before  the  revolution  could  be  effected. 
Briefly,  as  against  the  fathers,  we  find  a  sufficient 
refutation  in  what  followed  Christianity.  If,  at  a 
period  five,  or  even  six  hundred  years  after  the  birth 
of  Christ,  you  find  people  still  consulting  the  local 
Oracles  of  Egypt,  in  places  sheltered  from  the  point- 
blank  range  of  the  state  artillery,  —  there  is  an  end, 
once  and  forever,  to  the  delusive  superstition  that, 
merely  by  its  silent  presence  in  the  world,  Christian 
ity  must  instantaneously  come  into  fierce  activity  as 
a  reagency  of  destruction  to  all  forms  of  idolatrous 
error.  That  argument  is  multiplied  beyond  all  pow- 
er of  calculation  ;  and  to  have  missed  it  is  the  most 
eminent  instance  of  wilful  blindness  which  the  rec- 
ords of  human  folly  can  furnish.  But  there  is  an- 
other refutation  lying  in  an  opposite  direction,  which 
presses  the  fathers  even  more  urgently  in  the  rear 
than  this  presses  them  in  front  ;  any  author  posterior 
to  Christianity,  who  should  point  to  the  decay  of 
Oracles,  they  would  claim  on  their  own  side.  But 
what  would  they  have  said  to  Cicero,  —  by  what  re- 
source of  despair  would  they  have  parried  his  author- 
ity, when  insisting  (as  many  times  he  does  insist), 
forty  and  even  fifty  years  before  the  birth  of  Christ, 
')n  the  languishing  condition  of  the  Delphic  Oracle  ? 


484 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


What  evasion  could  they  imagine  here  ?  How  could 
that  languor  be  due  to  Christianity,  which  far  antici- 
pated the  very  birth  of  Christianity  ?  For,  as  to 
Cicero,  who  did  not  far  anticipate  the  birth  of 
Christianity/^  we  allege  Mm  rather  because  his  work 
De  Divinatione  is  so  readily  accessible,  and  because 
his  testimony  on  any  subject  is  so  full  of  weight, 
than  because  other  and  much  older  authorities  cannot 
be  produced  to  the  same  effect.  The  Oracles  of 
Greece  had  lost  their  vigor  and  their  palmy  pride 
full  two  centuries  before  the  Christian  era.  Histor- 
ical records  show  this  a  posteriori,  whatever  were 
the  cause ;  and  the  cause,  which  we  will  state  here- 
after, shows  it  a  priori,  apart  from  the  records. 

Surely,  therefore.  Van  Dale  needed  not  to  have 
pressed  his  victory  over  the  helpless  fathers  so  un- 
relentingly, and  after  the  first  ten  pages  by  cases 
and  proofs  that  are  quite  needless  and  ex  abundanti; 
simply  the  survival  of  any  one  distinguished  Oracle 
upwards  of  four  centuries  after  Christ  —  that  is  suffi- 
cient. But  if  with  this  fact  we  combine  the  other 
fact,  that  all  the  principal  Oracles  had  already  be- 
gun to  languish,  more  than  two  centuries  before 
Christianity,  there  can  be  no  opening  for  a  whisper 
of  dissent  upon  any  real  question  between  Van  Dale 
and  his  opponents  ;  namely,  both  as  to  the  possi- 
bility of  Christianity  coexisting  with  such  forms  of 
error,  and  the  possibility  that  oracles  should  be  over- 
thrown by  merely  Pagan,  or  internal  changes.  The 
less  plausible,  however,  that  we  find  this  error  of  the 
fathers,  the  more  curiosity  we  naturally  feel  about 
the  source  of  that  error ;  and  the  more  so,  because 
Van  Dale  never  turns  his  eyes  in  that  direction. 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


485 


This  source  lay  (to  speak  the  simple  tmth)  in  ab- 
ject superstition.  The  fathers  conceived  of  the 
3nmity  between  Christianity  and  Paganism,  as  though 
it  resembled  that  between  certain  chemical  poisons 
and  the  Venetian  wine-glass,  which  (according  to 
the  belief*  of  three  centuries  back)  no  sooner  re- 
ceived any  poisonous  fluid,  than  immediately  it  shiv- 
ered into  crystal  splinters.  They  thought  to  honor 
Christianity,  by  imaging  it  as  some  exotic  animal  of 
more  powerful  breed,  such  as  we  English  have  wit- 
nessed in  a  domestic  case,  coming  into  instant  col- 
lision with  the  native  race,  and  exterminating  it 
everywhere  upon  the  first  conflict.  In  this  conceit 
they  substituted  a  foul  fiction  of  their  own,  fashioned 
on  the  very  model  of  Pagan  fictions,  for  the  unvary- 
ing analogy  of  the  divine  procedure.  Christianity, 
as  the  last  and  consummate  of  revelations,  had  the 
high  destination  of  working  out  its  victory  through 
what  was  greatest  in  a  man  —  through  his  reason, 
his  will,  his  affections.  But,  to  satisfy  the  fathers, 
it  must  operate  like  a  drug  —  like  sympathetic  pow- 
ders—  like  an  amulet  —  or  like  a  conjurer's  charm. 
Precisely  the  monkish  effect  of  a  Bible  when  hurled 
at  an  evil  spirit  —  not  the  true  rational  effect  of  that 
profound  oracle  read,  studied,  and  laid  to  heart  — 
was  that  which  the  fathers  ascribed  to  the  mere 

*  Which  belief  we  can  see  no  reason  for  rejecting  so  summarily  as 
is  usually  done  in  modern  times.  It  would  be  absurd,  indeed,  to 
suppose  a  kind  of  glass  qualified  to  expose  all  poisons  indiflferently, 
considering  the  vast  range  of  their  chemical  differences.  But,  surely, 
as  against  that  one  poison  then  familiarly  used  for  domestic  murders, 
a  chemical  reagency  might  have  been  devised  in  the  quality  of  the 
glass.  At  least,  there  is  no  prima  facie  absurdity  in  such  a  supposi- 
tion. 


486 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


proclamation  of  Christianity,  when  first  piercing  the 
atmosphere  circumjacent  to  any  oracle  ;  and,  in  fact, 
to  their  gross  appreciations,  Christian  truth  was  like 
the  scavenger  bird  in  Eastern  climates,  or  the  stork 
in  Holland,  which  signalizes  its  presence  by  devour- 
ing all  the  native  brood  of  vermin,  or  nuisances,  as 
fast  as  they  reproduce  themselves  under  local  dis- 
temperatures  of  climate  or  soil. 

It  is  interesting  to  pursue  the  same  ignoble  super- 
stition, which,  in  fact,  under  Romish  hands,  soon 
crept  like  a  parasitical  plant  over  Christianity  itself, 
until  it  had  nearly  strangled  its  natural  vigor,  back 
into  times  far  preceding  that  of  the  fathers.  Spite 
of  all  that  could  be  wrought  by  Heaven,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  continually  confounding  the  local  vestiges  of 
popular  reverence  which  might  have  gathered  round 
stocks  and  stones,  so  obstinate  is  the  hankering  after 
this  mode  of  superstition  in  man  that  his  heart  returns 
to  it  with  an  elastic  recoil  as  often  as  the  openings 
are  restored.  Agreeably  to  this  infatuation,  the 
temple  of  the  true  God  —  even  its  awful  adytum  — 
the  holy  of  holies  —  or  the  places  where  the  ark  of 
the  covenant  had  rested  in  its  migrationSx —  all  were 
conceived  to  have  an  eternal  and  a  self-vindicating 
sanctity.  So  thought  man  :  but  God  himself,  though 
to  man^s  folly  pledged  to  the  vindication  of  his  own 
sanctities,  thought  far  otherwise  ;  as  we  know  by 
numerous  profanations  of  all  holy  places  in  Judea, 
triumphantly  carried  thiough,  and  avenged  by  no 
plausible  judgments.  To  speak  only  of  the  latter 
temple,  three  men  are  memorable  as  having  polluted 
its  holiest  recesses  :  Antiochus  Epiphanes,  Pompey 
about  a  century  later,  and  Titus  pretty  nearly  by  the 


THE    PAGAN  ORACLES. 


487 


same  exact  interval  later  than  Pompey;  Upon  which 
of  these  three  did  any  judgment  descend  ?  Attempts 
have  been  made  to  impress  that  coloring  of  the  sequel 
in  two  of  these  cases,  indeed,  but  without  effect  upon 
any  man's  mind.  Possibly  in  the  case  of  Antiochus, 
who  seems  to  have  moved  under  a  burning  hatred, 
not  feo  much  of  the  insurgent  Jews  as  of  the  true 
Ijiith  v/hich  prompted  their  resistance,  there  is  some 
colorable  argument  for  viewing  him  in  his  miserable 
death  as  a  monument  of  divine  wrath.  But  the  two 
others  had  no  such  malignant  spirit ;  they  were  tol- 
erant, and  even  merciful ;  were  authorized  instru- 
ments for  executing  the  purposes  of  Providence  ;  and 
no  calamity  in  the  life  of  either  can  be  reasonably 
traced  to  his  dealings  with  Palestine.  Yet,  if  Chris- 
tianity could  not  brook  for  an  instant  the  mere  coex- 
istence of  a  Pagan  oracle,  how  came  it  that  the 
Author  of  Christianity  had  thus  brooked  (nay,  by 
many  signs  of  cooperation,  had  promoted)  that  ulti- 
mate desecration,  which  planted  the  abomination 
of  desolation  as  a  victorious  crest  of  Paganism 
upon  his  own  solitary  altar  ?  The  institution  of  the 
Sabbath,  again  —  what  part  of  the  Mosaic  economy 
could  it  more  plausibly  have  been  expected  that  God 
should  vindicate  by  some  memorable  interference, 
since  of  all  the  Jewish  institutions  it  was  that  one 
which  only  and  which  frequently  became  the  occa- 
sion of  wholesale  butchery  to  the  pious  (however 
erring)  Jews  ?  The  scruple  of  the  Jews  to  fight,  or 
even  to  resist  an  assassin,  on  the  Sabbath,  was  not 
the  less  pious  in  its  motive  because  erroneous  in 
principle  ;  yet  no  miracle  interfered  to  save  them 
rom  the  consequences  of  their  infatuation.  And 


488 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


this  seemed  the  more  remarkable  in  the  case  of  their 
war  with  Antiochus,  because  that  (if  any  that  history 
has  recorded)  was  a  holy  war.  But,  after  one  tragi- 
cal experience,  which  cost  the  lives  of  a  thousand 
martyrs,  the  Maccabees  —  quite  as  much  on  a  level 
with  their  scrupulous  brethren  in  piety  as  they  were 
superior  in  good  sense  —  began  to  reflect  that  they 
had  no  shadow  of  a  warrant  from  Scripture  for  count- 
ing upon  any  miraculous  aid  ;  that  the  whole  expect- 
ation, from  first  to  last,  had  been  human  and  pre- 
sumptuous ;  and  that  the  obligation  of  fighting 
valiantly  against  idolatrous  compliances  was,  at  all 
events,  paramount  to  the  obligation  of  the  Sabbath, 
In  one  hour,  after  unyoking  themselves  from  this 
monstrous  millstone  of  their  own  forging,  about  their 
own  necks,  the  cause  rose  buoyantly  aloft  as  upon 
wrings  of  victory  ;  and,  as  their  very  earliest  reward 

—  as  the  first  fruits  from  thus  disabusing  their  minds 
of  windy  presumptions  —  they  found  the  very  case 
itself  melting  away  which  had  furnished  the  scruple  ; 
since  their  cowardly  enemies,  now  finding  that  they 
would  fight  on  all  days  alike,  had  no  longer  any  mo- 
tive for  attacking  them  on  the  Sabbath  ;  besides  that 
their  own  astonishing  victories  henceforward  secured 
to  them  often  the  choice  of  the  day  not  less  than  of 
the  ground. 

But,  without  lingering  on  these  outworks  of  the 
true  religion,  namely,  1st,  the  Temple  of  Jerusalem  ; 
2dly,  the  Sabbath,  —  both  of  which  the  divine  wis- 
dom often  saw  fit  to  lay  prostrate  before  the  pre- 
sumption of  idolatrous  assaults,  on  principles  utterly 
irreconcilable  with  the  Oracle  doctrine  of  the  fathers, 

—  there  is  a  still  more  flagrant  argument  against  the 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


489 


fathers,  which  it  is  perfectly  confounding  to  find 
both  them  and  their  confuter  overlooking.  It  is  this. 
Oracles,  take  them  at  the  very  worst,  were  no  other- 
wise hostile  to  Christianity  than  as  a  branch  of 
Paganism.  If,  for  instance,  the  Delphic  establish 
ment  were  hateful  (as  doubtless  it  was)  to  the  holy 
spirit  of  truth  which  burned  in  the  mind  of  an  apostle, 
wJiy  was  it  hateful  ?  Not  primarily  in  its  character 
of  Oracle,  but  in  its  universal  character  of  Pagan 
temple  ;  not  as  an  authentic  distributor  of  counsels 
adapted  to  the  infinite  situations  of  its  clients  —  often 
very  wise  counsels  ;  but  as  being  ultimately  engrafted 
on  the  stem  of  idolatrous  religion  —  as  deriving,  in 
the  last  resort,  their  sanctions  from  Pagan  deities, 
and,  therefore,  as  sharing  constructively  m  all  the  pol- 
lutions of  that  tainted  soiirce.  Now,  therefore,  if 
Christianity,  according  to  the  fancy  of  the  fathers, 
could  not  tolerate  the  co-presence  of  so  much  evil  as 
resided  in  the  Oracle  superstition,  —  that  is,  in  the 
derivative,  in  the  secondary,  in  the  not  unfrequently 
neutralized  or  even  redundantly  compensated  mode 
of  error,  —  then,  a  fortiori,  Christianity  could  not 
have  tolerated  for  an  hour  the  parent  superstition, 
the  larger  evil,  the  fontal  error,  which  diseased  the 
very  organ  of  vision  —  which  not  merely  distorted  a 
few  objects  on  the  road,  but  spread  darkness  over 
the  road  itself.  Yet  what  is  the  fact  ?  So  far  from 
any  mysterious  repulsion  externally  between  idola- 
trous errors  and  Christianity,  as  though  the  two 
schemes  of  belief  could  no  more  coexist  in  the  same 
society  than  two  queen-bees  in  a  hive, —  as  though 
elementary  nature  herself  recoiled  from  the  abomina- 
ole  concur sus,  —  do  but  open  a  child^s  epitome  of 


490 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


history,  and  you  find  it  to  have  required  four  entire 
centuries  before  the  destroyer's  hammer  and  crowbar 
began  to  ring  loudly  against  the  temples  of  idola- 
trous worship  ,  and  not  before  five,  nay,  locally  six, 
or  even  seven  centuries  had  elapsed,  could  the  better 
angel  of  mankind  have  sung  gratulations  announcing 
that  the  great  strife  was  over  —  that  man  was  inocu- 
lated with  the  truth  ;  or  have  adopted  the  impressive 
language  of  a  Latin  father,  that  ^'  the  owls  were  to 
be  heard  in  every  village  hooting  from  the  disman- 
tled fanes  of  heathenism,  or  the  gaunt  wolf  disturbing 
the  sleep  of  peasants  as  he  yelled  in  winter  from  the 
cold,  dilapidated  altars/^  Even  this  victorious  con- 
summation was  true  only  for  the  southern  world  of 
civilization.  The  forests  of  Germany,  though  pierced 
already  to  the  south  in  the  third  and  fourth  centuries 
by  the  torch  of  missionaries,  —  though  already  at 
that  time  illuminated  by  the  immortal  Gothic  version 
of  the  New  Testament  preceding  Ulppilas,  and  still 
surviving, —  sheltered  through  ages  in  the  north  and 
east  vast  tribes  of  idolaters,  some  awaiting  the  bap- 
tism of  Charlemagne  in  the  eighth  century  and  the 
ninth,  others  actually  resuming  a  fierce  countenance 
of  heathenism  for  the  martial  zeal  of  crusading  knights 
in  the  thirteenth'  and  fourteenth.  The  history  of 
Constantino  has  grossly  misled  the  world.  It  was 
very  early  in  the  fourth  century  (313  A.  D.)  that 
Constantino  found  himself  strong  enough  to  take  his 
eoHiest  steps  for  raising  Christianity  to  a  privileged 
station ;  which  station  was  not  merely  an  effect  and 
monument  of  its  progress,  but  a  further  cause  of  • 
progress.  In  this  latter  light,  as  a  power  advancing 
and  moving,  but  politically  still  militant,  Christianity 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


491 


required  exactly  one  other  century  to  carry  out  and 
accomplish  even  its  eastern  triumph.  Dating  from 
the  era  of  the  very  inaugurating  and  merely  local 
acts  of  Constantino,  we  shall  be  sufficiently  accurate 
in  saying  that  the  corresponding  period  in  the  fifth 
century  (namely,  from  about  404  to  420  A.  D.)  first 
witnessed  those  uproars  of  ruin  in  Egypt  and  Alex- 
andria—  fire  racing  along  the  old  carious  timbers, 
battering-rams  thundering  agains4;  the  ancient  walls 
of  the  most  horrid  temples — which  rang  so  search- 
ingly  in  tlie  ears  of  Zosimus,  extorting,  at  every  blow, 
a  howl  of  Pagan  sympathy  from  that  ignorant  calum- 
niator of  Christianity.  So  far  from  the  fact  being, 
according  to  the  general  prejudice,  as  though  Con- 
stantino had  found  himself  able  to  destroy  Paganism, 
and  to  replace  it  by  Christianity;  on  the  contrary, 
it  was  both  because  he  happened  to  be  far  too  weak, 
in  fact,  for  such  a  mighty  revolution,  and  because  he 
knew  his  own  weakness,  that  he  fixed  his  new  capital, 
as  a  preliminary  caution,  upon  the  Propontis. 

There  were  other  motives  to  this  change,  and  par- 
ticularly (as  we  have  attempted  to  show  in  a  separate 
dissertation'^^)  motives  of  high  political  economy,  sug- 
gested by  the  relative  conditions  of  land  and  agri- 
culture in  Thrace  and  Asia  Minor,  by  comparison 
with  decaying  Italy  ;  but  a  paramount  motive,  we 
are  satisfied,  and  the  earliest  motive,  was  the  incur- 
able Pagan  bigotry  of  Rome.  Paganism  for  Rome, 
't  ought  to  have  been  remembered  by  historians,  was 
I  mere  necessity  of  her  Pagan  origin.  Paganism 
vas  the  fatal  dowry  of  Rome  from  her  inauguration  ; 
lot  only  she  had  once  received  a  retaining  fee  on 
behalf  of  Paganism,  in  the  mysterious  Ancile,  sup 


492 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES, 


posed  to  have  fallen  from  heaven,  but  she  actually 
preserved  this  bribe  amongst  her  rarest  jewels.  She 
possessed  a  palladium,  such  a  national  amulet  or 
talisman  as  many  Grecian  or  Asiatic  cities  had  once 
possessed  —  a  fatal  guarantee  to  the  prosperity  of 
the  state.  Even  the  Sibylline  books,  whatever 
ravages  they  might  be  supposed  by  the  intelligent 
to  have  sustained  in  a  lapse  of  centuries,  were  popu- 
larly believed,  in  the  latest  period  of  the  Western 
empire,  to  exist  as  so  many  charters  of  supremacy. 
Jupiter  himself  in  Rome  had  put  on  a  peculiar  Roman 
physiognomy,  which  associated  him  with  the  desti- 
nies of  the  gigantic  state.  Above  all,  the  solemn 
augury  of  the  twelve  vultures,  so  memorably  passed 
downwards  from  the  days  of  Romulus,  through  gen- 
erations as  yet  uncertain  of  the  event,  and,  therefore, 
chronologically  incapable  of  participation  in  any 
fraud  —  an  augury  always  explained  as  promising 
twelve  centuries  of  "supremacy  to  Rome,  from  the 
year  H8  or  750  B.  C.  —  cooperated  with  the  endless 
other  Pagan  superstitions  in  anchoring  the  whole 
Pantheon  to  the  Capitol  and  Mount  Palatine.  So 
long  as  Rome  had  a  worldly  hope  surviving,  it  was 
impossible  for  her  to  forget  the  Yestal  Virgins,  the 
College  of  Augurs,  or  the  indispensable  office  and  the 
indefeasible  privileges  of  the  Pontfex  Maximus,  which 
(though  Cardinal  Baronius,  in  his  great  work,  for 
many  years  sought  to  fight  off  the  evidences  for  that 
fact,  yet  afterwards  partially  he  confessed  his  error) 
actually  availed  —  historically  and  medalUcallij  can  be 
demonstrated  to  have  availed  —  for  the  temptation 
of  Christian  Caesars  into  collusive  adulteries  with 
heathenism.    Here,  for  instance,  came  an  emperor 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


493 


that  timidly  recorded  his  scruples  —  feebly  protested, 
but  gave  way  at  once  as  to  an  ugly  necessity.  There 
came  another,  more  deeply  religious,  or  constitution- 
ally more  bold,  who  fought  long  and  strenuously 
against  the  compromise.  What !  should  he,  the 
delegate  of  God,  and  the  standard-bearer  of  the  true 
religion,  proclaim  himself  officially  head  of  the  false  ? 
No  ;  that  was  too  much  for  his  conscience.^'  But 
the  fatal  meshes  of  prescription,  of  superstitions 
ancient  and  gloomy,  gathered  around  him  ;  he  heard 
that  he  was  no  perfect  Csesar  without  this  office,  and 
eventually  the  very  same  reason  which  had  obliged 
Augustus  not  to  suppress,  but  himself  to  assume,  the 
tribunitian  office,  namely,  that  it  was  a  popular  mo<de 
of  leaving  democratic  organs  untouched,  whilst  he 
neutralized  their  democratic  functions  by  absorbing 
them  into  his  own,  availed  to  overthrow  all  Christian 
scruples  of  conscience,  even  in  the  most  Christian  of 
the  Csesars,  many  years  after  Constantino.  The  pious 
Theodosius  found  himself  literally  compelled  to 
become  a  Pagan  pontiff.  A  hon  mot^  circulating 
amongst  the  people  warned  him  that,  if  he  left  the 
cycle  of  imperial  powers  incomplete,  if  he  suffered 
the  galvanic  battery  to  remain  imperfect  in  its  circuit 
of  links,  pretty  soon  he  would  tempt  treason  to  show 
its  head,  and  would  even  for  the  present  find  but  an 

*  ''A  bon  motr  —  This  was  built  on  the  accident  that  a  certain 
Maximus  stood  in  notorious  circumstances  of  rivalship  to  the  emperor 
[Theodosius]  :  and  the  bitterness  of  the  jest  took  this  turn  —  that  if 
the  emperor  should  persist  in  declining  the  office  of  Pont.  MaximiiSy 
in  that  case,  "  erit  Pontifex  Maximus  ;  "  that  is,  Maximus  (the  secret 
^spirant)  shall  be  our  Pontifex.  ♦S'o  the  words  sounded  to  those  in 
.he  secret  [rr^j  f to/ of],  whilst  to  others  they  seemed  to  have  no  moan 
tig  at  all. 


494 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


imperfect  obedience.  Reluctantly  therefore  the  em- 
peror gave  way  :  and  perhaps  soothed  his  fretting 
conscience,  by  offering  to  heaven,  as  a  penitential 
litany,  that  same  petition  which  Naaman  the  Syrian 
offered  to  the  prophet  Elijah  as  a  reason  for  a  per- 
sonal dispensation.  Hardly  more  possible  it  was 
that  a  camel  should  go  through  the  eye  of  a  needle, 
than  that  a  Roman  senator  should  forswear  those 
inveterate  superstitions  with  which  his  own  system 
of  aristocracy  had  been  riveted  for  better  and  worse. 
As  soon  would  the  Venetian  senator,  the  gloom}'- 
magnifico  of  St.  Mark,  have  consented  to  renounce 
the  annual  wedding  of  his  republic  with  the  Adriatic, 
as  ♦the  Roman  noble,  whether  senator,  or  senator 
elect,  or  of  senatorial  descent,  would  have  dissevered 
his  own  solitary  stem  from  the  great  forest  of  his 
ancestral  order  ;  and  this  he  must  have  done  by 
doubting  the  legend  of  Jupiter  Stator,  or  by  with- 
drawing his  allegiance  from  Jupiter  Capitolinus. 
The  Roman  people  universally  became  agitated 
towards  the  opening  of  the  fifth  century  after  Christ, 
when  their  own  twelfth  century  was  drawing  near  to 
its  completion.  Rome  had  now  reached  the  very 
condition  of  Dr.  Faustus  —  having  originally  received 
a  known  term  of  prosperity  from  some  dark  power  ; 
but  at  length  hearing  the  hours,  one  after  the  other, 
tolling  solemnly  from  the  church-tower,  as  they 
exhausted  the  waning  minutes  of  the  very  final  day 
marked  down  in  the  contract.  The  more  profound 
was  the  faith  of  Rome  in  the  flight  of  the  twelve 
V'ultures,  once  so  glorious,  now  so  sad,  an  augury, 
Iho  deeper  was  the  depression  as  the  last  hour  drew 
uoar  that  had  been  so  mysteriously  prefigured.  The 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


495 


reckoning,  indeed,  of  chronology  was  slightly  uncer- 
tain. The  Varronian  account  varied  from  others. 
But  these  trivial  differences  might  tell  as  easily 
against  them  as  for  them,  and  did  but  strengthen  the 
universal  agitation.  Alaric,  in  the  opening  of  the 
fifth  century  [about  410] — Attila,  near  the  middle 
[445]  —  already  seemed  prelusive  earthquakes  run- 
ning before  the  final  earthquake.  And  Christianity, 
during  this  era  of  public  alarm,  was  so  far  from 
assuming  a  more  winning  aspect  to  Roman  eyes,  as  a 
religion  promising  to  survive  their  own,  that  already, 
under  that  character  of  reversionary  triumph,  this 
gracious  religion  seemed  a  public  insult,  and  this 
meek  religion  a  perpetual  defiance  ;  pretty  much  as 
a  king  sees  with  scowling  eyes,  when  revealed  to 
him  in  some  glass  of  Cornelius  Agrippa,  the  portraits 
of  that  mysterious  house  which  is  destined  to  sup- 
plant his  own. 

Now,  from  this  condition  of  feeling  at  Rome,  it  is 
apparent  not  only  as  a  fact  that  Constantino  did  not 
overthrow  Paganism,  but  as  a  possibility  that  he 
could  not  have  overthrown  it.  In  the  fierce  conflict 
he  would  probably  have  been  overthrown  himself; 
and,  even  for  so  much  as  he  did  accomplish,  it  was 
well  that  he  attempted  it  at  a  distance  from  Rome.  So 
profoundly,  therefore,  are  the  fathers  in  error,  that 
instead  of  that  instant  victory  which  they  ascribe 
to  Christianity,  even  Constantino's  revolution  was 
merely  local.  Nearly  five  centuries,  in  fact,  it  cost, 
and  not  three,  to  Christianize  even  the  entire  Medi- 
terranean empire  of  Rome  ;  and  the  premature  effort 
of  Constantino  ought  to  be  regarded  as  a  merejiuctus 
iecumanus^^  in  the  continuous  advance  of  the  i\qm<3 


496 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


religion, —  one  of  those  ambitious  billows  which  some- 
times run  far  ahead  of  their  fellows  in  a  tide  steadily 
gaining  ground,  but  which  inevitably  recede  in  the 
next  moment,  marking  only  the  strength  of  that 
tendency  which  sooner  or  later  is  destined  to  fill  the 
whole  capacity  of  the  shore. 

To  have  proved,  therefore,  if  it  could  have  been 
proved,  that  Christianity  had  been  fatal  in  the  way 
of  a  magical  charm  to  the  Oracles  of  the  world, 
would  have  proved  nothing  bu*t  a  perplexing  incon- 
sistency, so  long  as  the  fathers  were  obliged  to  con- 
fess that  Paganism  itself,  as  a  gross  total,  as  the 
parent  superstition  (sure  to  reproduce  Oracles  faster 
than  they  could  be  extinguished),  had  been  suffered 
to  exist  for  many  centuries  concurrently  with  Chris- 
tianity, and  had  finally  been  overthrown  by  the  sim- 
ple majesty  of  truth  that  courts  the  light,  as  matched 
against  falsehood  that  shuns  it. 

As  applied,  tlierefore,  to  the  first  problem  in  the 
whole  question  upon  Oracles,  — JVJien,  and  under 
what  circumstances,  did  they  cease?  —  the  Dissertatio 
of  Yan  Dale,  and  the  Histoire  des  Oracles  by  Fonte- 
nelle,  are  irresistible,  though  not  written  in  a  proper 
spirit  of  gravity,  nor  making  use  of  that  indis^  ensa- 
ble  argument  which  we  have  ourselves  derived  from 
the  analogy  of  all  scriptural  precedents. 

But  the  case  is  far  otherwise  as  concerns  the  sec- 
ond problem,  — Hoic,  and  by  ivhat  machinery,  did  the 
Oracles,  in  the  days  of  their  prosperity,  conduct  their 
elaborate  ministrations?  To  this  problem  no  justice 
at  all  is  done  by  the  school  of  Van  Dale.  A  spirit  of 
mockery  and  banter  is  ill  applied  to  questions  that 
at  any  time  have  been  centres  of  fear,  and  hope,  and 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


497 


mysterious  awe^  to  long  trains  of  human  generations 
And  the  coarse  assumption  of  systematic  fraud  in  the 
Oracles  is  neither  satisfactory  to  the  understanding, 
as  failing  to  meet  many  important  aspects  of  the 
case,  nor  is  it  at  all  countenanced  by  the  kind  of 
evidences  that  have  been  hitherto  alleged.  The 
fathers  had  taken  the  course  —  vulgar  and  supersti- 
tious—  of  explaining  everything  sagacious,  everj- 
thing  true,  everything  that  by  possibility  could  seem 
to  argue  prophetic  functions  in  the  greater  Oracles, 
as  the  product  indeed  of  inspiration,  but  of  inspira- 
tion emanating  from  an  evil  spirit.  This  hypothesis 
of  a  diabolic  inspiration  is  rejected  by  the  school  of 
Van  Dale.  Both  the  power  of  at  all  looking  into  the 
future,  and  the  fancied  source  of  that  power,  are 
dismissed  as  contemptible  chimeras.  Upon  the  first 
of  these  dark  pretensions  we  shall  have  occasion  to 
speak  at  another  point.  U])on  the  other  we  agree 
with  Van  Dale.  Yet,  even  here,  the  spirit  of  tri- 
umphant ridicule,  applied  to  questions  not  wholly 
within  the  competence  of  human  resources,  is  dis- 
pleasing in  grave  discussions  :  grave  the}''  are  by 
necessity  of  their  relations,  howsoever  momentarily 
disfigured  by  levity  and  the  unseasonable  grimaces 
of  self-sufficient  philosophy. This  temper  of 
mi^ld  is  already  advertised  from  the  first  to  the  ob- 
serving reader  of  Van  Dale  by  the  character  of  his 
engraved  frontispiece.  Men  are  there  exhibited  in 
the  act  of  juggling,  and  still  more  odiously  as  exult- 
ing over  their  juggleries  by  gestures  of  the  basest 
collusion,  such  as  protruding  the  tongue,  inflating 
one  cheek  by  means  of  the  tongue,  grinning,  and 
winking  obliquely.  These  vilenesses  are  so  ignoble, 
32 


498 


THE  PAGAN  CBACLE3. 


that  for  his  own  sake  a  man  of  honor  (whether  as  a 
writer  or  a  reader)  shrinks  from  dealing  with  any 
case  to  which  they  do  really  adhere ;  such  a  case 
belongs  to  the  province  of  police  courts,  not  of  lite- 
rature. But,  in  the  ancient  apparatus  of  the  Oracles 
although  frauds  and  espionage  did  certainly  form  an 
occasional  resource,  the  arti^ces  employed  were 
rarely  illiberal  in  their  mode,  and  always  ennobled 
by  their  motive.  As  to  the  mode,  the  Oracles  had 
fortunately  no  temptation  to  descend  into  any  tricks 
that  could  look  like  thimble-rigging  ; and  as  to 
the  motive,  it  will  be  seen  that  this  could  never  be 
dissociated  from  some  regard  to  public  or  patriotic 
objects  in  the  first  place  ;  to  which  if  any  secondary 
interest  were  occasionally  attached,  this  could  rarely 
descend  so  low  as  even  to  an  ordinary  purpose  of 
gossiping  curiosity,  but  never  to  a  base,  mercenary 
purpose  of  fraud.  Our  views,  however,  on  this  pha- 
sis  of  the  question,  will  speedily  speak  for  them- 
selves. 

Meantime,  pausing  for  one  moment  to  glance  at 
the  hypothesis  of  the  fathers,  we  confess  ourselves 
to  be  scandalized  by  its  unnecessary  plunge  into  the 
ignoble.  Many  sincere  Christian  believers  have 
doubted  altogether  of  any  evil  spirits,  as  existences, 
warranted  by  Scripture,  that  is,  as  beings  whose 
principle  was  evil  evil,  be  thou  my  good  :  p.  l.]; 
others,  again,  believing  in  the  possibility  that  spirit- 
ual beings  had  been  (in  ways  unintelligible  to  us) 
seduced  from  their  state  of  perfection  by  temptations 
analogous  to  those  which  had  seduced  man,  acqui- 
esced in  the  notion  of  spirits  tainted  with  evil,  but  not 
therefore  (any  more  than  man  himself)  essentially  or 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


4D9 


causelessly  malignant.  Now,  it  is  well  known,  and, 
amongst  others,  Eichhorn  [Einletung  in  das  alle  Tes- 
lament)  has  noticed  the  fact,  which  will  be  obvious, 
on  a  little  reflection,  to  any  even  unlearned  student 
of  the  Scriptures  who  can  throw  his  memory  back 
through  a  real  familiarity  with  those  records,  that 
the  Jews  derived  their  obstinate  notions  of  fiends 
and  demoniacal  possessions  (as  accounting  even  for 
bodily  affections)  entirely  from  their  Chaldean  cap- 
tivity. Not  before  that  great  event  in  Jewish  history, 
and,  therefore,  in  consequence  of  that  event,  were 
the  Jews  inoculated  with  this  Babylonian,  Persian, 
and  Median  superstition.  Now,  if  Eichhorn  and 
others  are  right,  it  follows  that  the  elder  Scriptures, 
as  they  ascend  more  and  more  into  the  purer  atmos- 
phere of  untainted  Hebrew  creeds,  ought  to  exhibit 
an  increasing  freedom  from  all  these  modes  of  demo- 
niacal agency.  And  accordingly  so  we  find  it.  Mes- 
sengers of  God  are  often  concerned  in  the  early 
records  of  Moses ;  but  it  is  not  until  we  come  down 
to  Post-Mosaical  records,  Job,  for  example  (though 
that  book  is  doubtful  as  to  its  chronology),  and  the 
chronicles  of  the  Jewish  kings  [Judaic  or  Israelitish) , 
that  we  first  find  any  allusion  to  malignant  spirits. 
As  against  Eichhorn,  however,  though  readily  con- 
ceding that  the  agency  is  not  often  recognized,  we 
would  beg  leave  to  notice,  that  there  is  a  three-fold 
agency  of  evil,  relatively  to  man,  ascribed  to  certain 
spirits  in  the  elder  Scriptures,  namely:  1,  of  mislead- 
ing  (as  in  the  case  of  the  Israelitish  king  seduced 
mto  a  fatal  battle  by  a  falsehood  originating  with  a 
spiritual  being) ;  2,  of  temptation ;  3,  of  calumnious 
accusation  directed  against  absent  parties.    It  is  not 


500 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


absolutely  an  untenable  hypothesis,  that  these  func- 
tions of  malignity  to  man,  as  at  first  sight  they  ap- 
pear, may  be  in  fact  reconcilable  with  the  general 
functions  of  a  being  not  malignant,  and  not  evil  in 
any  sense,  but  simply  obedient  to  superior  commands : 
for  none  of  us  supposes,  of  course,  that  a  destroy- 
ing angel  must  be  an  evil  spirit,  though  sometimes 
appearing  in  a  dreadful  relation  of  hostility  to  all 
parties  (as  in  the  case  of  David^s  punishment).  But, 
waiving  all  these  speculations,  one  thing  is  apparent, 
that  the  negative  allowance,  the  toleration  granted  to 
these  later  Jewish  modes  of  belief  by  our  Saviour, 
can  no  more  be  urged  as  arguing  any  positive  sanc- 
tion to  such  existences  (to  demons  in  the  bad  sense), 
than  his  toleration  of  Jewish  errors  and  conceits  in 
questions  of  science.  Once  for  all,  it  was  no  purpose 
of  his.  mission  to  expose  errors  in  matters  of  pure 
curiosity,  and  in  speculations  not  moral,  but  exclu- 
sively intellectual.  And,  besides  the  ordinary  argu- 
ment for  rejecting  such  topics  of  teaching,  as  not 
necessarily  belonging  to  any  known  purpose  of  the 
Christian  revelation  (which  argument  is  merely  nega- 
tive, and  still  leaves  it  open  to  have  regarded  such 
communications  as  a  possible  extra  condescension, 
as  a  liiC7'0  ponatur,  not  absolutely  to  have  been  ex- 
pected, but  if  granted  as  all  the  more  meritorious  in 
Christianity),  we  privately  are  aware  of  an  argument, 
far  more  rigorous  and  coercive,  which  will  place  this 
question  upon  quite  another  basis.  This  argument, 
which  in  a  proper  situation,  and  with  ampler  dispos- 
able space,  we  shall  expose  in  its  strengtn,  will  show 
that  it  was  not  that  neutral  possibility  which  men 
have  supposed,  for  the  founder  of  our  faith  to  have 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


501 


granted  light,  casually  or  indirectly,  upon  questions 
of  curiosity.  One  sole  revelation  was  made  by  Him, 
as  to  the  nature  of  the  intercourse  and  the  relations 
in  another  world  ;  but  that  was  for  the  purpose  of 
forestalling  a  vile,  unspiritual  notion,  already  current 
amongst  the  childish  Jews,  and  sure  to  propagate 
itself  even  to  our  own  days,  unless  an  utter  averrun- 
catio  were  applied  to  it.  This  was  its  purpose,  and 
not  any  purpose  of  gratification  to  unhallowed  curi- 
osity ;  we  speak  of  the  question  about  the  reversion- 
ary rights  of  marriage  in  a  future  state.  This  mem- 
orable case,  by  the  way,  sufficiently  exposes  the 
gross,  infantine  sensualism  of  the  Jewish  mind  at 
that  period,  and  throws  an  indirect  light  on  their 
creed  as  to  demons.  With  this  one  exception,  stand- 
ing by  itself  aCnd  self-explained,  there  never  was 
a  gleam  of  revelation  granted  by  any  authorized 
prophet  to  speculative  curiosity,  whether  pointing 
to  science,  or  to  the  mysteries  of  the  spiritual  world. 
And  the  true  argument  on  this  subject  would  show 
that  this  abstinence  was  not  accidental  ;  was  not 
merely  on  a  motive  of  convenience,  as  evading  any 
needless  extension  of  labors  in  teaching,  which  is 
the  furthest  point  attained  by  any  existing  argu- 
ment ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  that  there  was  an  obli- 
gation of  consistency,  stern,  absolute,  insurmounta- 
ble, which  made  it  essential  to  withhold  such  revela- 
tions ;  and  that  had  but  one  such  condescension, 
even  to  a  harmless  curiosity,  been  conceded,  there 
would  have  arisen  instantly  a  rent  —  a  fracture  —  a 
Bchism  —  in  another  vast  and  collateral  purpose  of 
Providence. 

From  all  considerations  of  the  Jewish  condition  at 


502  THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 

the  era  of  Christianity,  the  fathers  might  have  seen 
the  license  for  doubt  as  to  the  notions  of  a  diabolic 
inspiration.  Why  must  the  prompting  spirits,  if 
really  assumed  to  be  the  efficient  agency  behind  the 
Oracles,  be  figured  as  holding  any  relation  at  all  to 
moral  good  or  moral  evil  ?  Why  not  allow  of  de- 
moniac powers,  excelling  man  in  beauty,  power, 
prescience,  but  otherwise  neutral  as  to  all  purposes 
of  man^s  moral  nature  ?  Or,  if  revolting  angels  were 
assumed,  why  degrade  their  agenc}^  in  so  vulgar  and 
unnecessary  a  way,  by  adopting  the  vilest  relation 
to  man  which  can.be  imputed  to  a  demon  —  his 
function  of  secret  calumnious  accusation ;  from  which 
idea,  lowering  the  Miltonic  "  archangel  ruined  into 
the  assessor  of  thieves,  as  a  private  slanderer  {dia- 
bolos),  proceeds,  through  the  intermediate  Italian 
diavolo,  our  own  grotesque  vulgarism  of  the  devil ;  * 
an  idea  which  must  ever  be  injurious,  in  common 
with  all  base  conceptions,  to  a  grand  and  spiritual 
religion.  If  the  Oracles  ivere  supported  by  mysteri- 
ous agencies  of  spiritual  beings,  it  was  still  open  to 
have  distinguished  between  mere  modes  of  power  or 
of  intelligence,  and  modes  of  illimitable  evil.  The 
i^esults  of  th'e  Oracles  were  beneficent :  that  was  all 
which  the  fathers  had  any  right  to  know :  and  theii 
unwarranted  introduction  of  wicked  or  rebel  angels 
was  as  much  a  surreptitious  fraud  upon  their  audi- 
ences, as  their  neglect  to  distinguish  between  the 
conditions  of  an  extinct  superstition  and  a  supersti- 
tion dormant  or  decaying. 

*  But,  says  an  unlearned  man,  Christ  uses  the  word  devil.  Not  so. 
The  word  used  is  dia^olog.  Translate  v.  g.  "  The  accuser  and  hie 
ftngels.'^ 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


503 


To  leave  the  fathers,  and  to  state  oui  own  views 
on  the  final  question  argued  by  Van  Dale  —  "  What 
was  the  essential  machinery  by  which  the  Oracles 
moved  ?    —  we  shall  inquire, 

1.  What  was  the  relation  of  the  Oracles  (and  we 
would  wish  to  be  understood  as  speaking  particularly 
of  the  Delphic  Oracle)  to  the  credulity  of  Greece  ? 

2.  What  was  the  relation  of  that  same  Oracle  to 
the  absolute  truth  ? 

3.  What  was  its  relation  to  the  public  welfare  of 
Greece  ? 

Into  this  trisection  we  shall  .decompose  the  coarse 
unity  of  the  question  presented  by  Van  Dale  and  his 
Vandals,  as  though  the  one  sole  issue, that  could 
be  sent  down  for  trial  before  a  jury,  were  the  likeli- 
hoods of  fraud  and  gross  swindling.  It  is  not  with 
the  deceptions  or  collusions  of  the  Oracles,  as  mere 
matters  of  fact,  that  we  in  this  age  are  primarily  con- 
cerned, but  with  those  deceptions  as  they  affected 
the  contemporary  people  of  Greece.  It  is  important 
to  know  whether  the  general  faith  of  Greece  in  the 
mysterious  pretensions  of  Oracles  were  unsettled  or 
disturbed  by  the  several  agencies  at  work  that  natu- 
rally tended  to  rouse  suspicion  ;  such,  for  instance, 
as  these  four  which  follow:  —  1.  Eminent  instances 
of  scepticism  with  regard  to  the  oracular  powers, 
from  time  to  time  circulating  through  Greece  in  the 
Bhape  of  bon  mots ;  or,  2,  which  silently  amounted 
to  the  same  virtual  expression  of  distrust,  Refusals 
(often  more  speciously  wearing  the  name  of  neglects) 
to  consult  the  proper  Oracle  on  some  hazardous  en- 
terprize  of  general  notoriety  and  interest ;  3.  Cases 
cf  direct  failure  in  the  event,  as  understood  to  have 


504 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLEg. 


been  predicted  by  the  Oracle,  not  unfrequently 
accompanied  by  tragical  catastrophes  to  the  parties 
misled  by  this  erroneous  construction  of  the  Oracle  ; 
4.  (which  is,  perhaps,  the  climax  of  the  exposures 
possible  under  the  superstitions  of  Paganism),  A  pub- 
lic detection  of  known  oracular  temples  doing  busi- 
ness on  a  considerable  scale,  as  accomplices  with 
felons. 

Modern  appraisers  of  the  oracular  establishments 
are  too  commonly  in  all  moral  senses  anachronists. 
We  hear  it  alleged  with  some  plausibility  against 
Southey's  portrait  of  Don  Roderick,  though  other- 
wise conceived  in  a  spirit  proper  for  bringing  out 
the  whole  sentiment  of  his  pathetic  situation,^  that 
the  king  is  too  Protestant,  and  too  evangelical,  after 
the  model  of  1800,  in  his  modes  of  penitential  piety. 
The  poet,  in  short,  reflected  back  upon  one  who  was 
too  certain  in  the  eighth  century  to  have  been  the 
victim  of  dark  popish  superstitions,  his  own  pure  and 
enlightened  faith.  But  the  anachronistic  spirit  in 
which  modern  sceptics  react  upon  the  Pagan  Oracles 
is  not  so  elevating  as  the  English  poet^s.  Southey 
reflected  his  own  superiority  upon  the  Gothic  prince 
of  Spain.  But  the  sceptics  reflect  their  own  vulgar 
habits  of  mechanic  and  compendious  office  business 
upon  the  large  institutions  of  the  ancient  Oracles. 
To  satisfy  them,  the  Oracle  should  resemble  a  modern 
coach-office  —  where  undoubtedly  you  would  suspect 
fraud,  if  the  question  ''How  far  to  Derby?'*'  were 
answered  evasively,  or  if  the  grounds  of  choice 
between  two  roads  were  expressed  enigmatically. 
But  the  TO  lotoi'^  or  mysterious  indirectness  of  the 
Oracle,  was  calculated  far  more  to  support  the  imag 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


505 


inutive  grandeur  of  the  unseen  God,  and  was  de- 
signed to  do  so,  than  to  relieve  the  individual  suitor 
in  a  perplexity  seldom  of  any  capital  importance. 
In  this  way  every  oracular  answer  operated  upon  the 
local  Grecian  neighborhood  in  which  it  circulated  as 
one  of  the  impulses  which,  from  time  to  time,  re- 
newed the  sense  of  a  mysterious  involution  in  the 
invisible  powers,  as  though  they  were  incapable  of 
direct  correspondence  or  parallelism  with  the  mo- 
notony and  slight  compass  of  human  ideas.  As  the 
symbolic  dancers  of  the  ancients,  who  narrated  an 
elaborate  story,  Saltando  Hecuham,  or  SaUando  Loa- 
damiam,  interwove  the  passion  of  the  advancing 
incidents  into  the  intricacies  of  the  figure  —  some- 
thing in  the  same  way,  it  was  understood  by  all  men, 
that  the  Oracle  did  not  so  much  evade  the  difficulty 
by  a  dark  form  of  words,  as  he  revealed  his  own 
hieroglyphic  nature.  All  prophets,  the  true  equally 
with  the  false,  have  felt  the  instinct  for  surrounding 
themselves  with  the  majesty  of  darkness.  And  in  a 
religion  like  the  Pagan,  so  deplorably  meagre  and 
starved  as  to  most  of  the  draperies  connected  with 
the  mysterious  and  sublime,  we  must  not  seek  to 
diminish  its  already  scanty  wardrobe.  But  let  us 
pass  from  speculation  to  illustrative  anecdotes.  We 
have  imagined  several  cases  which  might  seem  fitted 
for  giving  a  shock  to  the  general  Pagan  confidence 
in  Oracles.    Let  us  review  them. 

The  first  is  the  case  of  any  memorable  scepticism 
published  in  a  pointed  or  witty  form  ;  as  Demosthe- 
nes avowed  his  suspicions  ^'that  the  Oracle  was 
Philippizing.'^  This  was  about  344  years  B.  C. 
Exactly  one  hundred  years  earlier,  in  the  444th  year 


50G 


THE  PAGAN  OKACLES. 


B.  C,  or  the  locus  of  Pericles,  Herodotus  (then  forty 
years  old)  is  universally  supposed  to  have  read, 
which  for  Mm  was  publishing,  his  history.  In  this 
work  two  insinuations  of  the  same  kind  occur :  dur- 
ing the  invasion  of  Darius  the  Mede  (about  490  B.  C. ) 
the  Oracle  was  charged  with  Medizing ;  and  in  the 
previous  period  of  Pisistratus  (about  565  B.  C.)  the 
Oracle  had  been  almost  convicted  of  Alcmoeonidizwg, 
The  Oracle  concerned  was  the  same, — namely,  the 
DelphiC;  —  in  all  three  cases.  In  the  case  of  Darius, 
fear  was  the  ruling  passion  ;  in  the  earlier  case,  a 
near  self-interest,  but  not  in  a  base  sense  selfish. 
The  AlcmoeonidaB,  an  Athenian  house  hostile  to 
Pisistratus,  being  exceedingly  rich,  had  engaged  to 
rebuild  the  ruined  temple  of  the  Oracle  ;  and  had 
fulfilled  their  promise  with  a  munificence  outrunning 
the  letter  of  their  professions,  particularly  with 
regard  to  the  quality  of  marble  used  in  facing  or 
''veneering'^  the  front  elevation.  Now,  these  sen- 
tentious and  rather  witty  expressions  gave  wings 
and  buoyancy  to  the  public  suspicions,  so  as  to  make 
them  fly  from  one  end  of  Greece  to  the  other ;  and 
they  continued  in  lively  remembrance  for  centuries. 
Our  answer  we  reserve  until  we  have  illustrated  the 
other  heads. 

In  the  second  case,  namely,  that  of  sceptical 
slights  shown  to  the  Oracle,  there  are  some  memora- 
ble precedents  on  record.  Everybody  knows  the 
ridiculous  stratagem  of  Croesus,  the  Lydian  king,  for 
trying  the  powers  of  the  Oracle,  by  a  monstrous 
culinary  arrangement  of  pots  and  pans,  known  (as 
he  fancied)  only  to  himself.  Generally  the  course 
T>f  the  Delphic  Oracle  under  similar  insults  was  — 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


507 


u  armly  lo  resent  them.  But  Croesus,  as  a  king,  a 
foreigner,  and  a  suitor  of  unexampled  munificence^ 
was  privileged;  especially  because  the  ministers  of 
the  Delphic  temple  had  doubtless  found  it  easy  to 
extract  the  secret  by  bribery  from  some  one  of  the 
royal  mission.  A  case,  however,  much  more  inter- 
esting, because  arising  between  two  leading  states 
of  Greece,  and  in  the  century  subsequent  to  the 
ruder  age  of  Croesus  (who  was  about  coeval  with 
Pisistratus,  555  B.  C),  is  reported  by  Xenophon  of 
the  Lacedsemonians  and  Thebans.  They  concluded 
a  treaty  of  peace  without  any  communication,  not 
so  much  as  a  civil  notification  to  the  Oracle  ;  to)  i^ibv 

©6(1)  ovhev  iKOLVMaavTO,  ottwc  rj  elp^qvr)  yevoLTO  —  tO  the 
god  (the  Delphic  god)  they  made  no  communication 
at  all  as  to  the  terms  of  the  peace  ;  avrot  8e  ifSovXevovTo, 
but  they  personally  pursued  their  negotiations  in 
private.  That  this  was  a  very  extraordinary  reach 
of  presumption,  is  evident  from  the  care  of  Xeno- 
phon in  bringing  it  before  his  readers  ;  it  is  probable, 
indeed,  that  neither  of  the  high  contracting  parties 
had  really  acted  in  a  spirit  of  religious  indifference, 
though  it  is  remarkable  of  the  Spartans,  that  of  all 
Greek  tribes  they  were  the  most  facile  and  numerous 
delinquents  under  all  varieties  of  foreign  temptations 
to  revolt  from  their  hereditary  allegiance  —  a  fact 
which  measures  the  degree  of  unnatural  constraint 
and  tension  which  the  Spartan  usages  involved  ;  but 
in  this  case  we  rather  account  for  the  p-ublic  outrage 
to  religion  and  universal  usage,  by  a  strong  political 
jealousy  lest  the  provisions  of  the  treaty  should 
transpire  prematurely  amongst  states  adjacent  to 
Boeotia —  a  point  forgotten  by  Xenophon. 


508 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


Whatever,  meantime,  were  the  secret  motive  to 
this  policy,  it  did  not  fail  to  shock  all  Greece  pro- 
foundly. And,  in  a  slighter  degree,  the  same  effect 
upon  public  feeling  followed  the  act  of  Agesipolis, 
who,  after  obtaining  an  answer  from  the  Oracle  of 
Delphi,  carried  forward  his  suit  to  the  more  awfully 
.ancient  Oracle  of  Dodona  ;  by  way  of  trying,  as  he 
alleged,  whether  the  child  agreed  with  its  papa/^ 
These  open  expressions  of  distrust  were  generally 
condemned ;  and  the  irresistible  proof  that  they 
were,  lies  in  the  fact  that  they  led  to  no  imita- 
tions. Even  in  a  case  mentioned  by  Herodotus, 
when  a  man  had  the  audacity  to  found  a  colony 
without  seeking  an  oracular  sanction,  no  precedent 
was  established  ;  though  the  journey  to  Delphi  must 
often  have  been  peculiarly  inconvenient  to  the  found- 
ers of  colonies  moving  westwards  from  Greece  ;  and 
the  expenses  of  such  a  journey,  with  the  subsequent 
offerings,  could  not  but  prove  unseasonable  at  the 
moment  when  every  drachma  was  most  urgently 
needed.  Charity  begins  at  home,  was  a  thought 
quite  as  likely  to  press  upon  a  Pagan  conscience,  in 
those  circumstances,  as  upon  our  modern  Christian 
consciences  under  heavy  taxation ;  yet,  for  all  that; 
such  was  the  regard  to  a  pious  inauguration  of  all 
colonial  enterprises,  that  no  one  provision  or  pledge 
of  prosperity  was  held  equally  indispensable  by  all 
parties  to  such  hazardous  speculations.  The  merest 
worldly  foresight,  indeed,  to  the  most  irreligious 
leader,  would  suggest  this  sanction  as  a  necessity, 
nnder  the  following  reason  :  —  colonies  the  most  en- 
viably prosperous  upon  the  whole,  have  yet  had 
many  hardships  to  contend  with  in  their  noviciate  of 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


509 


the  first  five  years  ;  were  it  only  from  the  summer 
failure  of  water  under  circumstances  of  local  igno-  * 
ranee,  or  from  the  casual  failure  of  crops  under  im 
perfect  arrangements  of  culture.  Now,  the  one 
great  qualification  for  wrestling  strenuously  with 
such  difficult  contingencies  in  solitary  situations,  is 
the  spirit  of  cheerful  hope  ;  but,  when  any  room  had 
been  left  for  apprehending  a  supernatural  curse  rest- 
ing upon  their  efforts  —  equally  in  the  most  thought- 
fully pious  man  and  the  most  crazily  superstitious  — 
all  spirit  of  hope  would  be  blighted  at  once  ;  and  the 
religious  neglect  would,  even  in  a  common  human 
way,  become  its  own  certain  executor,  through  mere 
depression  of  spirits  and  misgiving  of  expectations. 
Well,  therefore,  might  Cicero  in  a  tone  of  defiance 
demand,  ^'  Quam  vero  Grsecia  coloniam  misit  in  JEto- 
liam,  loniam,  Asiam,  Siciliam,  Italiam,  sine  Pythio 
(the  Delphic),  aut  Dodonseo,  aut  Haminonis  orac- 
ulo  ?  An  oracular  sanction  must  be  had,  and  from 
a  leading  oracle  —  the  three  mentioned  by  Cicero 
were  the  greatest ;  *  and,  if  a  minor  oracle  could 
have  satisfied  the  inaugurating  necessities  of  - a  regu- 
lar colony,  we  may  be  sure  that  the  Dorian  states  of 
the  Peloponnesus,  who  had  twenty-five  decent  ora- 
cles at  home  (that  is,  within  the  peninsula),  would 
not  so  constantly  have  carried  their  money  to  Del- 
phi. Nay,  it  is  certain  that  even  where  the  colonial 
counsels  of  the  greater  oracles  seemed  extravagant, 
though  a  large  discretion  was  allowed  to  remon- 
strance, and  even  to  very  homely  expostulations, 

*  To  which  at  one  time  must  be  added,  as  of  equal  rank,  the  Oracla 
of  the  Branchides,  in  Asia  Minor.  But  this  had  been  destroyed  by 
the  Persians,  in  retaliation  of  the  Athenian  outrages  at  Sardis. 


510 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


Btill,  in  the  last  resort,  no  doubts  were  felt  that  the 
oracle  must  be  right.  Brouwer,  the  Belgic  scholar, 
who  has  so  recently  and  so  temperately  treated 
these  subjects  (Histoire  de  la  Civilisation  Morale  et 
Religieuse  chez  les  Grecs  :  6  tomes  ;  Groningue  — 
1840),  alleges  a  case  (which,  however,  we  do  not 
remember  to  have  met)  where  the  client  ventured  to 
object :  —  Mon  roi  Ajyollon,  je  crois  que  tu  es  four 
But  cases  are  obvious  which  look  this  way,  though 
not  going  so  far  as  to  chargr  lunacy  upon  the  lord 
of  prophetic  vision.  Battus^  who  was  destined  to  be 
the  eldest  father  of  Cyrene,  so  memorable  as  the  first 
ground'"^^  of  Greek  intercourse  with  the  African  shore 
of  the  Mediterranean,  never  consulted  the  Delphic 
Oracle  in  reference  to  his  eyes,  which  happened  to 
be  diseased,  but  that  he  was  admonished  to  prepare 
for  colonizing  Libya. —  Grant  me  patience, would 
Battus  reply;  ''here  am  I  getting  into  years,  and 
never  do  I  consult  the  Oracle  about  my  precious 
sight,  but  you.  King  Phoebus,  begin  your  old  yarn 
about  Cyrene.  Confound  Cyrene  !  Nobody  knows 
where  it  is.  But,  if  you  are  serious,  speak  to  my 
son  —  he's  a  likely  young  man,  and  worth  a  hun- 
dred of  old  rotten  hulks,  like  myself  Battus  was 
provoked  in  good  earnest ;  and  it  is  well  known  that 
the  whole  scheme  went  to  sleep  for  several  years, 
until  King  Phoebus  sent  in  a  gentle  refresher  to  Bat- 
tus and  his  islanders,  in  the  shape  of  failing  crops, 
pestilence,  and  his  ordinary  chastisements.  The 
oeople  were  roused  —  the  colony  was  founded  —  and, 
after  utter  failure,  was  again  re-founded,  and  the 
results  justified  the  Oracle.  But,  in  all  such  cases, 
and  where  the  remonstrances  were  least  respectful. 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


511 


or  where  the  resistance  of  inertia  was  longest,  we 
differ  altogether  from  M.  Brouwer  in  his  belief,  that 
the  suitors  fancied  Apollo  to  have  gone  distracted. 
If  they  ever  said  so,  this  must  have  been  merely  by 
way  of  putting  the  Oracle  on  its  mettle,  and  calling 
forth  some  plainer  —  not  any  essentially  different  — 
answer  from  the  enigmatic  god  ;  for  there  it  was 
that  the  doubts  of  the  clients  settled,  and  on  that  it 
was  the  practical  demurs  hinged.  Not  because  even 
Battas,  vexed  as  he  was  about  his  precious  eyesight, 
distrusted  the  Oracle,  but  because  he  felt  sure  that 
the  Oracle  had  not  spoken  out  freely  ;  therefore,  had 
he  and  many  others  in  similar  circumstances  pre- 
sumed to  delay.  A  second  edition  was  what  they 
waited  for,  corrected  and  enlarged.  We  have  a 
memorable  instance  of  this  policy  in  the  Athenian 
envoys,  v/ho,  upon  receiving  a  most  ominous  doom, 
but  obscurely  expressed,  from  the  Delphic  Oracle, 
which  politely  concluded  by  saying,  ''And  so  get 
oat,  you  vagabonds,  from  my  temple  —  donH  cum- 
b(;r  my  decks  any  longer  ;  were  advised  to  answer 
sturdily  —  "  No  !  —  we  shall  not  get  out  —  we  mean 
to  sit  here  forever,  until  you  think  proper  to  give  us 
a  more  reasonable  reply. Upon  which  spirited 
rejoinder,  the  Pythia  saw  the  policy  of  revising  her 
truly  brutal  rescript  as  it  had  stood  origin  ally 

The  necessity,  indeed,  was  strong  for  not  acqui- 
escing in  the  Oracle,  until  it  had  become  clearer  by 
revision  or  by  casual  illustrations,  as  will  be  seen 
even  under  our  next  head.  This  head  concerns  the 
case  of  those  who  found  themselves  deceived  by  the 
i^mnt  of  any  oracular  prediction.  As  usual,  there  is 
I  Spartan  case  of  this  nature.    Cleomenes  com- 


512 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


plained  bitterly  that  the  Oracle  of  Delphi  had  dl^ 
luded  him  by  holding  out  as  a  possibility,  and  under 
given  conditions  as  a  certainty,  that  he  should  pos- 
sess himself  of  Argos.  But  the  Oracle  was  justified : 
there  was  an  inconsiderable  place  outside  the  walls 
of  Argos  which  bore  the  same  name.  Most  readers 
will  remember  the  case  of  Cambyses,  who  had  been 
assured  by  a  legion  of  oracles  that  he  should  die  at 
Ecbatana.  Suffering,  therefore,  in  Syria  from  a 
scratch  inflicted  upon  his  thigh  by  his  own  sabre, 
whilst  angrily  sabring  a  ridiculous  quadruped  whom 
the  Egyptian  priests  had  put  forward  as  a  god,  he 
felt  quite  at  his  ease  so  long  as  he  remembered  his 
vast  distance  from  the  mighty  capital  of  Media,  to 
the  eastward  of  the  Tigris.  The  scratch,  however, 
inflamed,  for  his  intemperance  had  saturated  his 
system  with  combustible  matter ;  the  inflammation 
spread  ;  the  pulse  ran  high  :  and  he  began  to  feel 
twinges  of  alarm.  At  length  mortification  com- 
menced :  but  still  he  trusted  to  the  old  prophecy 
about  Ecbatana,  when  suddenly  a  horrid  discovery 
was  made  —  that  the  very  Syrian  village  at  his  own 
head-quarters  was  known  by  the  pompous  name  of 
Ecbatana.  Josephus  tells  a  similar  story  of  some 
man  contemporary  with  Herod  the  Great.  And  we 
must  all  remember  that  case  in  Shakspeare,  where 
the  first  king  of  the  red  rose,  Henry  lY.,  had  long 
fancied  his  destiny  to  be  that  he  should  meet  his 
death  in  Jerusalem  ;  which  naturally  did  not  quicken 
his  zeal  for  becoming  a  crusader.  All  time 
enough,'^  doubtless  he  used  to  say;  ''no  hurry  at 
all,  gentlemen  !  But  at  length,  finding  himself 
pronounced  by  tne  doctor  ripe  for  dying,  it  became 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


513 


a  question  whether  the  prophet  were  a  false  prophet, 
or  the  doctor  a  false  doctor.  However,  in  such  a 
case,  it  is  something  to  have  a  collision  of  opinions 
—  a  prophet  against  a  doctor.  But,  behold,  it  soon 
transpired  that  there  was  no  collision  at  all.  It  was 
the  Jerusalem  chamber,  occupied  by  the  king  as  a 
bed-room,  to  which  the  prophet  had  alluded.  Upon 
which  his  majesty  reconciled  himself  at  once  to  the 
ugly  necessity  at  hand  — 

In  that  Jerusalem  shaU  Harry  die." 

The  last  case  —  that  of  oracular  establishments 
turning  out  to  be  accomplices  of  thieves  —  is  one 
which  occurred  in  Egypt  on  a  scale  of  some  extent ; 
and  is  noticed  by  Herodotus.  This  degradation 
argued  great  poverty  in  the  particular  temples  :  and 
it  is  not  at  all  improbable  that,  amongst  a  hundred 
Grecian  Oracles,  some,  under  a  similar  temptation, 
would  fall  into  a  similar  disgrace. 

But  now,  as  regards  even  this  lowest  extremity 
of  infamy,  much  more  as  regards  the  qualified  sort 
of  disrepute  .attending  the  three  minor  cases,  one 
single  distinction  puts  all  to  rights.  The  Greeks 
never  confounded  the  temple,  and  household  of  offi- 
cers attached  to  the  temple  service,  with  the  dark 
functions  of  the  presiding  god.  In  Delphi,  besides 
the  Pythia  and  priests,  with  their  train  of  subordi- 
nate ministe-rs  directly  billeted  on  the  temple,  there 
^ere  two  orders  of  men  outside,  Delphic  citizens, 
one  styled  J^igeig^  the  other  styled  "Oawi,  —  a  sort  of 
honorary  members,  whose  duty  was  probably  inter 
alia,  to  attach  themselves  to  persons  of  correspond- 
vng  rank  in  the  retinues  of  the  envoys  or  consulting 

33 


514 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


clients,  and  doubtless  to  collect  from  them,  in  con- 
vivial moments,  all  the  secrets  or  general  information 
which  the  temple  required  for  satisfactory  answers. 
If  they  personally  went  too  far  in  their  intrigues  or 
stratagems  of  deccy,  the  disgrace  no  more  recoiled 
on  the  god,  than,  in  modern  times,  the  vices  or 
crimes  of  a  priest  can  affect  the  pure  religion  at 
whose  altars  he  officiates. 

Meantime,  through  these  outside  ministers  — 
though  unaffected  by  their  follies  or  errors  as  tre- 
panners  —  the  Oracle  of  Delphi  drew  that  vast  and 
comprehensive  information,  from  every  local  nook  or 
recess  of  Greece,  which  made  it  in  the  end  a  blessing 
to  the  land.  The  great  error  is,  to  suppose  the 
majority  of  cases  laid  before  the  Delphic  Oracle 
strictly  questions  for  projyhelic  functions.  Ninety- 
nine  in  a  hundred  respected  marriages,  state-treaties, 
sales,  purchases,  founding  of  towns  or  colonies,  &c., 
which  demanded  no  faculty  whatever  of  divination, 
but  the  nobler  faculty  (though  unpresumptuous)  of 
sagacity,  that  calculates  the  natural  consequences 
of  human  acts,  cooperating  with  elaborate  investiga- 
tion of  the  local  circumstances.  If,  in  any  paper  on 
the  general  civilization  of  Greece  (that  great  mother 
of  civilization  for  all  the  world),  we  should  ever 
attempt  to  trace  this  element  of  Oracles,  it  will  not 
be  difficult  to  prove  that  Delphi  discharged  the  office 
of  a  central  bureau  administration ^  a  general  depot 
of  political  information,  an  organ  of  universal  combi- 
nation for  the  counsels  of  the  whole  Grecian  race. 
A  nd  that  which  caused  the  declension  of  the  Oracles 
was  the  loss  of  political  independence  and  autonomy. 
After  Alexander,  still  more  after  the  Eoman  con- 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


515 


.pest,  each  separate  state,  having  no  powers  and  no  mo- 
tive for  asking  counsel  on  state  measures,  naturally  con- 
fined itself  more  and  more  to  its  humbler  local  interests 
of  police,  or  even  at  last  to  its  family  arrangements.^^ 

In  drawing  towards  a  close  upon  the  great  institu- 
tion  of  Oracles,  I  would  wish  to  point  the  reader's 
attention  to  a  feature  of  strong  analogy  between  these 
mysterious  incorporations  and  that  great  modern  prod- 
uct of  high  civilization  —  the  Banking  system.  Had 
the  ancients  any  banks^  or  any  apology  for  banks  ? 
Formally  and  directly  they  certainly  had  not ;  but  in- 
directly they  had  an  imperfect  representative  of  our 
banks.  What  v^^as  it  ?  First  let  me  ask  —  What  is  tlje 
primary  and  elementary  function  of  a  bank  —  of  a  good, 
honest,  hard-vv^orking,  industrious  bank  ?  Yixere  Bank- 
ers ante  Agamemnona.  But  their  task  was  simpler  ;  it 
was  —  merely  to  take  care  of  a  man's  money  wheii  he 
could  not  take  care  of  it  himself.  What,  because  he 
was  drunk  ?  Oh,  no  :  but  because  housebreakers  [family- 
men,  as  they  are  called  in  our  flash  dictionaries]  were 
in  Greece  and  circumjacent  regions  far  too  plentiful. 
They  swarmed  in  all  quarters  of  needy  Greece. 

What  an  invitation  to  you  and  me,  when  speculating 
for  a  rise  in  our  respective  capitals,  to  suspect  a  supper 
table  left  by  the  sleeping  family  to  take  care  of  itself  and 
also  of  all  the  family  plate,  with  a  perfect  knowledge 
on  our  parts  that  as  small  a  tool  as  a  mason's  trowel 
Tvill  introduce  us  in  six  minutes  to  that  same  abandoned 
supper-tray.  The  word  tolx^j^pvxo^,  literally  wall-borer, 
or  TO  1)^(1) pvKTYj^,  wali-underminer,  the  Greek  name  for  a 
house-breaker,  indicates  the  brief  process  through  which 
the  Attic  burglar  seduced  and  eloped  with  another 


516 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


man's  too  charming  plate.  The  artist  had  but  to  exca- 
vate a  peck  or  two  of  earth  with  his  trowel ;  a  rabbit's 
burrow  was  large  enough  ;  this  he  soon  improved  and 
widened,  using  his  own  body  as  a  gimlet ;  and  very  soon 
he  had  gimleted  himself  down  amongst  the  family  rats. 
Then  making  free  to  borrow  a  rat-hole  for  a  minute, 
and  lying  on  his  back,  he  soon  whittled  2iyf2(,j  or  chiselled 
away  the  slight  piece  of  carious  flooring  that  divided 
him  from  the  beautiful  object  (whether  gold  or  silver) 
that  enamored  him.  Between  Greece  and  Kome,  in 
this  point,  how  vast  the  difference  !  In  Rome  the  houses 
w^ere  built  for  eternity  —  twelve  to  twenty  thousand 
pounds  sterling  was  no  uncommon  cost,  I  believe,  for 
the  mansion  of  a  senator.  In  Athens  it  is  notorious 
that  the  houses  of  citizens  the  most  distinguished,  Milti- 
ades,  and  soon  afterwards  of  Themistocles,  were  little 
better  than  hovels.  And  although  it  is  true  that  in 
forty  years  more,  when  the  star  of  Pericles  began  to 
dawn  upon  Athens,  the  houses  showed  symptoms  of 
improvement,  nevertheless,  being  still  built  of  slight  and 
frail  materials,  they  continued  to  rest  on  no  massier  or 
deeper  foundations  than  does  at  this  day  a  Scotch  High- 
land bothy.  Stakes  or  poles,  hand-driven  into  the 
ground,  formed  their  whole  support  —  not  at  all  stronger 
than  the  pegs  which  hold  down  the  draperies  of  a  sol- 
dier's tent.  This  it  was  —  viz.,  the  make-shift  foundation 
—  which  so  powerfully  facilitated  the  art,  or  "  profes- 
sion "  (as  I  find  it  called  by  one  lexicographer)  of  the 
housebreaker.  In  fact  the  art  might  be  viewed  as  a 
mode  of  diving  ;  the  Attic  burglar  dived  into  the  earth 
on  the  outside  of  the  walls,  and  coming  up  on  the  other 
side,  found  himself  comfortably  seated  in  grand-mam- 
ma's easy  chair.    And  whilst  the  access  was  thus  easy 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


517 


at  Athens,  was  thus  impossible  at  Rome,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  burglars  in  the  former  land  swarmed  like 
flies  in  a  hot  August  with  us,  and  in  the  latter  were 
rare  as  hornets.  With  robbery  a  thousand  times 
easier,  and  a  thousand  times  more  plentiful  —  rea- 
son enough  there  was  in  Athens  for  banks  to  take 
charge  of  a  man's  money.  And  banks,  therefore,  of 
the  very  strongest  construction  the  Greeks  had,  banks 
that  could  stand  a  military  siege,  and  sometimes  did. 
But  what  was  the  name  of  these  banks  ?  The  name  ? 
Why,  the  name  of  these  banks  was  temples.  Upon 
a  two-fold  consideration,  temples  were  eligible  as 
banks.  In  the  first  place,  any  temple  whatsoever, 
being  regarded  as  a  monument  of  reverence  and  grat- 
itude to  a  divinity,  was  naturally  made  as  splendid 
as  the  disposable  funds  would  allow.  Marble,  there- 
fore, or  stone  at  the  least,  was  used  in  constructing 
the  walls  and  porticoes.  But  the  great  weight  of  mar- 
ble and  stone  obliged  the  architects  to  lay  them  upon 
deep  foundations.  Hence  it  happened  that,  in  such 
altered  circumstances,  the  alliance  of  a  rat,  and  the 
loan  of  a  rat  hole,  went  but  a  little  way  towards  a  pros- 
perous burglary.  But  there  was  even  a  deeper  pro- 
tection to  a  temple.  Being  placed  under  the  tutelary 
care  of  a  divinity  the  building  enjoyed  the  prestige 
of  consecration.  And  this  kept  the  most  audacious 
burglar  at  a  distance.  His  trade  was  hopeless,  he  well 
knew  that,  against  walls  so  impregnable ;  and,  had  it 
been  otherwise,  the  burglar  feared  a  pursuing  curse  if 
he  robbed  a  temple  of  any  peculiar  sanctity  ;  he  would 
as  little  dally  with  any  such  dangerous  purpose  as  a 
Spanish  Jlibustier  would  have  joined  an  English  buc- 
caneer in  pillaging  a  shrine  of  the  Virgin.  With  power 


518 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


ten  times  multiplied  did  these  grounds  of  strength 
apply  to  an  oracular  temple;  most  of  all  to  Delphi  — 
known  to  all  princes  that  were  themselves  known.  It 
is  not  surprising,  therefore,  that  Delphi  should  have 
become  the  consecrated  depot  for  incalculable  property 
through  many  generations.  And  if  the  reputation  of 
wealth  so  enormous  drew  upon  that  temple  and  town 
occasional  threats,  or  even  assaults  from  a  distance,  no 
losses  arising  in  this  way  could  counterbalance,  by  a 
thousandth  part,  the  vast  amount  of  conservative  aid 
that  this  temple  must,  in  so  many  generations,  have 
dispensed;  for  Delphi  must  have  been  viewed  as  cen- 
tral to  Greece,  to  the  Grecian  Islands,  in  later  days  to 
Macedon,  Epirus,  Thrace,  and  (in  Asia  Minor)  to 
regions  stretching  all  the  way  to  the  Euphrates. 

As  a  bank  of  deposit,  therefore,  Delphi  and  its  illus- 
trious temple  discharged  a  most  weighty  class  of  ser- 
vices ;  and  with  this  class  at  least  Christianity  could 
have  had  no  wish  to  interfere.  No  rivalship  could  here 
be  imagined ;  no  crossing  of  purposes  ;  no  collision  of 
interests.  So  far  it  is  not  any  service  offering  analo- 
gies to  the  modern  services  of  banks  that  Delphi  might 
have  claimed  ;  it  was  the  direct,  undeniable,  and  ele- 
mentary service  that  any  and  every  bank  does  or  can 
perform.  The  service  done  was  not  of  a  nature  to  in- 
volve any  social  refinements ;  it  was  plain  and  homely 
as  a  cudgel ;  and  in  fact  very  like  a  cudgel ;  for  one  of 
the  best  uses  which  the  learned  have  yet  discovered  in 
a  cudgel  is  its  tendency  to  mount  guard  effectually 
apon  a  man's  pockets  ;  and  precisely  that  use  was  ren- 
dered in  perfection  by  the  temple  of  the  Oracle  at  Del- 
phi. A  bank,  which  could  not  be  stormed  by  Brennus 
and  his  Gauls,  was  manifestly  in  no  danger  from  the 
rotx«>pvX^s  and  his  trowel. 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


519 


But  mere  security,  though  a  great  point  to  achieve 
in  a  community  where  hardly  anything  was  safe  from 
moths  that  corrupt,  or  from  thieves  that  break  through 
and  steal,  was  yet  far  from  approaching  that  mysterious 
discovery  as  to  the  powers  of  capital,  which  to  all  man- 
kind, for  many  a  long  century,  seemed  to  involve  an 
impossibility.  The  exquisite  silliness  of  the  ancient 
doctrine  —  "that  money  doth  not  breed  money"  — 
that  one  gold  or  silver  coin  was  never  known,  in  any  ^ 
natural  process  of  generation,  to  produce  another  gold 
or  silver  coin,  gagged  the  utterance,  blindfolded  the 
eyes,  paralyzed  the  understanding  of  man  through 
much  more  than  a  thousand  years.  From  this  doc- 
trine it  seemed  (in  the  eyes  of  our  worthy  and  most 
stupid  ancestors)  to  radiate  as  the  most  irresistible  of 
inferences  —  that,  if  any  man  drew  a  profit,  a  some- 
thing extra,  from  the  employment  of  his  money,  that 
profit  must  take  its  rise  in  some  unlawful  source.  The 
most  obvious  explanation  was,  that  it  arose  in  fraud. 
In  some  way  the  man  must  have  cheated.  This,  as 
most  people  know,  was  the  theory  of  Cicero.  A  man 
must  lie,  and  must  lie  pretty  strongly  \_admodum~\,  in 
Ms  opinion,  before  he  could  reap  any  gain  whatever  — 
the  least  or  most  shadowy  —  from  a  commercial  trans- 
action. And  if  Cicero  had  been  made  to  understand 
that  the  distinction  between  buyer  and  seller  was  imag- 
inary, that  a  buyer  was  necessarily  a  seller  —  a  seller 
necessarily  a  buyer,  and  that  in  every  transaction  of  ex- 
change —  the  two  parties,  the  party  on  each  side,  might 
gain  simultaneously,  might  gain  equally,  and  not  by 
any  metaphysical  trick  of  words,  but  by  a  gain  expres- 
sible in  money  —  he  would  probably,  in  excess  of 
«7rath,  have  assaulted  his  opponent    Any  use  of  cap- 

i 


520 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


ital  that  should  imply  such  doctrines  would,  in  the 
Grecian  stage  of  civilization,  have  been  impossible. 
Yet,  why  ?  Simply  because  all  such  uses  waited  for 
other  concurrent  agencies,  which  must  meet  in  combi- 
nation before  their  last  potential  results  could  be  devel- 
oped. From  that  Grecian  stage  of  social  progress,  in 
which  the  showy  religion  of  men,  and  the  pomps  of 
their  gay  mythologies,  had  put  forth  their  uttermost 
strength  in  the  stationary  grandeur  of  temples  and  the 
scenical  beauty  of  processions,  let  us  leap  by  a  flight 
across  forty  generations  to  that  modern  period  when 
the  bank  of  Venice,  of  Amsterdam,  &c.,  had  implied 
as  a  cause,  and  had  promoted  as  an  effect,  that  new 
birth  in  the  science  of  capital  and  its  uses  which  the 
world  has  now  gazed  upon  for 'three  centuries  and  up- 
wards a,s  a  gorgeous  spectacle  towering  to  the  clouds 
by  its  multitudinous  creations.  From  this  grand  sta- 
tion, commanding  both  stages  —  the  infancy  and  the 
maturity  —  of  the  banking  economy,  and  connecting 
them  into  one  field  of  retrospect,  let  us  ask  what  it  is 
in  the  upshot  that  has  been  gained  ?  In  the  Grecian 
infancy  of  its  power,  moneyed  power  (as  regards  the 
western  regions  of  the  ancient  world)  was  first  of  all 
made  safe.  The  temples  (and  probably  in  many  in- 
stances under  dim  anticipations  of  future  Persian  inva- 
sions, or  even  of  tumultuary  invasions  by  mere  Scyth- 
ian, German,  or  Gaulish  savages)  were  built  with  the 
strength  of  fortresses  ;  not  meant  for  the  security  of 
money,  these  massy  temples  had  not  the  less  benefited 
money.  In  that  cradle  of  European  culture,  under  the 
double  protection  of  martial  power  and  of  religion,  first 
of  all  we  beheld  the  great  productive  power  of  prop- 
erty, as  yet,  indeed,  most  slenderly  applied  to  produc 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


621 


tion,  but  still  reposing  in  absolute  safety.  Under  all 
this  vast  advantage,  as  yet,  however,  it  slumbers  pas- 
sively, having  very  little  more  interest  for  society  than 
simpl}^  as  all  property,  however  little  employed  pro- 
ductively, nevertheless  (in  the  shape  of  expenditure  as 
an  income)  unavoidably  stimulates  production.  But  at 
the  modern  terminus  of  our  long  prospect  we  behold 
this  property  no  longer  inert  and  lifeless,  but  waking 
magically  into  a  twofold  life.  Money,  to  the  confusion 
of  the  incredulous,  now,  at  last,  is  found  to  produce 
money  ;  and  this  intolerable  paradox,  as  through  so 
long  a  period  it  has  been  held,  is  accomplished  often- 
times through  another  machinery  equally  paradoxical. 
Not  the  proprietor  of  the  money,  in  most  cases,  but  an 
alien  as  regards  any  natural  relations  to  the  money^ 
reaps  the  primary  benefits  from  the  property ;  and  out 
of  that  seeming  intrusion  into  another  man's  rights, 
first  of  all  it  becomes  possible  that  a  bank  should  create 
an  income  for  the  true  proprietor.  This  man's  share 
of  benefit  is  so  far  from  being  encroached  upon  by  the 
alien  employer  of  his  property,  that,  on  the  contrary, 
in  the-  innumerable  cases  where  the  owner  could  not 
himself  be  the  employer,  it  is  only  through  this  intru- 
sion of  an  alien  party  that  the  bank  carves  out  a  triple 
return  —  first,  for  itself ;  secondly,  for  the  commercial 
employer ;  thirdly,  for  the  sedentary  and  passive  pro- 
prietor. 

Pausing  for  an  instant,  let  us  review  the  methods 
through  which  the  bank  organizes  such  great  results. 
All  the  little  rills  and  runnels  of  surplus  income  scat- 
tered amongst  numerous  individuals,  which  in  an  un- 
commercial land  could  not  find  employment,  and  would 
ie  as  barren  accumulation  in  domestic  depositories, 


522 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


tempting  the  assaults  of  housebreakers,  are  converged 
by  banks  into  large  central  reservoirs,  from  which  they 
are  speedily  returned,  through  the  channels  of  many 
commercial  or  man ufac tuning  men,  into  the  vast  field 
of  productive  industry.  What  the  bank  does  is  essen- 
tially the  function  of  a  broker.  The  bank  brings  scat- 
tered interests  into  communication,  and  remote  inter- 
ests into  co*ntact.  Through  this  agency,  the  multitudes 
who  have  surplus  money,  and  would  be  glad  to  lend  it, 
under  any  sufficient  prospect  of  seeing  it  profitably 
employed,  are  brought  face  to  face  with  the  multitudes 
who  wish  to  extend  their  means  of  creating  such  profit- 
able employment.  And  now,  turning  back  to  the  great 
Oracular  Temple  of  Delphi,  we  may  trace  more  firmly 
and  luminously  the  direct  point  of  contact,  or  the  more 
indirect  and  remote  points  of  analogy,  which  connect 
the  Delphic  Temple  with  the  machineries  of  banking. 
In  the  early  and  elementary  stage  of  this  great  organ, 
we  notice  (as  I  remarked  above)  not  so  much  the  anal- 
ogy, as  the  direct  parity  or  identity  of  their  public  min- 
istrations. A  modern  bank  contemplates,  as  its  initial 
service,  the  safe-keeping  of  the  money  confided  to  its 
care.  The  bank  provides  a  strong  building,  rooms  spe- 
cially protected  against  burglars,  iron  safes,  proper  at- 
tendants, and  watchmen,  together  with  the  means  of 
rapid  and  authentic  intelligence  upon  questions  con- 
nected with  the  public  securities  of  the  national  treas- 
ury, &c.,  and  is  able  to  distribute  these  great  advan- 
tages amongst  an  immense  number  of  customers,  at  a 
cost  to  each  which  is  little  more  than  nominal.  The 
Delphic  Temple,  upon  terms  essentially  the  same,  but 
v^ery  much  more  costly,  indemnified  itself  for  the  abso- 
lute security  (both  in  its  English  and  its  Latin  sense)  ^ 
which  it  had  created. 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


523 


What  more  did  the  bank  of  Delphi  accomplish  to- 
wards the  development  of  the  banking  system,  than 
simply  to  make  it  safe  ?    Nothing.    Then  how  was  I 
entitled  to  say,  that  Delphi  &  Co.  exhibited  strong  fea- 
tures of  analogy  lo  our  existing  banks,  in  their  most 
improved  state  of  efficiency?    The  Bank  of  England 
at  this  day  is  prepared  to  stand  a  siege,  if  such  a  neces- 
sity should  arise,  only  I  fear  that  she  is  not  victualled ; 
she  has  not  laid  in  enough  of  biscuit.    However,  this 
is  the  uttermost  extent  of  her  martial  capacities ;  and 
Delphi  could  do  as  much,  besides  having  actually  done 
it.   But  what  further  lineaments  of  sisterly  resemblance 
do  we  trace  in  the  two  banks  ?    This  one  marked  ex- 
pression at  the  least  we  trace  —  viz.,  a  systematic  use 
of  brokerage  in  the  largest  extent ;  by  which  term 
"  brokerage "  I  understand  a  regular  and  known  ma- 
chinery for  bringing  into  practical  communication  with 
each  other  parties  that,  but  for  this  machinery,  were  too 
remote  to  have  learned  their  reciprocal  wants.  All  peo- 
ple of  rank  and  distinction,  throughout  Greece  and  its 
dependencies  or  adjacencies,  kept  up  a  respectful  inter- 
course with  Delphi ;  and  consequently  that  great  bank 
had  the  advantage  of  what  might  be  called  official  re- 
ports from  every  corner  of  Hellas  ;  and  (if  need  arose) 
of  reports  circumstantially  minute.    Was  a  high-born 
lady  with  ample  dowry  leading  a  solitary  life,  because 
no  suitor  of  corresponding  pretensions  existed  in  her 
own  neighborhood  ?    The  Oracle  had  a  ready  means 
for  transmitting  this  intelligence  to  a  remote  quarter, 
where  it  would  tell  effectually.    Was  a  call  for  coloni- 
zation becoming  clamorous  in  some  particular  region  ? 
What  more  beneficial,  or  what  more  easy,  than  for  the 
Oracle  to  forward  this  news  by  its  own  chaDnels  to  a 


524 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


tract  of  country  laboring  (through  causes  casual  or 
local)  under  an  excess  of  pauperized  population  ?  Or, 
if  a  chieftain  in  the  north  were  commencing  a  sumptu- 
ous palace,  what  should  hinder  the  Oracle  from  for- 
warding that  intelligence  to  the  architects  and  deco- 
rators of  the  south  ?  Mr.  Carlyle's  impeachment  of 
Poor-law  arrangements,  on  the  ground  that  they  accu- 
mulated ploughs  and  ploughmen  in  one  province,  whilst 
the  arable  lands  needing  to  be  ploughed  all  lay  in  some 
other  province,  would  hardly  have  existed  under  Del- 
phi, or  not  as  any  subject  of  complaint  where  the  rem- 
edy was  so  prompt.  The  brief  summary  of  Delphic 
administration  was  this  :  It  moved  by  secret  springs  ; 
not  being  visibly  or  audibly  displayed,  it  irritated  no 
jealousies.  Appealing  to  no  coercive  powers,  but  purely 
to  moral  suasion,  it  provoked  no  refractoriness.  Com- 
bining with  the  very  highest  of  religious  influences  that 
Hellas  recognized,  it  insured  a  docile  and  reverential 
acceptance  for  all  its  directions.  And,  finally,  because 
this  great  Delphic  establishment  held  in  its  hands  the 
hidden  reins  from  every  province,  therefore  it  was,  that 
out  of  universal  Greece,  as  a  body  of  wants,  powers, 
slumbering  activities,  and  undeveloped  resources,  Del- 
phi would  have  constructed,  and  did  construct,  so  far 
as  her  influence  escaped  the  thwarting  of  cross-cur- 
rents, a  system  of  political  watch-work,  where  all  the 
parts  and  movements  played  into  a  common  centre. 
We  must  remember  that  Greece,  after  all,  and  allow- 
ing for  every  class  of  drawbacks,  was  really  the  first 
region  upon  earth  in  which  (as  in  our  present  Chris- 
tendom) there  had  formed  itself  a  system  of  interna- 
tional law,  and  fixed  modes  of  diplomacy.  Compare 
her,  this  Greece,  with  the  wretched  voluptuaries  of 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


525 


Southern  Asia  from  Western  Arabia  and  Persia  to 
Eastern  China,  no  matter  when,  whether  before  or  af- 
ter Mahomet.  Greece,  though  beginning  with  institu- 
tions as  to  women  too  dangerously  Asiatic,  was  yet 
never  emasculated.  Men,  aspiring  men,  were  what  she 
still  produced.  And  much  of  this  great  advantage  she 
owed  apparently  to  that  diffusive  Delphic  influence 
through  which  she  nourished  and  expanded  her  unity, 
all  parts  existing  for  the  sake  of  each,  and  each  for  all, 
in  a  degree  of  which  no  vestige  was  ever  exhibited  by 
the  crazy  and  effeminate  policy  of  any  Asiatic  state. 

Now,  therefore,  having  laid  the  foundations  of  a  road 
for  safe  footing,  let  me  march  to  my  cajiclusion.  The 
conclusion  of  the  Fathers  was  the  wildest  of  errors, 
into  which  they  were  misled  by  the  most  groundless  of 
preconceptions.  They  started  with  the  assumption 
that  there  was  an  essential  hostility  between  Christian- 
ity and  the  primary  pretensions  of  Oracles,  conse- 
quently of  Delphi  as  the  supreme  Oracle.  And  one 
result  of  this  startling  error,  was,  that  they  exacted  as 
a  debt  from  Christianity  that  expression  of  hostility 
which,  except  in  a  Patristic  romance,  never  had  any 
real  existence.  The  fathers  regarded  it  as  a  duty  of 
Christianity  to  destroy  Oracles  ;  and,  holding  that  base- 
less creed,  some  of  them  went  on  to  affirm,  in  mere 
defiance  of  history,  that  Christianity  had  destroyed 
Oracles.  But  why  did  the  fathers  fancy  it  so  special 
a  duty  of  the  Christian  faith  to  destroy  Oracles  ? 
Simply  for  these  two  reasons  —  viz.,  that, 

1.  Most  falsely  they  supposed  prophecy  to  be  the 
main  function  of  an  Oracle ;  whereas  it  did  not  enter 
as  an  element  into  the  main  business  of  an  Oracle  by 
BO  much  as  once  in  a  thousand  responses. 


526 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


2.  Not  less  erroneously  they  assumed  this  to  be  the 
inevitable  parent  of  a  collision  with  Christianity.  For 
all  prophecy,  and  the  spirit  of  prophecy,  they  supposed 
to  be  a  regal  prerogative  of  Christianity,  sacred,  in 
fact,  to  the  true  faith  by  some  inalienable  right.  But 
no  such  claim  is  anywhere  advanced  in  the  Scriptures. 
And  even  a  careless  reader  will  remember  one  con- 
spicuous case,  where  a  prophet  of  known  hostility  to 
the  Hebrew  interest  and  the  Hebrew  faith,  and  for 
that  reason  invoked  and  summoned  to  curse  the  chil- 
dren of  Israel,  is  nevertheless  relied  on  as  a  fountain 
of  truth  by  the  Hebrew  leaders. 

But  suppose^that  there  really  were  any  such  exclu- 
sive pretension  to  prophecy  on  behalf  of  Christianity 
—  what  is  prophecy  ?  The  Patristic  error  is  here  in- 
tolerable. In  order  to  make  any  comparison  as  to  such 
a  gift  between  the  Greek  Oracles  and  Christianity,  we 
must  at  least  be  talking  of  the  same  thing;  whereas 
nothing  can  be  more  extensively  distinguished  from 
the  vaticinations  of  the  Pagan  Oracle  than  prophecy 
as  it  is  understood  in  the  Bible.  St.  Paul  is  contin- 
ually referring  in  his  Epistles  to  gifts  of  prophecy  : 
but  does  any  man  suppose  this  apostle  to  mean  gifts  as 
to  the  faculty  of  prediction  ?  Nobody,  of  all  whom 
St.  Paul  was  addressing,  pretended  to  any  qualifica- 
tions of  that  nature.  A  prophet  in  the  Bible  nowhere 
means  a  foreseer  or  predicter.  It  means  a  person 
endowed  with  exegetic  gifts  ;  that  is,  with  powers  of 
interpretation  applicable  to  truth  hidden,  or  truth  im- 
perfectly revealed.  All  profound  and  Scriptural  truth 
may  be  regarded  as  liable  to  misinterpretation,  because 
originally  lying  under  veils  of  shadowy  concealment, 
many  and  various.    He  who  removes  any  one  of  these 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


527 


varying  obscurations  — he  who  displays  in  his  commen- 
taries the  gifts  of  an  exegetes,  or  interpreter  —  is  in  St. 
Paul's  sense,  a  prophet.  Now,  among  these  obscuring 
causes,  one  is  time  ;  some  features  of  what  is  commu- 
nicated may  chance  to  be  hidden  by  the  clouds  which 
surround  a  distant  future ;  and  in  that  sole  case,  one 
case  amongst  hundreds,  the  prophet  coincides  with  the 
predicter.  But,  in  the  vast  majority  of  cases,  prophecy 
means  the  power  of  interpretation,  or  of  commentary 
and  practical  extension,  applied  to  Scriptural  doctrines  ; 
a  sense  not  only  irrelevant  to  the  Oracles,  but  without 
purpose,  or  value,  or  meaning  to  any  Pagan  whatever. 
So  that  competition  from  that  quarter  was  the  idlest  of 
chimeras.  Prophecy,  therefore,  in  any  sense  ever  con- 
templated by  a  Christian  writer,  could  not  be  violated 
or  desecrated  by  any  rival  pretensions  of  Paganism, 
such  as  the  fathers  feared ;  inasmuch  as  all  such  pre- 
tensions on  the  part  of  Paganism  were  blank  impossi- 
bilities. 

That  falsification,  therefore,  of  historic  facts,  by 
which  the  fathers  attempted  to  varnish  and  mystify  the 
absolute  indifference  of  Christianity  to  the  Oracles, 
falls  away  spontaneously,  when  the  motive  upon  which 
it  moved  is  exposed  as  frivolous  and  childish.  Cleared 
from  these  gross  misrepresentations  of  the  ill-informed, 
Oracles  appear  to  have  fulfilled  a  most  important  mis- 
sion. As  rationally  might  Christianity  be  supposed 
hostile  to  post-offices,  or  jealous  of  mail  steamers,  as 
indisposed  to  that  oracular  mission,  of  which  the  noble 
purpose,  stated  in  the  briefest  terms,  was  —  to  knit  the 
extremities  of  a  state  to  its  centre,  and  to  quicken  the 
progress  of  civilization. 

Why  the  Oracles  really  decayed,  I  presume  arose 


528 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


thus  :  I  have  already  noticed  their  loss  of  high  political 
functions.  This  loss,  though  never  intentionally  offered 
as  a  degradation,  not  the  less  had  that  result.  During 
that  long  course  of  generations,  when  princes  or  repub- 
lics needed  the  cooperation  of  Oracles,  that  possessed 
worlds  of  local  information,  and  that  furnished  the  sanc- 
tions of  heavenly  authority,  not  at  all  less  than  the 
Oracles  needed  martial  protection  —  the  two  powers 
were  seen,  or  were  felt  obscurely,  acting  always  in 
harmony  and  coalition.  With  us  in  Great  Britain  a 
man  acquires  the  title  of  Right  Honorable  by  entering 
the  Privy  Council  as  a  member.  Some  honor,  or  some 
distinction  for  the  ear  or  for  the  eye,  corresponding  to 
this,  no  doubt  settled  upon  the  high  officers  at  Delphi. 
They  were  probably  regarded  as  honorary  members  of 
the  national  council  that  in  one  shape  or  other  advised 
and  assisted  the  ruler  of  every  state  having  established 
relations  with  Delphi.  But  these  flattering  distinctions 
would  cease,  or  would  become  mere  titular  honors, 
when  Delphi  lost  her  connection,  and  her  right  of  sug- 
gestion, and  her  "  voice  potential,"  with  the  supreme 
government  of  her  own  land.  With  us,  when  a  man 
has  been  presented  to  the  sovereign,  he  obtains  (or 
used  to  obtain),  from  the  Lord  Chamberlain,  a  sort  of 
certificate,  which  said,  "  Mr.  Thingamby  is  known  at 
the  Court  of  St.  James  : "  whether  known  for  any 
good,  was  civilly  suppressed ;  and  this  potent  recogni- 
tion enabled  Thingamby  to  present  himself  as  one 
having  on  a  wedding  garment,  and  admissible  at  any 
other  court  or  courtlet  whatsoever,  except  that  of  Ash- 
antee.  Let  the  reader  honestly  confess  that  he  envies 
Thingamby.  Now,  it  is  not  improbable  that  the  high 
ministers  at  Delphi  had  a  power  equal  to  the  Lord 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


529 


Chamberlain's,  of  certifying  on  behalf  of  any  man 
going  on  his  travels,  were  it  Pythagoras  or  Solon, 
Herodotus  or  Plato,  Anacharsis  or  Thingamby  (every 
one  of  whom  was  a  traveller),  that  the  bearer  is  favor- 
ably known  at  Delphi.  In  the  days  of  Delphic  grand- 
eur, such  an  introduction  would  bear  a  high  value  at 
all  the  surrounding  courts;  and  this  value  would  be 
multiplied  in  that  age  when  the  successors  of  Alexan- 
der had  founded  thrones  stretching  all  the  way  from 
the  Oxus  to  the  Nile.  But,  after  the  Roman  conquest 
of  Greece  and  of  Macedon,  all  this  would  collapse.  A 
large  field  of  economic  services  would  still  remain  open 
to  the  temple ;  but  the  atmosphere  of  sanctity,  with  the 
faith  in  supernatural  cooperation,  would  have  suffered 
a  shock.  And  the  local  agents,  that  once  in  every  dis- 
trict had  emulously  disputed  the  glory  of  ranking  in 
the  long  retinue  of  the  god,  and  of  the  great  lady 
seated  on  the  tripod,  would  no  longer  find  a  sufficient 
indemnification  for  their  labors  in  the  glory  of  the  s.er- 
vice.  Delphi,  like  the  "  Times  "  newspaper,  would  have 
to  pay  its  agents  ;  and  the  clouded  splendors  of  the 
Delphic  shrine  and  temple  would  reflect  themselves, 
as  years  went  on,  in  the  dilapidations  of  the  town. 
Delphi,  the  city,  must  have  been  the  creation  of  Delphi, 
the  oracular  temple  ;  and  the  dismantlings  of  both  must 
have  gone  on  under  the  same  impulses,  and  through 
corresponding  stages  ;  so  that  either  would  reflect  suf- 
ficiently to  the  other  its  own  ruins  and  superannuations. 
When  earthly  grandeurs,  however,  were  gone,  there 
would  still  survive  a  large  arrear  of  humbler  and  eco- 
nomic services,  by  which  a  decent  revenue  might  be  se- 
cured. And  the  true  reason  why  the  ceasing  of  Ora- 
cles was  so  variously  timed  and  so  vaguely  dated,  is  to 
34 


530 


I 

THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


be  looked  for  precisely  in  this  variable  declension  of 
humbler  ministrations,  through  local  ebbs  and  flows  in 
casual  advantages  of  position.  The  case  recalls  to  my 
eye  a  scene  exhibited  in  certain  streets  of  London 
very  early  on  a  summer  morning  nearly  forty-four 
years  ago.  It  was  high  summer,  in  the  year  1814. 
All  the  leaders,  royal  or  not  royal,  in  the  three  immor- 
tal campaigns  of  Moscow  (1812),  of  Leipsic  (1813), 
and  of  France  (1814),  were  just  then  in  London,  and 
paying  a  visit  of  honor  to  our  own  Regent.  There  was 
the  reigning  King  of  Prussia,  whom  most  people  lik- 
ened to  "  the  knight  of  the  rueful  countenance." 
There  was  the  king's  sole  faithful  servant  —  Blucher. 
There  was  the  imperial  fop,  Alexander,  and  in  his  train 
men  of  sixty  different  languages  ;  and,  distinguished 
above  all  others  that  owed  suit  and  service  to  this  great 
potentate,  rode  Platoff,  the  Hetman  of  the  Cossacks, 
specially  beloved  by  all  men  as  the  most  gallant,  ad- 
venturous, and  ugly  of  Cossacks.  These  Cossacks,  if 
one  might  believe  the  flying  rumors,  drank  with  rap- 
ture every  species  of  train  oil.  The  London  lamps 
were  then  lighted  with  oil ;  and  the  Cossacks,  it  was 
said,  gave  it  the  honor  of  a  decided  preference  :  so  that, 
in  streets  lying  near  to  the  hetman's  residence,  to  the 
north  of  Oxford  Street,  the  lamps  were  observed  to 
burn  with  a  very  variable  lustre.  In  such  a  street, 
I,  and  others  my  companions,  returning  from  a  ball, 
about  an  hour  before  sunrise,  saw  a  mimic  sketch  ol 
the  decaying  Oracles.  Here,  close  to  the  hetman's 
front-door,  was  a  large  overshadowing  lamp,  that  might 
typify  the  Delphic  shrine,  but  (to  borrow  a  word  from 
kitchen-maids)  "blackout."  It  was  supposed  to  have 
V^een  tapped  too  frequently  by  the  hetman's  sentinels 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


531 


who  mounted  guard  on  his  Tartar  Highness  ;  then,  on 
tlie  other  side  the  street,  was  a  lamp,  ancient  and 
gloomy,  that  might  pass  for  Dodona,  throwing  up 
sickly  and  fitful  gleams  of  undidating  lustre,  but  drawl- 
ing near  -to  extinction.  Further  ahead  was  a  huge 
octagon  lamp,  that  apparently  never  had  been  cleaned 
from  smoke  and  fuliginous  tarnish,  forlorn  ;  solitary, 
yet  grimly  alight,  though  under  a  disastrous  eclipse, 
and  ably  supporting  the  part  of  Jupiter  A  mm  on  —  that 
unsocial  oracle  which  stood  aloof  from  men  in  a  nar- 
row oasis  belted  round  by  worlds  of  sandy  wilderness. 
And  in  the  midst  of  all  these  vast  and  venerable  me- 
mentoes rose  one  singularly  pert  and  lively,  though  not 
bigger  than  a  farthing  rushlight,  which  probably  had 
singly  escaped  the  Cossacks,  as  having  promised  noth- 
ing ;  so  that  the  least  and  most  trivial  of  the  entire 
group  was  likely  to  survive  them  all. 

Briefly,  the  Oracles  went  out  —  lamp  after  lamp  — 
as  we  see  oftentimes  in  some  festal  illumination  that 
one  glass  globe  of  light  capriciously  outlives  its  neigh- 
bor. Or  they  might  be  described  as  melting  away  like 
snow  on  the  gradual  return  of  vernal  breezes.  Large 
drifts  vanish  in  a  few  hours;  but  patches  here  and 
there,  lurking  in  the  angles  of  high  mountainous 
grounds,  linger  on  into  summer.  Yet,  whatever 
might  have  been  their  distinctions  or  their  advantages 
on  collation  with  each  other,  none  of  the  ancients  ever 
appear  to  have  considered  their  pretensions  to  divina- 
tion or  prescience  (whether  by  the  reading  of  signs, 
as  in  the  flight  of  birds,  in  the  entrails  of  sacrificial 
victims  —  or,  again,  in  direct  spiritual  prevision)  as 
forming  any  conspicuous  feature  of  their  ordinary 
duties.    Accordingly,  when  Cato  in  the  Pharsalia  is 


532 


THE  PAGAN  ORACLES. 


advised  by  Labienus  to  seek  the  counsel  of  Jupiter  Am- 
nion, whose  sequestered  oracle  was  then  near  enough 
to  be  reached  without  much  extra  trouble,  he  replies 
by  a  fine  abstract  of  what  might  be  expected  from  an 
oracle  ;  viz.,  not  predictions,  but  grand  sentiments  bear- 
ing on  the  wisdom  of  life.  These  representative  sen- 
timents, as  shaped  by  Lucan,  are  fine  and  noble  ;  we 
might  expect  it  from  a  poet  so  truly  Roman  and  noble. 
But  he  dismisses  these  oracular  sayings  as  superfluous, 
because  already  familiar  to  meditative  men.  We  know 
them 

"  Scimus  ^'  —  (says  he) 
"  Et  hsec  nobis  non  altius  inseret  Ammou/' 

And  no  Amnion  will  ever  engraft  them  more  deeply 
into  my  heart. 

This  I  mention,  when  concluding,  as  a  further  and 
collateral  evidence  against  the  Fathers.  For  if  any 
mode  of  prophetic  illumination  had  been  the  sort  of 
communication  reasonably  and  characteristically  to  be 
anticipated  from  an  Oracle,  in  that  case,  Lucan  would 
have  pointed  his  artillery  from  a  very  different  battery, 
the  battery  of  scorn  and  indignation.  No  people  cer- 
tainly could  be  more  superstitious  than  the  Roman 
populace  :  witness  the  everlasting  Bos  locutus  est  of  the 
credulous  Livy.  Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  already  in 
the  early  days  of  Ennius,  we  know,  by  one  of  his 
beautiful  fragments,  that  no  nation  could  breed  more 
high-minded  denouncers  of  such  misleading  follies. 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


It  is  said  continually  that  the  age  of  miracles 
is  past.  We  deny  that  it  is  so  in  any  sense  which 
implies  this  age  to  differ  from  all  other  generations  of 
man  except  one.  It  is  neither  past,  nor  ought  we  to 
wish  it  past.  Superstition  is  no  vice  in  the  constitution 
of  man.  It  is  not  true  that,  in  any  philosophic  view, 
'primus  in  orhe  deos  fecit  timor  —  meaning  by  fecit 
even  so  much  as  raised  into  light.  As  Burke  re- 
marked, the  timor  at  least  must  be  presumed  to  pre 
exist,  and  must  be  accounted  for,  if  not  the  gods.  If 
the  fear  created  the  gods,  what  created  the  fear  ?  Fai 
more  true,  and  more  just  to  the  grandeur  of  man,  it 
would  have  been  to  say.  Primus  in  orbe  deos  fecit 
sensus  infiniti.  Even  in  the  lowest  Caffre,  more  goes 
to  the  sense  of  a  divine  being  than  simply  his  wrath 
or  his  power.  Superstition,  indeed,  or  the  sympathy 
with  the  invisible,  is  the  great  test  of  man's  nature,  as 
an  earthly  combining  with  a  celestial.  In  superstition 
lies  the  possibility  of  religion ;  and  though  supersti- 
tion is  often  injurious,  degrading,  demoralizing,  it  is 
so,  not  as  a  form  of  corruption  or  degradation,  but  as 
a  form  of  non-development.  The  crab  is  harsh,  and 
for  itself  worthless  ;  but  it  is  the  germinal  form  of 
innumerable  finer  fruits*    Not  apples  only  the  most 


534 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


exquisite,  and  pears,  the  peach  and  the  nectarine  arf» 
said  to  have  radiated  from  this  austere  stock  when 
cultured,  developed,  and  transferred  to  all  varieties  of 
climate.  Superstition  will  finally  pass  into  pure  forms 
of  religion  as  man  advances.  It  would  be  matter 
of  lamentation  to  hear  that  superstition  had  at  all 
decayed  until  man  had  made  corresponding  steps  in 
the  purification  and  development  of  his  intellect  as 
applicable  to  religious  faith.  Let  us  hope  that  this 
is  not  so  ;  and,  by  way  of  judging,  let  us  throw 
a  hasty  eye  over  the  modes  of  popular  superstition. 
If  these  manifest  their  vitality,  it  will  prove  that  the 
popular  intellect  does  not  go  along  with  the  bookish  or 
the  worldly  (philosophic  we  cannot  call  it)  in  pro- 
nouncing the  miraculous  extinct.  The  popular  feeling 
is  all  in  all. 

This  function  of  miraculous  power,  which  is  most 
widely  diffused  through  pagan  and  Christian  ages 
alike,  but  which  has  the  least  root  in  the  solemnities 
of  the  imagination,  we  may  call  the  Ovidian,  By 
way  of  distinction  it  may  be  so  called ;  and  with 
some  justice,  since  Ovid,  in  his  Metamorphoses^  gave 
the  first  elaborate  record  of  such  a  tendency  in  human 
superstition.  It  is  a  movement  of  superstition  under 
the  domination  of  human  affections,  a  mode  of  spirit- 
ual awe,  which  seeks  to  reconcile  itself  with  human 
tenderness  or  admiration,  and  which  represents  su- 
pernatural power  as  expressing  itself  by  a  sympathy 
with  human  distress  or  passion  concurrently  with 
human  sympathies,  and  as  supporting  that  blended 
Bympathy  by  a  symbol  incarnated  with  the  fixed 
agencies  of  Nature.    For  instance,  a  pair  of  youthfu 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


535 


lovers  perish  by  a  double  suicide  originating  in  a 
fatal  mistake,  and  a  mistake  operating  in  each  case 
tlirough  a  noble  self-oblivion.  The  tree  under  which 
their  meeting  has  been  concerted,  and  which  witnesses 
their  tragedy,  is  supposed  ever  afterwards  to  express 
the  divine  sympathy  with  this  catastrophe  in  the  gloomy 
color  of  its  fruit :  — 

"  At  tu,  quae  ramis  (arbor !)  miserabile  corpus 
Nunc  tegis  unius,  mox  es  tectura  duorum, 
Signa  tene  csedis  :  —  pullosque  et  luctibus  aptos 
Semper  habe  fructus  —  gemini  monumenta  cruoris." 

Such  is  the  dying  adjuration  of  the  lady  to  the  tree; 
and  the  fruit  becomes  from  that  time  a  monument  of 
a  double  sympathy  —  sympathy  from  man,  sympathy 
from  a  dark  power  standing  behind  the  agencies  of 
Nature  and  speaking  through  them.  Meantime  the 
object  of  this  sympathy  is  understood  to  be,  not  the 
individual  catastrophe,  but  the  universal  case  of  unfor- 
tunate love  exemplified  in  this  particular  romance. 
The  inimitable  grace  with  which  Ovid  has  delivered 
these  early  traditions  of  human  tenderness,  blending 
with  human  superstition,  is  notorious  ;  the  artfulness 
of  the  pervading  connection,  by  which  every  tale  in 
the  long  succession  is  made  to  arise  spontaneously  out 
of  that  which  precedes,  is  absolutely  unrivalled  ;  and 
this  it  was,  with  his  luxuriant  gayety,  which  procured 
for  him  a  preference  even  with  Milton  —  a  poet  so 
opposite  by  intellectual  constitution.  It  is  but  reason- 
able, therefore,  that  this  function  of  the  miraculous 
should  bear  the  name  of  Ovidian,  Pagan  it  was  in 
ICS  birth  ;  and  to  paganism  its  titles  ultimately  ascend 


536 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


Yet  we  know  that  in  the  transitional  state  through  the 
centuries  succeeding  to  Christ,  during  which  paganism 
and  Christianity  were  slowly  descending  and  ascend- 
ing as  if  from  two  different  strata  of  the  atmosphere, 
the  two  powers  interchanged  whatsoever  they  could. 
(See  Conyer's  Middleton ;  and  see  Blount  of  our  own 
days.)  It  marked  the  earthly  nature  of  paganism, 
that  it  could  borrow  little  or  nothing  by  organization  ; 
it  was  fitted  to  no  expansion  ;  but  the  true  faith,  from 
its  vast  and  comprehensive  adaptation  to  the  nature  of 
man,  lent  itself  to  many  corruptions  — some  deadly 
in  their  tendencies,  some  harmless.  Amongst  these 
last  was  the  Ovidian  form  of  connecting  the  unseen 
powers  moving  in  Nature  with  human  sympathies  of 
love  or  reverence.  The  legends  of  this  kind  are  uni- 
versal and  endless.  No  land,  the  most  austere  in  its 
Protestantism,  but  has  adopted  these  superstitions ; 
and  every  where,  by  those  even  who  reject  them,  they 
are  entertained  with  some  degree  of  affectionate  re- 
spect. That  the  ass,  which  in  its  very  degradation 
still  retains  an  under  power  of  sublimity,^^  or  of  sub- 
lime suggestion  through  its  ancient  connection  with 
the  wilderness,  with  the  Orient,  with  Jerusalem,  should 
have  been  honored  amongst  all  animals,  by  the  visible 
impression  upon  its  back  of  Christian  symbols,  seems 
reasonable  even  to  the  infantine  understanding  when 
made  acquainted  with  its  meekness,  its  patience,  its 
suffering  life,  and  its  association  with  the  Founder  of 
Christianity  in  one  great  triumphal  solemnity.  The 
very  man  who  brutally  abuses  it,  and  feels  a  hard- 
hearted contempt  for  its  misery  and  its  submission, 
has  a  semi-conscious  feeling  that  the  same  qualities 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


537 


were  possibly  those  which  recommended  it  to  a  dis- 
tinction^^ when  all  things  were  valued  upon  a  scale 
inverse  to  that  of  the  world.  Certain  it  is,  that  in  all 
Christian  lands  the  legend  about  the  ass  is  current 
amongst  the  rural  population.  The  haddock,  again, 
amongst  marine  animals,  is  supposed,  throughout  all 
maritime  Europe,  to  be  a  privileged  fish.  Even  in 
austere  Scotland  every  child  can  point  out  the  impres- 
sion of  St.  Peter's  thumb,  by  which  from  age  to  age 
it  is  distinguished  from  fishes  having  otherwise  an  ex- 
ternal resemblance.  All  domesticated  cattle,  having 
the  benefit  of  man's  guardianship  and  care,  are  be 
lieved  throughout  England  and  Germany  to  go  down 
upon  their  knees  at  one  particular  moment  of  Christ- 
mas eve,  when  the  fields  are  covered  with  darkness, 
when  no  eye  looks  down  but  that  of  God,  and  when 
the  exact  anniversary  hour  revolves  of  the  angelic 
song  once  rolling  over  the  fields  and  flocks  of  Pales- 
tine.^2  The  Glastonbury  Thorn  is  a  more  local  super- 
stition ;  but  at  one  time  the  legend  was  as  widely 
diffused  as  that  of  Loretto,  with  the  angelic  translation 
of  its  sanctities.  On  Christmas  morning,  it  was  devout- 
ly believed  by  all  Christendom  that  this  holy  thorn 
put  forth  its  annual  blossoms.  And  with  respect  to 
the  aspen  tree,  which  Mrs.  Hemans  very  naturally  mis- 
took for  a  Welsh  legend,  having  first  heard  it  in  Den- 
bighshire, the  popular  faith  is  universal,  that  it  shiv- 
ers mystically  in  sympathy  with  the  horror  of  that 
mother  tree  in  Palestine  which  was  compelled  to  fur- 
nish materials  for  the  cross.  Neither  would  it  in  this 
case  be  any  objection  if  a  passage  were  produced 
from  Solinus  or  Theophrastus,  implying  that  the  aspen 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


tree  had  aTways  shivered  ;  for  the  tree  might  presuma- 
bly be  penetrated  by  remote  presentiments  as  well  as 
by  remote  remembrances.  In  so  vast  a  case,  the  ob- 
scure sympathy  should  stretch,  Janus-like,  each  way. 
And  an  objection  of  the  same  kind  to  the  rainbow,  con- 
sidered as  the  sign  or  seal  by  which  God  attested  his 
covenant  in  bar  of  all  future  deluges,  may  be  parried  in 
something  of  the  same  way.  It  was  not  then  first  cre- 
ated. True  ;  but  it  was  then  first  selected  by  prefer- 
ence amongst  a  multitude  of  natural  signs  as  yet  unap- 
propriated, and  then  first  charged  with  the  new  function 
of  a  message  and  a  ratification  to  man.  Pretty  much 
the  same  theory — that  is,  the  same  way  of  accounting 
for  the  natural  existence  without  disturbing  the  super- 
natural functions — may  be  applied  to  the  great  con- 
stellation of  the  other  hemisphere  called  the  Southern 
Cross.  It  is  viewed  popularly  in  South  America  and 
the  southern  ports  of  our  northern  hemisphere  as  the 
great  banner,  or  gonfalon,  held  aloft  by  Heaven  before 
the  Spanish  heralds  of  the  true  faith  in  1492.  To 
that  superstitious  and  ignorant  race  it  costs  not  an 
effort  to  suppose  that,  by  some  synchronizing  miracle, 
the  constellation  had  been  then  specially  called  into 
existence  at  the  very  moment  when  the  first  Christian 
procession,  bearifig  a  cross  in  their  arms,  solemnly 
stepped  on  shore  from  the  vessels  of  Christendom. 
We  Protestants  know  better :  we  understand  the  im- 
possibility of  supposing  such  a  narrow  and  local  ref- 
erence in  orbs  so  transcendently  vast  as  those  com- 
posing the  constellation  —  orbs  removed  from  each 
other  by  such  unvoyageable  worlds  of  space,  and 
having,  in  fact,  no  real  reference  to  each  other  more 


BIODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


539 


than  to  any  other  heavenly  bodies  whatsoever.  The 
unity  of  synthesis,  by  which  they  are  composed  into 
one  figure  of  a  cross,  we  know  to  be  a  mere  accident- 
al result  from  an  arbitrary  synthesis  of  human  fancy. 
Take  such  and  such  stars,  compose  them  into  letters, 
and  they  will  spell  such  a  word.  But  still  it  was  our 
own  choice,  a  synthesis  of  our  own  fancy,  originally 
to  combine  them  in  this  way.  They  might  be  divided 
from  each  other  and  otherwise  combined.  All  this 
is  true ;  and  yet,  as  the  combination  does  spontaneous- 
ly offer  itself  to  every  eye,  as  the  glorious  cross  does 
really  glitter  forever  through  the  silent  hours  of  a  vast 
hemisphere,  even  they  who  are  not  superstitious  may 
willingly  yield  to  the  belief,  that  as  the  rainbow  was 
laid  in  the  very  elements  and  necessities  of  Nature, 
yet  still  bearing  a  prededication  to  a  service  which 
would  not  be  called  for  until  many  ages  had  passed, 
so  also  the  mysterious  cipher  of  man's  imperishable 
hopes  may  have  been  intwined  and  inwreathed  with 
the  starry  heavens  from  their  earliest  creation,  as  a 
prefiguration  —  as  a  silent  heraldry  of  hope  through 
one  period,  and  as  a  heraldry  of  gratitude  through  the 
other. 

All  these  cases  which  we  have  been  rehearsing, 
taking  them  in  the  fullest  literality,  agree  in  this  gen- 
eral point  of  union  —  they  are  all  silent  incarnations 
of  miraculous  power — miracles,  supposing  them  to 
have  been  such  originally,  locked  up  and  imbodied 
in  the  regular  course  of  Nature,  just  as  we  see  linea« 
ments  of  faces  and  of  forms  in  petrifactions,  in  varie* 
gated  marbles,  in  spars,  or  in  rocky  strata,  which  qui 


540 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


fancy  interprets  as  once  having  been  real  human  exist- 
ences, but  which  are  now  confounded  with  the  sub- 
stance of  a  mineral  product.^*  Even  those  who  are 
most  superstitious,  therefore,  look  upon  cases  of  this 
order  as  occupying  a  midway  station  between  the 
physical  and  the  hyperphysical,  between  the  regular 
course  of  Nature  and  the  providential  interruption  of 
that  course.  The  stream  of  the  miraculous  is  here 
confluent  with  the  stream  of  the  natural.  By  such 
legends  the  credulous  man  finds  his  superstition  but 
little  nursed  ;  the  incredulous  finds  his  philosophy  but 
little  revolted.  Both  alike  will  be  willing  to  admit, 
for  instance,  that  the  apparent  act  of  reverential  thanks- 
giving in  certain  birds,  when  drinking,  is  caused  and 
supported  by  a  physiological  arrangement ;  and  yet, 
perhaps,  both  alike  would  bend  so  far  to  the  legendary 
faith  as  to  allow  a  child  to  believe,  and  would  perceive 
a  pure  childlike  beauty  in  believing,  that  the  bird  was 
thus  rendering  a  homage  of  deep  thankfulness  to  the 
universal  Father,  who  watches  for  the  safety  of  spar- 
rows and  sends  his  rain  upon  the  just  and  upon  the 
unjust.  In  short,  the  faith  in  this  order  of  the  physico- 
miraculous  is  open  alike  to  the  sceptical  and  the  non- 
sceptical  ;  it  is  touched  superficially  with  the  coloring 
of  superstition  —  with  its  tenderness,  its  humility,  its 
thankfulness,  its  awe ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  not 
therefore  tainted  with  the  coarseness,  with  the  silliness, 
with  the  credulity  of  superstition.  Such  a  faith  re- 
poses upon  the  universal  signs  diffused  through  Nature, 
and  blends  with  the  mysterious  of  natural  grandeui's 
vherever  found  —  with  the  mysterious  of  the  starry 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


541 


neavens,  with  the  mysterious  of  music,  and  with  that 
infinite  form  of  the  mysterious  for  man's  dimmest 
misgivings,  — 

"Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns.** 

But,  from  this  earliest  note  in  the  ascending  scale 
of  superstitious  faith,  let  us  pass  to  a  more  alarming 
key.  This  first,  which  we  have  styled  (in  equity  as 
well  as  for  distinction)  the  Ovidian^  is  too  aerial,  too 
allegoric  almost,  to  be  susceptible  of  much  terror.  It 
is  the  meYQ  fancy^in  a  mood  half  playful,  half  tender, 
which  submits  to  the  belief.  It  is  the  feeling,  the  sen- 
timent, which  creates  the  faith,  not  the  faith  which 
creates  the  feeling.  And  thus  far  we  see  that  modern 
feeling  and  Christian  feeling  have  been  to  the  full  as 
operative  as  any  that  is  peculiar  to  paganism  ;  judging 
by  the  Romish  legenda^  very  much  more  so.  The 
Ovidian  illustrations,  under  a  false  superstition,  are 
entitled  to  give  the  designation,  as  being  the  first,  the 
earliest,  but  not  at  all  as  the  richest.  Besides  that, 
Ovid's  illustrations  emanated  often  from  himself  indi- 
vidually, not  from  the  popular  mind  of  his  country  ; 
^urs  of  the  same  classification  uniformly  repose  on 
large  popular  traditions  from  the  whole  of  Christian 
antiquity.  These  again  are  agencies  of  the  super- 
natural which  can  never  have  a  private  or  personal 
application ;  they  belong  to  all  mankind  and  to  all 
generations.    But  the  next  in  order  are  more  solemn  ; 

hey  become  terrific  by  becoming  personal.  These 
comprehend  all  that  vast  body  of  the  marvellous  which 

'^3  expressed  by  the  word  ominous.    On  this  head,  ds 


542 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


dividing  itself  into  the  ancient  and  modern,  we  will 
speak  next. 

Every  body  is  aware  of  the  deep  emphasis  which 
the  pagans  laid  upon  words  and  upon  names  under 
this  aspect  of  the  ominous.  The  name  of  several 
places  was  formally  changed  by  the  Roman  govern- 
ment, solely  with  a  view  to  that  contagion  of  evil 
which  was  thought  to  lurk  in  the  syllables  if  taken 
significantly.  Thus  the  town  of  Maleventum  (Ill- 
come,  as  one  might  render  it)  had  its  name  changed 
by  the  Romans  to  Beneventum,  (or  Welcome.)  Epi- 
damnum^  again,  the  Grecian  Calais,  corresponding  to 
the  Roman  Dover  of  Brundusium,  was  a  name  that 
would  have  startled  the  stoutest-hearted  Roman  "  from 
his  propriety."  Had  he  suffered  this  name  to  escape 
him  inadvertently,  his  spirits  would  have  forsaken  him 
—  he  would  have  pined  away  under  a  certainty  of 
misfortune,  like  a  poor  negro  of  Koromantyn  who  is 
the  victim  of  Obi.^*  As  a  Greek  word,  which  it  was, 
the  name  imported  no  ill ;  but  for  a  Roman  to  say, 
Ibo  Epidamnum^  was  in  effect  saying,  though  in  a 
hybrid  dialect,  half  Greek,  half  Roman,  "  I  will  go  to 
ruin."  The  name  was  therefore  changed  to  Dyrrach- 
ium — a  substitution  which  quieted  more  anxieties  in 
Roman  hearts  than  the  erection  of  a  lighthouse  or 
the  deepening  of  the  harbor  mouth.  A  case  equally 
strong,  to  take  one  out  of  many  hundreds  that  have 
come  down  to  us,  is  reported  by  Livy.  There  was 
an  officer  in  a  Roman  legion,  at  some  period  of  the 
republic,  who  bore  the  name  either  of  Atrius  Umber, 
or  Umbrius  Ater ;  and  this  man  being  ordered  on 
some  expedition,  the  soldiers  refused  to  follow  him 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


543 


Tney  did  right.  We  remember  that  Mr.  Coleridge 
used  facetiously  to  call  the  well-known  sister  of  Dr. 
Aikin,  Mrs.  Barbauld,  "  that  pleonasm  of  nakedness  " 
—  the  idea  of  nakedness  being  reduplicated  and  rever- 
berated in  the  hare  and  the  laid.  This  Atrius  Umber 
might  be  called  "that  pleonasm  of  darkness;"  and 
one  might  say  to  him,  in  the  words  of  Othello,  "What 
needs  this  iteration  ?  "  To  serve  under  the  Gloomy 
was  enough  to  darken  the  spirit  of  hope  ;  but  to  serve 
under  the  Black  Gloomy  was  really  rushing  upon  de- 
struction. Yet  it  will  be  alleged  that  Captain  Death 
.was  a  most  favorite  and  heroic  leader  in  the  English 
navy;  and  that  in  our  own  times,  Admiral  Coffin 
though  an  American  by  birth,  has  not  been  unpopular 
in  the  same  service.  This  is  true ;  and  all  that  can 
be  said  is,  that  theSe  names  were  two-edged  swords, 
which  might  be  made  to  tell  against  the  enemy  as  well 
as  against  friends.  And  possibly  the  Eoman  centurion 
might  have  turned  his  name  to  the  same  account  had 
he  possessed  the  great  dictator's  presence  of  mind ; 
for  he,  when  landing  in  Africa,  having  happened  to 
stumble,  —  an  omen  of  the  worst  character  in  Roman 
estimation, —  took  out  its  sting  by  following  up  his  own 
oversight,  as  if  it  had  been  intentional,  falling  to  the 
ground,  kissing  it,  and  ejaculating  that  in  this  way  he 
appropriated  the  soil. 

Omens  of  every  class  were  certainly  regarded  in 
ancient  Rome  with  a  reverence  that  can  hardly  be 
surpassed ;  but  yet,  with  respect  to  these  omens  de- 
rived from  names,  it  is  certain  that  our  modern  times 
have  more  memorable  examples  on  record.    Out  of 

large  number  which  occur  to  us  we  will  cite  two 


544 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


The  present  ^  King  of  the  French  bore  in  his  boyish 
days  a  title  which  he  would  not  have  borne  but  for  an 
omen  of  bad  augury  attached  to  his  proper  title.  He 
was  called  the  Due  de  Chartres  before  the  revolution, 
whereas  his  proper  title  was  Due  de  Valois.  And  the 
origin  of  the  change  was  this :  The  regent's  father 
had  been  the  sole  brother  of  Louis  Quatorze.  He 
married  for  his  first  wife  our  English  princess  Hen- 
rietta, the  sister  of  Charles  II.,  (and  through  her  daugh- 
ter, by  the  way,  it  is  that  the  house  of  Savoy,  i.  e.,  of 
Sardinia,  has  pretensions  to  the  English  throne.)  This 
unhappy  lady,  it  is  too  well  established,  was  poisoned. 
Voltaire,  amongst  many  others,  has  affected  to  doubt 
the  fact,  for  which  in  his  time  there  might  be  some 
excuse  ;  but,  since  then,  better  evidences  have  placed 
the  matter  beyond  all  question.  We  now  know  both 
the  fact,  and  the  how,  and  the  why.  The  duke,  who 
probably  was  no  party  to  the  murder  of  his  young 
wife,  though  otherwise  on  bad  terms  with  her,  married 
for  his  second  wife  a  coarse  German  priricess,  homely 
in  every  sense,  and  a  singular  contrast  to  the  elegant 
creature  whom  he  had  lost.  She  was  a  daughter  of 
the  Bavarian  elector,  ill  tempered  by  her  own  con- 
fession, self-willed,  and  a  plain  speaker  to  excess,  but 
otherwise  a  woman  of  honest  German  principles.  Un- 
happy she  was  through  a  long  life  —  unhappy  through 
the  monotony  as  well  as  the  malicious  intrigues  of  the 
French  court ;  and  so  much  so,  that  she  did  her  best 
(though  without  effect)  to  prevent  her  Bavarian  niece 
from  becoming  dauphiness.  She  acquits  her  husband, 
however,  in  the  memoirs  which  she  left  behind,  of  any 
intentionnl  share  in  lier  unhappiness  ;  she  describes 
*  Th:s  was  written,  I  believe,  about  1839. 


BIODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


545 


him  constantly  as  a  well-disposed  prince.  But  whether 
it  were,  that,  often  walking  in  the  dusk  :hrough  the 
numerous  apartments  of  that  vast  mansion  which  her 
husband  had  so  much  enlarged,  naturally  she  turned 
her  thoughts  to  the  injured  lady  who  had  presided  there 
before  herself,  or  whether  it  arose  from  the  inevitable 
gloom  which  broods  continually  over  mighty  palaces, 
so  much  is  known  for  certain,  that  one  evening,  in  the 
twilight,  she  met,  at  a  remote  quarter  of  the  reception 
rooms,  something  that  she  conceived  to  be  a  spectie. 
What  she  fancied  to  have  passed  on  that  occasion  was 
never  known  except  to  her  nearest  friends  ;  and,  if  she 
made  any  explanations  in  her  memoirs,  the  editor  has 
thought  fit  to  suppress  them.  She  mentions  only,  that 
in  consequence  of  some  ominous  circumstances  relat- 
ing to  the  title  of  Valois^  which  was  the  proper  second 
title  of  the  Orleans  family,  her  son,  the  regent,  had 
assumed  in  his  boyhood  that  of  Due  de  Chartres. 
His  elder  brother  was  dead,  so  that  the  superior  title 
was  open  to  him;  but,  in  consequence  of  those  mys- 
terious omens,  whatever  they  might  be,  which  occa- 
sioned much  whispering  at  the  time,  the  great  title  of 
Valois  was  laid  aside  forever  as  of  bad  augury ;  nor 
has  it  ever  been  resumed  through  a  century  and  a  half 
thai  have  followed  that  mysterious  warning,  nor  will 
it  be  resumed  unless  the  numerous  children  of  the 
present  Orleans  branch  should  find  themselves  dis- 
tressed for  ancient  titles ;  which  is  not  likely,  since 
they  enjoy  the  honors  of  the  elder  house,  and  are  now 
the  children  of  France  in  a  technical  sense. 

Here  we  have  a  great  European  case  of  state  omens 
;n  the  eldest  of  Christian  houses.    The  next  which  we 
35 


546 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


shall  cite  is  equally  a  state  case,  and  carries  its  public 
verification  along  with  itself.  In  the  spring  of  1799, 
when  Napoleon  was  lying  before  Acre,  he  became 
anxious  for  news  from  Upper  Egypt,  whither  he  had 
despatched  Dessaix  in  pursuit  of  a  distinguished  Mame- 
luke leader.  This  was  in  the  middle  of  May.  Not 
many  days  after,  a  courier  arrived  with  favorable  de- 
spatches—  favorable  in  the  main,  but  reporting  one 
tragical  occurrence  on  a  small  scale,  that  to  Napoleon, 
for  a  superstitious  reason,  outweighed  the  public  pros- 
perity. A  djerme^  or  Nile  boat  of  the  largest  class, 
having  on  board  a  large  party  of  troops  and  of  wound- 
ed men,  together  with  most  of  a  regimental  band,  had 
run  ashore  at  the  village  of  Benouth.  No  case  could 
be  more  hopeless.  The  neighboring  Arabs  were  of 
the  Yambo  tribe  —  of  all  Arabs  the  most  ferocicms. 
These  Arabs  and  the  Fellahs  (whom,  by  the  way, 
many  of  our  countrymen  are  so  ready  to  represent  as 
friendly  to  the  French  and  hostile  to  ourselves)  had 
taken  the  opportunity  of  attacking  the  vessel.  The 
engagement  was  obstinate ;  but  at  length  the  inevitable 
catastrophe  could  be  delayed  no  longer.  The  com- 
mander, an  Italian,  named  Morandi,  was  a  brave  man  : 
any  fate  appeared  better  than  that  which  awaited  him 
from  an  enemy  so  malignant.  He  set  fire  to  the  pow- 
der magazine  ;  the  vessel  blew  up  ;  Morandi  perished 
in  the  Nile  ;  and  all  of  less  nerve,  who  had  previously 
reached  the  shore  in  safety,  were  put  to  death  to  the 
very  last  man,  with  cruelties  the  most  detestable,  by 
their  inhuman  enemies.  For  all  this  Napoleon  cared 
dttle  ;  but  one  solitary  fact  there  was  in  the  report 
which  struck  him  with  consternation.    This  ill-fated 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


547 


djerme^  —  what  was  it  called  ?  It  was  called  Vltalie; 
and  in  the  name  of  the  vessel  Napoleon  read  an  augury 
of  the  fate  which  had  befallen  the  Italian  territory. 
Considered  as  a  dependency  of  France,  he  felt  certain 
that  Italy  was  lost ;  and  Napoleon  was  .nconsolable.  But 
what  possible  connection,  it  was  asked,  can  exist  be- 
tween this  vessel  on  the  Nile  and  a  remote  peninsula 
of  Southern  Europe  }  "  No  matter,"  replied  Napoleon  ; 
"  my  presentiments  never  deceive  me.  You  will  see 
that  all  is  ruined.  I  am  satisfied  that  my  Italy,  my 
conquest,  is  lost  to  France  ! "  So,  indeed,  it  was. 
All  European  news  had  long  been  intercepted  by  the 
English  cruisers ;  but  immediately  after  the  battle  with 
the  vizier,  in  July,  1799,  an  English  admiral  first  in- 
formed the  French  army  of  Egypt  that  Massena  and 
others  had  lost  all  that  Bonaparte  had  won  in  1796. 
But  it  is  a  strange  illustration  of  human  blindness  that 
this  very  subject  of  Napoleon's  lamentation  —  this 
very  campaign  of  1799  —  it  was,  with  its  blunders  and 
its  long  equipage  of  disasters,  that  paved  the  way  for 
his  own  elevation  to  the  consulship  just  seven  calen- 
dar months  from  the  receipt  of  that  Egyptian  despatch  ; 
since  most  certainly,  in  the  struggle  of  Brumaire,  1799, 
doubtful  and  critical  through  every  stage,  it  was  the 
pointed  contrast  between  his  Italian  campaigns  and 
those  of  his  successors  which  gave  effect  to  Napoleon's 
pretensions  with  the  political  combatants,  and  which 
procured  them  a  ratification  amongst  the  people.  The 
loss  of  Italy  was  essential  to  the  full  effect  of  Napoleon's 
previous  conquest.  That  and  the  imbecile  char- 
acters of  Napoleon's  chief  military  opponents  were 
the  true  keys  to  the  great  revolution  of  Brumaire 


548 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


Tlio  Stone  which  he  rejected  became  the  keystone  of 
the  arch  ;  so  that,  after  all,  he  valued  the  omen  false- 
ly ;  though  the  very  next  news  from  Europe,  courte- 
ously communicated  by  his  English  enemies,  showed 
that  he  had  interpreted  its  meaning  rightly. 

These  omens,  derived  from  names,  are  therefore 
common  to  the  ancient  and  the  modern  world.  But 
perhaps,  in  strict  logic,  they  ought  to  have  been  classed 
as  one  subdivision  or  variety  under  a  much  larger 
head  —  viz.,  words  generally,  no  matter  whether  proper 
names  or  appellatives,  as  operative  powers  and  agen- 
cies, having,  that  is  to  say,  a  charmed  power  against 
some  party  concerned  from  the  moment  that  they  leave 
the  lips. 

Homer  describes  prayers  as  having  a  separate  life, 
rising  buoyantly  upon  wings,  and  making  their  way 
upwards  to  the  throne  of  Jove.  Such,  but  in  a  sense 
gloomy  and  terrific,  is  the  force  ascribed  under  a  wide- 
spread superstition,  ancient  and  modern,  to  words 
uttered  on  critical  occasions,  or  to  words  uttered  at 
an}  time,  which  point  to  critical  occasions.  Hence 
the  doctrine  of  evcpyuKj/nog^  the  necessity  of  abstaining 
from  strong  words  or  direct  words  in  expressing  fatal 
contingencies.  It  was  shocking,  at  all  times  of  pagan- 
ism, to  say  of  a  third  person,  "  If  he  should  die," 
or  to  suppose  the  case  that  he  might  be  murdered. 
The  very  word  death  was  consecrated  and  forbidden. 
Si  quiddam  liumanum  passus  f tier  it  was  the  extreme 
form  to  which  men  advanced  in  such  cases  ;  and  this 
scrupulous  feeling,  originally  founded  on  the  supposed 
efficacy  of  words,  prevails  to  this  day.  It  is  a  feeling 
undoubtedly  supported  by  good  taste,  which  strongly 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION 


549 


impres'.ses  upon  us  all  the  discordant  tone  of  all  im- 
passioned subjects,  (death,  religion,  &;c.,)  with  the 
common  key  of  ordinary  conversation.  But  good  taste 
is  not  in  itself  sufficient  to  account  for  a  scrupulous- 
ness, so  general  and  so  austere.  In  the  lowest  classes 
there  is  a  shuddering  recoil  still  felt  from  uttering 
coarsely  and  roundly  the  anticipation  of  a  person's 
death.  Suppose  a  child,  heir  to  some  estate,  the  sub* 
ject  of  conversation  :  the  hypothesis  of  his  death  is 
put  cautiously,  under  such  forms  as,  "  If  any  thing  but 
good  should  happen  ;  "  if  any  change  should  occur  ;  " 
'Wif  any  of  us  should  chance  to  miscarry  ; "  and  so 
forth.  Always  a  modified  expression  is  sought  — 
always  an  indirect  one.  And  this  timidity  arises 
under  the  old  superstition  still  lingering  amongst  men, 
like  that  ancient  awe,  alluded  to  by  Wordsworth,  for 
the  sea  and  its  deep  secrets  —  feelings  that  have  not, 
no,  nor  ever  will,  utterly  decay.  No  excess  of  nautical 
skill  will  ever  perfectly  disenchant  the  great  abyss 
from  its  terrors  —  no  progressive  knowledge  will  ever 
medicine  that  dread  misgiving  of  a  mysterious  and 
pathless  power  given  to  words  of  a  certain  import,  or 
uttered  in  certain  situations,  by  a  parent,  to  persecuting 
or  insulting  children  ;  by  the  victim  of  horrible  oppres- 
sion when  laboring  in  final  agonies  and  by  others  ^ 
whether  cursing  or  blessing,  who  stand  central  to  great 
passions,  to  great  interests,  or  to  great  perplexities. 

And  here,  by  way  of  parenthesis,  we  may  stop  to  ex- 
plain the  force  of  that  expression,  so  common  in  Scrip- 
ture, ''Thou  hast  said  it^  It  is  an  answer  often 
adopted  by  our  Savior ;  and  the  meaniicuy  w©  W^l  to 
be  this  :  Many  forms  in  eastern  idioms,  as  weil  as  m 


550 


the  Greek  c><3  3asionany,  though  meant  i7iterrogdtholy> 
are  of  a  nature  to  coavey  a  drrect  categorical  ajjirma' 
tioHy  unless  as  their  meaning  is  inodified  by  the  cadence 
and  intonation.  Art  thou^  detaclied  from  this  v6cal 
and  accentual  modification,  is  equivalent  to  tJiou  art 
Nay  even  apart  from  t\ns  accident^the  popiilar  be* 
iief  authorized  the  notion,  that  simply  to  have  utteted 
any  great  thesis,  though  unconsciously,  dimply  to 
have  united  verbally  any  two  great  ideas,  though  for  a 
purpose  the  most  difFetent  or  even  oppo^'te,  had  the 
mysterious  power  of  realizing  them  in  act.  An  o:^^- 
clamation,  though  in  the  purest  spirit  of  sport,  to  a  boy^ 
'^  Yoii  shall  he  our  imperatvr^'*'*  was  many  times  sup*- 
posed  to  be  the  forerunner  and  fatal  mandate  for  the 
boy*s  elevation.  Such  words  executed  themselves. 
To  connect,  though  but  for  denial  or  for  mocker^',  the 
ideas  of  Jesus  and  the  Messiah,  furnished  an  augury 
that  eventually  they  would  be  found  to  coincide  and 
to  hav€f  their  coincidence  admitted.  It  was  an  ai"* 
gtmentum  ad  hominem^^  and  drawn  from  a  popular 
faith. 

But  a  nriodeni  reader  will  6bjeot  the  want  of  arf 
accompanying  design  or  serious  meaning  on  the  part 
of  him  who  utters  the  words he  hever  meant  ht« 
words  to  be  taken  seriously — nay,  his  purpose  was 
the  very  opposite.  True ;  and  precisely  that  is  the 
reason  why  his  words  are  likely  to  operate  effectually 
and  why  they  should  be  feared.  Here  lies  the  critical 
point  which  most  of  all  distinguishes  this  faith*  Words 
took  effect,  not  mutely  in  default  of  setious  tise,  but 
exactly  in  consequence  of  that  default*  It  was  the 
chance  ^-ord,  the  stray  word,  the  wor(i  iitt^ed  m  jest^ 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


551 


or  In  trifling,  or  in  sconi,  or  imcoosciously^  which  took 
effect ;  whilst  ten  thousand  words,  uttered  with  purpose 
and  deliberation,  were  sure  to  prove  inert*  One  case 
will  illustVafe  this :  Alexander  of  Macedon,  in  th^ 
outset  of  his  great  expedition,  consulted  the  oracle  at 
Delphi.  For. the  sake  of  his  army,  had  he  been,  even 
without  personal  faith,  he  desii'ed  to  have  his  enterprise 
consecrated.  No  persuasions,  however,  Would  move 
the  priestess  to  enter  upon  her  painful  and  agitating 
duties  for  the  sake  of  obtaining  the  regular  answer 
6f  the  god.  Wearied  with  this,  Alexander  seized  the 
great  lady  by  the  arm,  and,  using,  as  much  violence 
as  was  becoming  to  the  two  characters,  —  of  a  great 
prince  acting  and  a  great  priestess  suffering, —  he 
pushed  her  gently  backwards  to  the  tripod  on  which 
in  her  professional  character,  she  wjas  to  seat  herself, 
tjpon  this,  in  the  huiTy  and  excitement  of  tbe  moment, 
the  priestess  exclaimed,  SI  nav^  jxnxjjTog  ei  —  0  son^ibou 
art  irtesistihle^  never  adverting  for  an  instant  to  his 
martial  purposes,  but  simply  to  his  personal  importu-^ 
nities.  The  person  whom  she  thought  of  as  incapable 
of  resistance  was  herself;  and  all  she  meant  con* 
sciously  was,  O  son,  I  can  refuse  nothing  to  one  so 
earnest  But  mark  what  followed,  Alexander  desisted 
at  once ;  he  asked  for  no  further  oracle  ;  he  refused 
it,  and  exclaimed,  joyously,  "  No\v,  then,  noble  prie^* 
ess,  farewell  1  I  have  the  oracle  ;  I  have  your  answer; 
and  better  than  any  which  you  could  deliver  from  the 
tepod.  1  am  invmcible ;  so  you  have  declared ;  you 
cannot  revoke  it.  True,  you  thought  not  of  jPersia 
- —  you  thought  otily  of  my  importunity.  But  that  very 
fact  is  what  mtifies  your  answf^r.    In  its  blindness  J 


552 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


recognize  its  truth.  An  oracle  from  a  god  mia;ht  be 
distorted  by  political  ministers  of  the  god,  as  in  time 
past  too  often  has  been  suspected.  The  oracle  hag 
been  said  to  Medize^  and,  in  my  own  father's  time,  to 
Philippize ;  but  an  oracle  delivered  unconsciously, 
indirectly,  blindly,  —  that  is  the  oracle  which  cannot 
deceive."  Such  was  the  all-famous  oracle  which 
Alexander  accepted  ^  such  was  the  oracle"^  on  which 
he  and  his  army  reposing  went  forth  "  conquering  and 
to  conquer." 

Exactly  on  this  principle  do  the  Turks  act  in  putting 
so  high  a  value  on^  the  words  of  idiots.  Enlightened 
Christians  have  often  wondered  at  their  allowing  any 
weight  to  people  bereft  of  understanding.  But  that  is 
the  very  reason  for  allowing  them  weight ;  that  very 
defect  it  is  which  makes  them  capable  of  being  organs 
for  conveying  words  from  higher  intelligences.  A  fine 
human  intelligence  cannot  be  a  passive  instrument — 
it  cannot  be  a  mere  tube  for  conveying  the  words  of 
inspiration  :  such  an  intelligence  will  intermingle  ideas 
of  its  own,  or  otherwise  modify  what  is  given  and 
pollute  what  is  sacred. 

It  is  also  on  this  principle  that  the  whole  practice 
and  doctrine  of  sortilegy  rest.  Let  us  confine  our- 
selves to  that  mode  of  sortilegy  which  is  conducted 
by  throwing  open  privileged  books  at  random,  leaving 
"  to  chance  the  page  and  the  particular  line  on  which 
the  oracular  functions  are  thrown.  The  books  used 
have  varied  with  the  caprice  or  the  error  of  ages. 
Once  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  had  the  preference. 
Probably  they  were  laid  aside,  not  because  the  rev- 
erence for  their  audiority  decayed,  bvt  because  it 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


553 


increased.  In  later  times,  Virgil  has  been  the  favorite. 
Considering  the  very  limited  range  of  ideas  to  which 
Virgil  was  tied  by  his  theme,  —  a  colonizing  expedition 
in  a  barbarous  age, —  no  worse  book  could  have  been- 
selected  so  little  indeed  does  the  ^neid  exhibit  of 
human  life  in  its  multiformity,  that  much  tamper ing 
with  the  text  is  required  to  bring  real  cases  of  human 
interest  and  real  situations  within  the  scope  of  any  Vir- 
gilian  sentence,  though  aided  by  the  utmost  latitude  of 
accommodation.  A  king,  a  soldier,  a  sailor,  &;c., 
might  look  for  correspondences  to  their  own  circum- 
stances ;  but  not  many  others.  Accordingly,  every 
body  remembers  the  remarkable  answer  which  Charles 
I.  received  at  Oxford  from  this  Virgil ian  oracle  about 
the  opening  of  the  Parliamentary  war.  But  from  this 
limitation  in  the  range  of  ideas  it  was  that  others,  and 
very  pious  people  too,  have  not  thought  it  profane  to 
resume  the  old  reliance  on  the  Scriptures.  No  case, 
indeed,  can  try  so  severely,  or  put  upon  record  so  con- 
spicuously, this  indestructible  propensity  for  seeking 
light  out  of  darkness,  this  thirst  for  looking  into  the 
future  by  the  aid  of  dice,  real  or  figurative,  as  the  fact 
of  men  eminent  for  piety  having  yielded  to  the  temp- 
tation. We  give  one  instance  —  the  instance  of  a 
person  who,  in  practical  theology,  has  been,  perhaps, 
more  popular  than  any  other  in  any  church.  Dr. 
Doddridge,  in  his  earlier  days,  was  in  a  dilemma  both 
of  conscience  and  of  taste  as  to  the  election  he  should 
make  between  two  situations  —  one  in  possession, 
both  at  his  command.  He  was  settled  at  Harboro',  in 
Leicestershire,  and  was  pleasing  himself  with  the 
view  of  a  continuance  "  in  that  situation.    True,  he  had 


55r 


recLeiTed  an  invitation  to  !^orthainpt(3ii  \  but  the  reasons 
against  compljang  seemed  so  strong  that  nothing  was 
wanting^biit  the  eiyility  of  going  over  to  Northampton 
.and  making  an  apologetic  farewell.  On  the  last  Sun- 
day m  November  of  the  year  1729  the  doctor  went 
and  preached  a  sermon  in  conformity  with  thos^e  pur- 
poses. "  But,"  says  he,  "  on  the  morning  of  that  day 
an  incident  happened  which  affected  me  greatly.'" 
On  the  night  previous,  it  seems,  he  had  been  urged 
veiy  importunately  by  his  Northampton  friends  to  un- 
dertake the  vacant  office.  Much  personal  kindness  had 
concurred  with  this  public  importunity ;  the  good  doctoi 
was  affected  ;  he  had  prayed  fervently,  alleging  in  his 
prayer,  as  the  reason  which  chiefly  weighed  with  him 
to  reject  the  offer,  that  it  was  far  beyond  his  forc^js, 
and  chiefly  because  he  was  too  young and  had  no 
assistant.  He  goes  on  thus:  *'As  soon  as  ever  this 
address"  (meaning  the  prayer)  "  was  ended,  I  passed 
through  a  room  of  the  house  in  which  I  lodged,  where 
a  child  was  reading  to  his  mother,  and  the  only  words 
I  heard  distinctly  were  these  :  And  as  thy  days^  so  shalJ 
thy  strength  be^  This  singular  coincidence  between 
his  own  difSqulty  and  a  scriptural  line  caught  at  ran. 
dop^X  itt  passing  hastily  through  a  room  (but  obsenp, 
a  line  insulated  fron:^  the  Context  and  placed  in  high 
relief  tQ  his  ear)  shook  his  resolution ;  accident  co- 
operated ;  a  pmmise  to  be  fulfilled  at  Northampton 
in  a  certain  contingency  fell  due  at  the  instant;  the 
doctor  was  detained ;  this  detention  gave  time  for 
further  representations  ;  new  motives  arose,  old  difficuU 
tieawere  removed  ;  and  finally  the  doctor  saw,  in  all  this 
^uGQessiQn  of  steps,  —  the  first  of  which,  however,  lay 


in  the  fortes  Biblicce^  —  cjear  indications  of  €t  provi- 
deixtial  guidance.  With  tlmt  conviction  he  look  up  hia 
abode  at  Northampton,  and  remained  there  for  \hQ 
next  tlilrty-one  yeai^s,  until  he  left  it  fof  his  grave 
at  Lisbon ;  in  fact,  he  passed  at  J>forthainptoa  the 
whole  of  his  public  life*  It  must^  tiierefoxe,  be  allowed 
to  stand  upon  the  records  of  soililegyj  tlmt  in  tlie  iimin 
direction  of  his  life  —  not,  indeed, us  toils  spiiit^  but 
as  to  its  foj^m  and  local  connections  —  a  Protestant 
divine  of  much  merit,  and  chiefly  in  what  i^gai^s 
practice,  ajad  of  the  class  most  opposed  to  superstiiio®, 
^ok  bis  determining  impulse  bom  a  variety  of  the 
Sortes  ¥irgUian<E. 

T?his  Aavriety  was  known  in  early  times  to  the  Jews 
—  as  e^^rly^  indeed,  as  the  ^^ra  of  tlie  Grecian  Pericles, 
if  we  are  to  believe  the  Talmud.  It  is  known  famil- 
iarly to  this  day  amongst  Polish  Jev?s,  and  is  called 
Bath-col^  or  the  daughter  of  u  voice ;  meani^^  of 
which  appellation  Is  this :  The  TJrm  and  Tlmn^nm^ 
or  oracle  iu  the  breastplate  of  the  lii^  priest^  spoke 
directly  from  God  ;  it  was,  therefore,  the  original  or 
mother  voice.  But  al)out  the  time  of  Pi^rieies,  that  is, 
exactly  one  hundred  yeai"^  before  tbe  tijne  of  AleMn- 
der  the  Great,  the  light  of  prophec^^  was  qneiiclted 
in  Malacbi  or  Haggai^  and  the  oracular  jewels  iQ^ie 
breastpiate  became  simultaneously  dim,  Hence^Ew- 
wards  the  mother  voice  was  beard  no  longer  vbut  to 
this  succeeded  an  imperfect  or  JaughteT  Toic^,  (JBmM' 
tol^)  which  lay  \n  the  first  words  happening  to  ^est 
the  attention  at  a  moment  of  perj)lexity,  Aft  iH^- 
tration,  whicl^  has  been  often  quoted  from  tlie  Tal- 
mud, is  to  the  following  effect :  Rabbi  Toebi^mn  ^md 


556 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


Rabbi  Simeon  Ben  Lacbish  were  anxious  about  a 
friend,  Rabbi  Samuel,  six  hundred  miles  distant  on  the 
Euphrates.  Whilst  talking  earnestly  together  on  this 
subject  in  Palestine,  they  passed  a  school :  they  paused 
to  listen  :  it  was  a  child  reading  the  First  Book  of 
Samuel ;  and  the  words  which  they  caught  were  these  : 
And  Samuel  died.  These  words  they  received  as  a 
Bath-col;  and  the  next  horseman  from  the  Euphrates 
brought  word  accordingly  that  Rabbi  Samuel  had  been 
gathered  to  his  fathers  at  some  station  on  the  Eu- 
phrates. 

Here  is  the  very  same  case,  the  same  Bath-col  sub- 
stantially, which  we  have  cited  from  Orton's  Life  of 
Doddridge.  And  Du  Cange  himself  notices,  in  his 
Glossary,  the  relation  which  this  bore  to  the  pagan 
Sortes,  "  It  was,"  says  he,  "  a  fantastical  way  of 
divination,  invented  by  the  Jews,  not  unlike  the  Sortes 
VirgiliancB  of  the  heathens ;  for  as  with  them  the 
first  words  they  happened  to  dip  into  m  the  works  of 
that  poet  were  a  kind  of  oracle  whereby  they  predicted 
future  events,  so  with  the  Jews,  when  they  appealed 
to  Bath-col,  the  first  words  they  heard  from  any  one's 
mouth  were  looked  upon  as  a  voice  from  Heaven 
directing  them  in  the  matter  they  inquired  about." 

If  the  reader  imagines  that  this  ancient  form  of  the 
practical  miraculous  is  at  all  gone  out  of  use,  even  the 
example  of  Dr.  Doddridge  may  satisfy  him  to  the  con- 
trary. Such  an  example  was  sure  to  authorize  a  large 
imitation.  But,  even  apart  from  that,  the  superstition 
is  common.  The  records  of  conversion  amongst  felons 
and  other  ignorant  persons  might  be  cited  by  hundreds 
upon  hundreds  to  prove  that  no  practice  is  more  com- 


MODERN   SUPERSTITION.  557 

mon  than  that  of  trying  the  spiritual  fate  and  abid- 
ing by  the  import  of  any  passage  in  the  Scriptures 
which  may  first  present  itself  to  the  eye.  Cowper,  the 
poet,  has  recorded  a  case  of  this  sort  in  his  own  ex- 
perience. It  is  one  to  which  all  the  unhappy  are 
prone.  But  a  mode  of  questioning  the  oracles  of 
darkness,  far  more  childish,  and,  under  some  shape 
or  other,  equally  common  amongst  those  who  are 
prompted  by  mere  vacancy  of  mind,  without  that  de- 
termination to  sacred  fountains  which  is  impressed  by 
misery,  may  be  found  in  the  following  extravagant 
silliness  of  E-ousseau,  which  we  give  in  his  own  words 
—  a  case  for  which  he  admits  that  he  hnnseif  would 
haw e  shut  up  any  other  man  (meaning  in  a  lunatic  hos- 
pital) whom  he  had  seen  practising  the  same  absurd- 
ities :  — 

Au  milieu  de  mes  etudes  et  d'une  vie  innocente  autant  qu'on  la 
puisse  mener,  et  malgre  tout  ce  qu'on  m'avoit  pu  dire,  la  peur  de 
Tenfer  m'agitoit  encore.  Souvent  je  me  demandois,  En  quel  etat 
suis-je  ?  Si  je  mourrois  a  I'instant  meme  serois-je  damii^f  Selon 
mes  Jansenistes,  [he  had  been  reading  the  books  of  the  Port  Royal,] 
la  chose  est  indubitable :  mais,  selon  ma  conscience,  il  me  paroissoit 
que  non.  Toujours  craintif  et  flottant  dans  cette  cruelle  incerti- 
tude, j'avois  recours  (pour  en  sortir)  aux  expedients  les  plus  risi- 
bles,  et  pour  lesquels  je  ferois  volontiers  enfermer  un  homme  si  je 
lui  en  voyois  faire  autant.  *  *  *  Un  jour,  revant  a  ce  triste 
sujet,  je  m'exer9ois  machinalement  a  lancer  les  pierres  contre  les 
troncs  des  arbres  ;  et  cela  avec  mon  addresse  ordinaire,  c'est-a-dire, 
sans  presque  jamais  en  toucher  aucun.  Tout  au  milieu  de  ce  bel 
exercice,  je  m'avisai  de  faire  une  esp^ce  de  pronostic  pour  calmei 
mon  inquietude.  Je  me  dis,  Je  m'en  vais  jeter  cette  pierre  contre 
I'arbre  qui  est  vis-a-vis  de  moi :  si  je  le  touche,  signe  de  salut:  si 
je  le  manque,  signe  de  damnation.  Tout  en  disant  ainsi,  je  jette 
ma  pierre  d'une  main  tremblante,  et  avec  un  hori'ible  battement  de 
zcear,  mais  si  heureusement  qu'elle  va  frapper  au  beau-milieu  de 
Varbre :  ce  qui  v(  ritablement  n'etoit  pas  difEcilo  •  car  j'avois  eu 

I 


558 


MODKRX  SUPEKSTITIOX. 


fioiii  de  le  clioit^ir  fort  gro?;  et  fort  i)res.  Depuis  lors  je  /t'ai  pl^s 
^<mhte  de  mpn  saint,  Je  ne  sais,  en  me  rappelaut  ce  trait,  si  je  dois 
rire  ou  gemir  sur  moi-meme."  —  Les  Confessions,  Partk  L  J^ivre  VJ 

Now,  really,  if  Rousseau  thought  fit  to  try  such  tre- 
meiiclous  appeals  by  taking  "  a  shy at  any  random 
object,  he  should  have  gpverned  his  sortilegy  (foj*  such 
it  may  be  called)  with  ^om^thing  more  like  equity^ 
Fair  play  is  a  jewel ;  and  in  such  a  case  a  map  is  suj>» 
posed  to  play  against  an  adverse  party  hid  in  darkness. 
To  shy  at  a  cow  within  six  feet  distance  gives  no 
chance  at  all  to  his  dark  antagonist,  A  pigeon  rising 
from  a  trap  at  a  suitable  distance  might  be  thought  ii 
sincere  staking  of  the  interest  at  issue :  but,  as  to  th^ 
massy  stem  of  a  tree  fort  gros  et  ibrt  pres,''  the  sar- 
casm of  a  Roman  emperor  applies,  that  to  \ims  under 
such  conditions  imphed  an  original  genius  for  stupidity^ 
and  to  hit  was  no  trial  of  the  case.  After  all,  the  sen- 
timentalist had  youth  to  plead  in  apology  for  thi^  ex- 
travagance. He  was  iiypochondriacal ;  lie  wa^s  in 
solitude ;  and  he  was  possessed  by  gloouiiy  imagina- 
tions from  the  works  of  a  society  in  the  highest  public 
credit.  But  most  readers  will  be  aware  of  similar  ap^ 
peals  to  the  mysteries  of  Providence  made  in  publi< 
by  illustrious  sectarians  speaking  from  the  soleiwi  sta- 
tion of  a  pulpit.  We  forbear  to  qi^ote  cases  of  this 
nature,  tlxough  really  existing  in  priiit,  because  we  feel 
that  the  blasphemy  of  such  anecdotes  is  more  revolting 
and  more  painful  to  pious  minds  than  the  absurdity  is 
amusing..  Meantime  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the 
principle  concerned,  though  it  may  happen  to  disgust 
men  when  a^sociuted  with  ludicrous  circumstances,  is, 
^fter  a1K  the  very  same  wliieh  has  latently  governed 


MODK^N  SUPERSTITION. 


559 


very  many  modes  of  oi'dea,!  or  jucticial  iuquiry,  aud 
which  has  been  adopted,  blindly,  as  a  naoral  rule  or 
canon  eq^ually  by  the  blindest  of  the  pagans^  the  most 
fanaticaP  of  the  levvs^  and  the  most  enlightened  of  the 
Christians.  It  proceeds  upon  the  assumption  that  man, 
by  his  actions,  puts  question  to  Heaven,  and  that 
Hea\^a  a^nswers  by  the  event.  Lugan,  in  a  well- 
kuown  passage,  takes  it  for  granted  that  the  caus^ 
of  Csesar  had  the  approbatipn  of  the  gods.  And  why  ? 
Simply  from  the  event.  It  was  notoriously  the  tri- 
umphant cause.  It  was  victorious,  (yictrh  causa  Deis 
placuif ;  sed  victa  Catoni.)  It  was  the  "  victrix  causa  ; " 
and,  as  such,  sjmplv  because  it  wa.s  victrix,"  it  had  a 
right  in  h\s  eyes  to  postulate  the  divine  favor  as  mem 
matter  of  necessary  interference  ;  whilst,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  tricta  caifsa^  though  it  seemed  to  Lucan  sanc- 
tioned by  humap  virtue  in  the  person  of  Cato,  stood 
unappealably  condemned.^^  This  mode  of  reasoning 
may  strike  the  reader  as  merely  pagan.  Not  at  all. 
In  England,  at  the  clqse  of  the  Parliamentar}^  war,  it 
was  generally  argued  that  Providence  had  decided  tiie 
question  against  the  royalists  by  the  mere  fact  of  the 
issue.  Milton  himsejf,  with  all  his  liightoned  moral- 
ity, uses  this  argument  as  in-efragable  \  v/hich  is  odd, 
were  it  only  on  this  account  —  that  the  issue  ought 
necessarily  to  have  been  held  for  a  time  as  merely 
hypothetic  and  liable  to  be  set  aside  by  possible  counter 
i3sues  through  one  generation  at  the  least.^  But  the 
capital  argument  against  such  doctrine  is  to  be  found 
the  New  Testament.  Strange  that  Milton  should 
overlook,  and  strange  that  moralists  in  general  have 
overlooked,  the  sudden  arrest  given  to  this  dahgorou-^j 


560 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


but  most  prevalent,  mode  of  reasoning  by  the  Foundei 
of  our  faith  !  He  first,  he  last,  taught  to  his  astonished 
disciples  the  new  truth, —  at  that  time  the  astounding 
truth, —  that  no  relation  exists  between  the  immediate 
practical  events  of  things  on  the  one  side  and  divine 
sentences  on  the  other.  There  was  no  presumption, 
he  teaches  them,  against  a  man's  favor  with  God,  or 
that  of  his  parents,  because  he  happened  to  be  afflicted 
to  extremity  with  bodily  disease.  There  was  no  shadow 
of  an  argument  for  believing  a  party  of  men  criminal 
objects  of  heavenly  wrath  because  upon  them,  by  fatal 
preference,  a  tower  had  fallen,  and  because  their  bodies 
were  exclusively  mangled.  How  little  can  it  be  said 
that  Christianity  has  yet  developed  the  fulness  of  its 
power,  when  kings  and  senates  so  recently  acted  under 
a  total  oblivion  of  this  great,  though  novel.  Christian 
doctrine,  and  would  do  so  still,  were  it  not  that  religious 
arguments  have  been  banished  by  the  progress  of  man- 
ners from  the  field  of  political  discussion  ! 

But,  quitting  this  province  of  the  ominous,  where  it 
is  made  the  object  of  a  direct  personal  inquest,  whether 
by  private  or  by  national  trials  or  the  sortilegy  of  events, 
let  us  throw  our  eyes  over  the  broader  field  of  omens  as 
they  offer  themselves  spontaneously  to  those  who  do 
not  seek  or  would  even  willingly  evade  them.  There 
are  few  of  these,  perhaps  none,  which  are  not  univer- 
sal in  their  authority,  though  every  land  in  turn  fancies 
them  (like  its  proverbs)  of  local  prescription  and  origin. 
The  deathwatch  extends  from  England  to  Cashmere, 
and  across  India  diagonally  to  the  remotest  nook  of 
Bengal,  over  a  three  thousand  miles'  distance  from  the 
entrance  of  the  Indian  Punjaub.    A  hare  crossing  a 


MOUERN  SUPERSTITION. 


561 


man's  path  on  starting  in  the  morning  has  been  held 
in  all  countries  alike  to  prognosticate  evil  in  the  course 
of  that  day.  Thus,  in  the  Confessions  of  a  Tliug^ 
(which  is  partially  built  on  a  real  judicial  document, 
and  every  where  conforms  to  the  usages  of  Hindos- 
tan,)  the  hero  of  the  horrid  narrative charges  some 
disaster  of  his  own  upon  having  neglected  such  an 
omen  of  the  morning.  The  same  belief  operated  in 
pagan  Italy.  The  same  omen  announced  to  Lord 
Lindsay's  Arab  attendants  in  the  desert  the  approach 
of  some  disaster,  which  partially  happened  in  the 
morning.  And  a  Highlander  of  the  forty-second  regi- 
ment, in  his  printed  memoirs,  notices  the  same  harbin- 
ger of  evil  as  having  crossed  his  own  path  on  a  day  of 
personal  disaster  in  Spain. 

Birds  are  even  more  familiarly  associated  with  such 
ominous  warnings.  This  chapter  in  the  great  volume 
of  superstition  was  indeed  cultivated  with  unusual 
solicitude  amongst  the  pagans  —  ornithomancy  grew 
into  an  elaborate  science.  But  if  every  rule  and  dis- 
tinction upon  the  number  and  the  position  of  birds, 
whether  to  the  right  or  the  left,  had  been  collected 
from  our  own  village  matrons  amongst  ourselves,  it 
would  appear  that  no  more  of  this  pagan  science  had 
gone  to  wreck  than  must  naturally  follow  the  difference 
between  a  believing  and  a  disbelieving  government. 
Magpies  are  still  of  awful  authority  in  village  life, 
according  to  their  number,  &c.  ;  for  a  striking  illus- 
tration of  which  we  may  refer  the  reader  to  Sir  Walter 
Scott's  Demonology^  reported  not  at  second  hand,  but 
from  Sir  Walter's  personal  communication  with  some 
seafaring  fellow-traveller  in  a  stage  coach. 
36 


562 


MODERN  SUPRRSTITlOJiT. 


Among  trie  ancient  stories  of  the  sa^ne  cla^s  is 
one  which  we  shall  repeat — having  reference  to  that 
Herod  Agrippa,  grandson  of  Herod  the  Great,  before 
whom  St.  Paul  made  his  famous  apology  at  Csesarea. 
This  Agrippa,  overwhelmed  1)y  debts^  liad  fled  fr6m 
Palestine  to  Rome  m  the  latter  years  of  Tibferius*  His 
mother's  interest  with  the  widow  of  Germ^iWciis  pro* 
Cured  him  a  special  recommendation  toiler  son  Caligula. 
Viewing  tnis  child  and  heir  of  the  popular  Gemaanicu^ 
as  the  rising  sun,  Agrippa  had  been  too  free  in  his 
language.  True,  the  uncle  of  Germatiicus  was  the 
reigniTig  prince  ;  but  he  was  old,  atid  breaking  up. 
True,  the  son  of  German icus  was  not  yet  on  the  throne , 
but  he  soon  would  be  ;  and  Agrippa  was  rasb  enoOgh 
to  call  the  emperor  a  superannuated  old  felhto^  and 
even  to  wish  for  his  death.  SejanuS  was  now  dead 
and  gone  ;  but  thefe  was  no  want  of  spies ;  and  a 
certain  Macro  reported  his  words  to  Tiberius.  Agrip- 
pa was  in  consequence  arrested,  the  emperor  himiself 
condescendihg  to  point  out  thfe  noble  JeW  to  tlie  officer 
on  duty.  The  Case  was  a  gloomy  olie,  if  Tiberius 
should  happen  to  survive  much  longer  i  and  the  story 
of  the  ometi  proceeds  thus  t  ^'  Now,  Agrippa  J  stood 
in  hi^  bohds  before  the  imperial  palace,  and  \h  his  af 
flictiori  leaned  against  a  certain  tree,  Upon  the  boughs 
of  which  It  happened  that  a  bird  bad  alighted  which 
the  Romans  Call  hut}0\,  6r  the  cwl.  Afl  this  was  Stead- 
fastly observed  by  a  German  prisoner^  who  asked  a 
soldier  what  Imight  be  the  name  and  ofTehce  of  that 
man  habited  in  purple.  Being  told  that  the  man's 
tiam^  was  Agvippa^  arid  that  he  was  a  Jew  of  high 
fenk,  who  had  giVCH  a  personal  offene^  to  the  enrtper(>ry 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


the  German  askeKl  permission  to  go  near  and  address 
him ;  which  behig  granted,  he  spoke  thus :  *  This 
di^^astev,  I  doubt  not,  young  man,  is  trying  t6  your 
heart ;  and  perhaps  you  will  not  believe  m6  When  t 
•tinilounce  to  you  beforehand  the  providential  deliveir- 
ance  which  is  impending.  However,  this  much  I  Will 
say,  —  and  for  my  sincerity  let  tnh  appeal  to  my  hative 
gods,  as  well  as  to  the  gods  of  this  Rome,  who  have 
brought  us  both  into  trouble,  —  that  no  selfish  obje<!^tg 
pi'ompt  me  to  this  revelation  ;  for  a  reVeTation  it  is, 
and  to  the  following  effect :  It  is  fated  that  yon  shall 
not  long  remain  in  chains*  Your  deliverance  will  be 
speedy;  you  shall  be  raised  to  the  very  highest  rank 
and  power  ;  you  shall  be  the  object  of  as  much  envy 
as  now  you  are  of  pity ;  you  shall  retain  your  pros- 
perity till  death  ;  and  you  shall  transmit  that  prosperity 
to  y6ar  children.  But  —  '  and  there  the  Germari 
paused.  Agrippa  was  agitated;  the  bystanders  were 
attentive ;  and,  after  a  time,  the  German,  pointing 
solemnly  to  the  bird,  proceeded  thus :  '  But  this 
remember  heedfully,  that,  when  next  y6u  see  the 
bird  which  now  perches  above  your  head,  you  \i^ill 
have  only  five  days  longer  to  live  !  This  event  will 
be  surely  accomplished  by  that  same  mysterious  g6a 
who  has  thought  fit  to  send  the  bird  as  a  warning  sign ; 
and  you,  when  you  come  to  your  glory,  do  not  fol'get 
me  that  foreshadowed  it  in  your  humiliation.  "  The 
story  adds,  that  Agrippa  affected  to  laugh  when,  the 
German  concluded  ;  after  which  it  ^oes  on  to  say, 
that  in  a  few  weeks,  being  delivered  by  tlie  death  of 
Tiberius,  being  released  from  prison  by  the  very 
otince  on  whose  account  he  had  incurred  the  risk. 


564 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


being  raised  to  a  tetrarchy,  and  afterwards  to  the  king 
doni  of  all  Judea,  coming  into  all  the  prosperity  which 
had  been  promised  to  him  by  the  German,  and  not 
losing  any  part  of  his  interest  at  Rome  through  the 
assassination  of  his  patron  Caligula,  he  began  to  look 
back  respectfully  to  the  words  of  the  German  and 
forwards  with  anxiety  to  the  second  coming  of  the 
bird.  Seven  years  of  sunshine  had  now  slipped  away 
as  silently  as  a  dream.  A  great  festival,  shows  and 
vows,  was  on  the  point  of  being  celebrated  in  honor  of 
Claudius  Caesar,  at  Strato's  Tower,  otherwise  called 
Caesarea,  the  Roman  metropolis  of  Palestine.  Duty 
and  policy  alike  required  that  the  king  of  the  land 
should  go  down  and  unite  in  this  mode  of  religious 
homage  to  the  emperor.  He  did  so ;  and  on  the 
second  morning  of  the  festival,  by  way  of  doing  more 
conspicuous  honor  to  the  great  solemnity,  he  assumed 
a  very  sumptuous  attire  of  silver  armor,  burnished  so 
highly  as  to  throw  back  a  dazzling  glare  from  the  sun's 
morning  beams  upon  the  upturned  eyes  of  the  vast 
multitude  around  him.  Immediately  from  the  syco- 
phantish  part  of  the  crowd,  of  whom  a  vast  majority 
were  pagans,  ascended  a  cry  of  glorification  as  to 
some  manifestation  of  Deity.  Agrippa,  gratified  by 
this  success  of  his  new  apparel,  and  by  this  flattery, 
not  unusual  in  the  case  of  kings,  had  not  the  firmness 
(though  a  Jew,  and  conscious  of  the  wickedness, 
greg-ler  in  himself  than  in  the  heathen  crowd)  to 
reject  the  blasphemous  homage.  Voices  of  adoration 
continued  to  ascend  ;  when  suddenly,  looking  upward 
to  the  vast  awnings  prepared  for  screening  the  audi- 
ence from  the  noonday  heats,  the  king  perceived  the 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION.  565 

same  ominous  bird  which  he  had  seen  at  Rome  in  the 
day  of  his  affliction,  seated  quietly,  and  looking  down 
upon  himself.  In  that  same  moment  an  icy  pang 
shot  through  his  intestines.  He  was  removed  into  the 
palace ;  and  at  the  end  of  five  days,  completely  worn 
out  by  pain,  Agrippa  expired,  in  the  fifty^fourth  year  of 
his  age  and  the  seventh  of  his  sovereign  power. 

Whether  the  bird  here  described  as  an  owl  was 
really  such  may  be  doubted,  considering  the  narrow 
nomenclature  of  the  Romans  for  all  zoological  pur- 
poses and  the  total  indifference  of  the  Roman  mind 
to  all  distinctions  in  natural  history  which  are  not  upon 
the  very  largest  scale.  We  should  much  suspect  that 
the  bird  was  a  magpie.  Meantime,  speaking  of  orni- 
thoscopy  in  relation  to  Jews,  we  remember  another 
story  in  that  subdivision  of  the  subject  which  it  may 
be  worth  while  repeating ;  not  merely  on  its  own 
account,  as  wearing  a  fine  Oriental  air,  but  also 
for  the  correction  which  it  suggests  to  a  very  com- 
mon error. 

In  some  period  of  Syrian  warfare,  a  large  military 
detachment  was  entering  at  some  point  of  Syria 
from  the  desert  of  the  Euphrates.  At  the  head  of  the 
whole  array  rode  two  men  of  some  distinction  :  one 
was  an  augur  of  high  reputation ;  the  other  was  a  Jew 
called  Mosollam,  a  man  of  admirable  beauty,  a  match- 
less horseman,  an  unerring  archer,  and  accomplished 
in  all  martial  arts.  As  they  were  now  first  coming 
within  enclosed  grounds  after  a  long  march  in  the 
wilderness,  the  augur  was  most  anxious  to  inaugurate 
\he  expedition  by  some  considerable  omen.  Watching 
inxiousl}^  therefore,  he  soon  saw  a  bird  of  splendid 


566 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


plumage  perching  on  a  low  wall.  "  Halt !  "  he  said  to 
the  advanced  guard  ;  and  all  drew  up  in  a  line.  At 
that  moment  of  silence  and  expectation,  Mosollam, 
slightly  turning  himself  in  his  saddle,  drew  his  bow- 
string to  his  ear  ;  his  Jewish  hatred  of  pagan  auguries 
burned  within  -him ;  his  inevitable  shaft  went  right  to 
its  mark ;  and  the  beautiful  bird  fell  dead.  The  augur 
turned  round  in  fury.  But  the  Jew  laughed  at  him. 
"  This  bird,  you  say,  should  have  furnished  us  with 
omens  of  our  future  fortunes ;  but,  had  he  known  any 
thing  of  his  own,  he  would  never  have  perched  where 
he  did  or  have  come  within  the  range  of  Mosollam's 
archery.  How  should  that  bird  know  our  destiny,  who 
did  not  know  that  it  was  his  own  to  be  shot  by  Mosol- 
lam the  Jew  ?  " 

Now,  this  is  a  most  common  but  a  most  erroneous 
way  of  arguing.  In  a  case  of  this  kind,  the  bird  was 
not  supposed  to  have  any  conscious  acquaintance  with 
futurity,  either  for  his  own  benefit  or  that  of  others. 
But  even  where  such  a  consciousness  may  be  supposed, 
as  in  the  case  of  orieiromancy,  or  prophecy  by  means 
of  dreams,  it  must  be  supposed  limited,  and  the  more 
limited  in  a  personal  sense  as  they  are  illimitable  in  a 
sublime  one.  Who  imagines  that,  because  a  Daniel 
or  Ezekiel  foresaw  the  grand  revolutions  of  the  earth, 
therefore  they  must  or  could  have  foreseen  the  little 
details  of  their  own  ordinary  life  ?  And  even  descend- 
ing from  that  perfect  inspiration  to  the  more  doubtful 
power  of  augury  amongst  the  pagans,  (concerning 
which  the  most  eminent  of  theologians  have  held  very 
opposite  theories,)  one  thing  is  certain,  that,  so  long  as 
^'e  entertain  such  pretensions  or  discuss  them  at  all 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


567 


we  must  take  them  with  the  principle  of  those  who  pro- 
fess such  arts,  not  with  principles  of  our  own  arbitrary- 
invention. 

One  example  will  make  this  clear.  There  are  in 
England  a  class  of  men  who  practise  the  pagan  rhab- 
domancy  in  a  limited  sense.  They  carry  a  rod  or 
rhabdos  (ga^dog)  of  willow  :  this  they  hold  horizon- 
tally ;  and,  by  the  bending  of  the  rod  towards  the 
ground,  they  discover  the  favorable  places  for  sinking 
wells  —  a  matter  of  considerable  importance  in  a  prov- 
ince so  ill  watered  as  the  northern  district  of  Somer- 
setshire, &c.  These  people  are  locally  called  jowsers ; 
and  it  is  probable  that  from  the  suspicion  with  which 
their  art  has  been  usually  regarded  amongst  people  of 
education,  as  a  mere  legerdemain  trick  of  Douster- 
swivePs,  is  derived  the  slang  word  to  chouse^  for 
swindle.  Meantime  the  experimental  evidences  of  a 
real  practical  skill  in  these  men,  and  the  enlarged 
compass  of  speculation  in  these  days,  have  led  many 
enlightened  people  to  a  Stoic  iTio/rj^  or  suspension  of 
judgment,  on  the  reality  of  this  somewhat  mysterious 
art.  Now,  in  the  East  there  are  men  who  make  the 
same  pretensions  in  a  more  showy  branch  of  the  art. 
It  is  not  water,  but  treasures,  which  they  profess  to  find 
by  some  hidden  kind  of  rhabdomancy.  The  very  ex- 
istence of  treasures  with  us  is  reasonably  considered 
a  thing  of  improbable  occurrence ;  but  in  the  un- 
settled East,  and  with  the  low  valuation  of  human  life 
wherever  Mahometanism  prevails,  insecurity  and  other 
causes  must  have  caused  millions  of  such  deposits  in 
every  century  to  have  perished  as  to  any  knowledge 
of  survivors.    The  sword  has  been  moving  backwards 


568 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


and  forwards,  for  instance,  like  a  weaver's  shuttle, 
since  the  time  of  Mahmoud  the  Ghaznevide,^^  in  Anno 
Domini  1000,  in  the  vast  regions  between  the  Tigris, 
the  Oxus,  and  the  Indus.  Regularly  as  it  approached, 
gold  and  jewels  must  have  sunk  by  whole  harvests  into 
the  ground.  A  certain  percentage  has  been  doubtless 
recovered  ;  a  larger  percentage  has  disappeared  for- 
ever. Hence  naturally  the  jealousy  of  barbarous  Ori- 
entals that  we  Europeans,  in  groping  amongst  pyra- 
mids, sphinxes,  and  tombs,  are  looking  for  buried 
treasures.  The  wretches  are  not  so  wide  astray  in 
what  they  believe  as  in  what  they  disbelieve.  The 
treasures  do  really  exist  which  they  fancy ;  but  then, 
also,  the  other  treasures  in  the  glorious  antiquities  have 
that  existence  for  our  sense  of  beauty  which  to  their 
brutality  is  inconceivable.  In  these  circumstances, 
why  should  it  surprise  us  that  men  will  pursue  the 
science  of  discovery  as  a  regular  trade  Many  dis- 
coveries of  treasure  are  doubtless  made  continually, 
which,  for  obvious  reasons,  are  communicated  to 
nobody.  Some  proportion  there  must  be  between 
the  sowing  of  such  grain  as  diamonds  or  emeralds,  and 
the  subsequent  reaping,  whether  by  accident  or  by  art ; 
for,  with  regard  to  the  last,  it  is  no  more  impossible 
prima  fronte^  that  a  substance  may  exist,  having  an 
occult  sympathy  with  subterraneous  water  or  subter- 
raneous gold,  than  that  the  magnet  should  have  a  sym- 
pathy (as  yet  occult)  with  the  northern  pole  of  our  planet. 

The  first  flash  of  careless  thought  applied  to  such 
a  case  will  suggest  that  men  holding  powers  of  this 
nature  need  not  offer  their  services  for  hire  to  others. 
And  this,  in  fact,  is  the  objection  universally  urged  by 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


569 


US  Eulopeans  as  decisive  against  their  pretensions. 
Their  knavery,  it  is  fancied,  stands  self-recorded; 
since,  assuredly,  they  would  not  be  willing  to  divide 
their  subterranean  treasures  if  they  knew  of  any.  But 
the  men  are  not  in  such  self-contradiction  as  may 
seem.  Lady  Hester  Stanhope,  from  the  better  knowl- 
edge she  had  acquired  of  Oriental  opinions,  set  Dr. 
Madden  right  on  this  point.  The  Oriental  belief  is, 
that  a  fatality  attends  the  appropriator  of  a  treasure  in 
any  case  where  he  happens  also  to  be  the  discoverer. 
Such  a  person,  it  is  held,  will  die  soon,  and  suddenly  ; 
so  that  he  is  compelled  to  seek  his  remuneration 
from  the  wages  or  fees  of  his  employers,  not  from  the 
treasure  itself. 

Many  more  secret  laws  are  held  sacred  amongst  the 
professors  of  that  art  than  that  which  was  explained  by 
Lady  Hester  Stanhope.  These  we  shall  not  enter  upon 
at  present ;  but  generally  we  may  remark,  that  the 
same  practices  of  subterranean  deposits,  during  our 
troubled  periods  in  Europe,  led  to  the  same  supersti- 
tions. And  it  may  be  added,  that  the  same  error  has 
arisen  in  both  cases  as  to  some  of  these  superstitions. 
How  often  must  it  have  struck  people  of  liberal  feel- 
ings, as  a  scandalous  proof  of  the  preposterous  value 
set  upon  riches  by  poor  men,  that  ghosts  should  popu- 
larly be  supposed  to  rise  and  wander  for  the  sake  of 
revealing  the  situations  of  buried  treasures  !  For  our- 
selves, we  have  been  accustomed  to  view  this  popular 
belief  in  the  light  of  an  argument  for  pity  rather  than 
for  contempt  towards  poor  men,  as  indicating  the  ex- 
treme pressure  of  that  necessity  which  could  so  have 
lemoralized  their  natural  sense  of  truth.    But  cer- 


570 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


tainly,  in  whatever  feelings  originating,  such  popular 
superstitions  as  to  motives  of  ghostly  missions  did  seem 
to  argue  a  deplorable  misconception  of  the  relation 
subsisting  between  the  spiritual  world  and  the  perisha- 
ble treasures  of  this  perishable  world.  Yet,  when  we 
look  into  the  Eastern  explanations  of  this  case,  we  find 
that  it  is  meant  to  express,  not  any  over-valuation  of 
riches,  but  the  direct  contrary  passion.  A  human 
spirit  is  punished,  —  such  is  the  notion,  —  punished  in 
the  spiritual  world,  for  excessive  attachment  to  gold, 
by  degradation  to  the  office  of  its  guardian ;  and  from 
this  office  the  tortured  spirit  can  release  itself  only  by 
revealing  the  treasure  and  transferring  the  custody.  It 
is  a  penal  martyrdom,  not  an  elective  passion  for  gold, 
which  is  thus  exemplified  in  the  wanderings  of  a 
treasure  ghost. 

But,  in  a  field  where  of  necessity  we  are  so  much 
limited,  we  willingly  pass  from  the  consideration  of 
these  treasure  or  khasne  phantoms  (which  alone  suffi- 
ciently insure  a  swarm  of  ghostly  terrors  for  all  Ori- 
ental ruins  of  cities)  to  the  same  marvellous  appari- 
tions as  they  haunt  other  solitudes  even  more  awful 
than  those  of  ruined  cities.  In  this  world  there  are 
two  mighty  forms  of  perfect  solitude  —  the  ocean  and 
the  desert  —  the  wilderness  of  the  barren  sands  and 
the  wilderness  of  the  barren  waters.  Both  are  the 
parents  of  inevitable  superstitions  —  of  terrors,  solemn, 
meradicable,  eternal.  Sailors  and  the  children  of  the 
desert  are  alike  overrun  with  spiritual  hauntings,  from 
accidents  of  peril  essentially  connected  with  those 
modes  of  life  and  from  the  eternal  spectacle  of  the 
infinite.    Voices  seem  to  blend  with  the  raving  of  the 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


571 


sea,  which  will  forever  impress  the  feeling  of  beings 
more  than  human  ;  and  every  chamber  of  the  great 
wilderness  which,  with  little  interruption,  stretches  from 
the  Euphrates  to  the  western  shores  of  Africa,  has  its 
own  peculiar  terrors  both  as  to  sights  and  sounds.  In 
the  wilderness  of  Zin,  between  Palestine  and  the  Red 
Sea,  a  section  of  the  desert  well  known  in  these  days 
to  our  own  countrymen,  bells  are  heard  daily  pealing, 
for  matins  or  for  vespers,  from  some  phantom  convent 
that  no  search  of  Christian  or  of  Bedouin  Arab  has 
ever  been  able  to  discover.  These  bells  have  sounded 
since  the  crusades.  Other  sounds,  trumpets,  the  Alala 
of  armies,  &c.,  are  heard  in  other  regions  of  the  desert. 
Forms,  also,  are  seen  of  more  people  than  have  any 
right  to  be  walking  in  human  paths  ;  sometimes  forms 
of  avowed  terror ;  sometimes,  which  is  a  case  of  far 
more  danger,  appearances  that  mimic  the  shapes  of 
men,  and  even  of  friends  or  comrades.  This  is  a  case 
much  dwelt  on  by  the  old  travellers,  and  which  throws 
a  gloom  over  the  spirits  of  all  Bedouins,  and  of  eveiy 
cafila,  or  caravan.  We  all  know  what  a  sensation  of 
loneliness  or  "  eeriness  "  (to  use  an  expressive  term 
of  the  ballad  poetry)  arises  to  any  small  party  assem- 
bling in  a  single  room  of  a  vast,  desolate  mansion  ; 
how  the  timid  among  them  fancy  continually  that  they 
hear  some  remote  door  opening,  or  trace  the  sound  of 
suppressed  footsteps  from  some  distant  staircase.  Such 
is  the  feeling  in  the  desert,  even  in  the  midst  of  the 
caravan.  The  mighty  solitude  is  seen ;  the  dread  si- 
lence is  anticipated  which  will  succeed  to  this  brief 
transit  of  men,  camels,  and  horses.  Awe  prevails 
even  in  the  midst  of  society ;  but,  if  the  traveller 


572 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


should  loiter  behind  from  fatigue,  or  be  so  imprudent 
as  to  ramble  aside,  should  he  from  any  cause  once 
lose  sight  of  his  party,  it  is  held  that  his  chance  is 
small  of  recovering  their  traces.  And  why  ?  Not 
chiefly  from  the  want  of  footmarks  where  the  wind 
efiaces  all  impressions  in  half  an  hour,  or  of  eyemarks 
where  all  is  one  blank  ocean  of  sand,  but  much  more 
from  the  sounds  or  the  visual  appearances  which  are 
supposed  to  beset  and  to  seduce  all  insulated  wanderers. 

Every  body  knows  the  superstitions  of  the  ancients 
about  the  Nympholeptoi^  or  those  who  had  seen  Pan ; 
but  far  more  awful  and  gloomy  are  the  existing  super- 
stitions, throughout  Asia  and  Africa,  as  to  the  perils  of 
those  who  are  phantom-haunted  in  the  wilderness. 
The  old  Venetian  traveller,  Marco  Polo,  states  them 
well ;  he  speaks,  indeed,  of  the  Eastern,  or  Tartar 
deserts,  the  steppes  which  stretch  from  European 
Russia  to  the  footsteps  of  the  Chinese  throne  ;  but 
exactly  the  same  creed  prevails  amongst  the  Arabs, 
from  Bagdad  to  Suez  and  Cairo  —  from  Rosetta  to 
Tunis  —  Tunis  to  Timbuctoo,  or  Mequinez.  "  If,  dur- 
ing the  daytime,"  says  he,  "  any  person  should  remain 
behind  until  the  caravan  is  no  longer  in  sight,  he  hears 
himself  unexpectedly  called  to  by  name  and  in  a 
voice  with  which  he  is  familiar.  Not  doubting  that 
the  voice  proceeds  from  some  of  his  comrades,  the 
unhappy  man  is  beguiled  from  the  right  direction ; 
and,  soon  finding  himself  utterly  confounded  as  to  the 
path,  he  roams  about  in  distraction  until  he  perishes 
niserably.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  this  perilous  separa- 
tion of  himself  from  the  caravan  should  happen  at 
oight^  he  is  sure  to  hear  the  uproar  of  a  great  caval- 


MODERN  SUPERSTlTIONc 


573 


cade  a  mile  or  two  to  the  right  or  left  of  the  true  track. 
He  is  thus  seduced  on  one  side,  and  at  break  of  day 
finds  himself  far  removed  from  man.  Nay,  even  at 
noonday,  it  is  well  known  that  grave  and  respectable 
men,  to  all  appearance,  will  come  up  to  a  particular 
traveller,  will  bear  the  look  of  a  friend,  and  will 
gradually  lure  him  by  earnest  conversation  to  a  dis- 
tance from  the  caravan ;  after  which  the  sounds  of 
men  and  camels  will  be  heard  continually  at  all  points 
but  the  true  one  ;  whilst  an  insensible  turning  by  the 
tenth  of  an  inch  at  each  separate  step  from  the  true 
direction  will  very  soon  suffice  to  set  the  traveller's 
face  to  the  opposite  point  of  the  compass  from  that 
which  his  safety  requires,  and  which  his  fancy  repre- 
sents to  him  as  his  real  direction.  Marvellous,  indeed, 
and  almost  passing  belief,  are  the  stories  reported  of 
these  desert  phantoms,  which  are  said  at  times  to  fill 
the  air  with  choral  music  from  all  kinds  of  instruments, 
from  drums,  and  the  clash  of  arms  ;  so  that  oftentimes 
a  whole  caravan  are  obliged  to  close  up  their  open 
ranks^^  and  to  proceed  in  a  compact  line  of  march." 

Lord  Lindsay,  in  his  very  interesting  travels  in 
Egypt,  Edom,  &c.,  agrees  with  Warton  in  supposing 
(and  probably  enough)  that  from  this  account  of  the 
desert  traditions  in  Marco  Polo  was  derived  Milton's 
fine  passage  in  Comus  :  — 

**  Of  calling  shapes,  and  beckoning  shadows  dire, 
And  aery  tongues  that  syllable  men's  names 
On  sands,  and  shores,  and  desert  wildernesses." 

But  the  most  remarkable  of  these  desert  supersti- 
tions, as  suggested  by  the  mention  of  Lord  Lindsay,  is 


574 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


one  which  that  young  nobleman,  in  some  place  which 
we  cannot  immediately  find,  has  noticed,  but  which  he 
only  was  destined  by  a  severe  personal  loss  immedi- 
iately  to  illustrate.  Lord  L.  quotes  from  Vincent  le 
Blanc  an  anecdote  of  a  man  in  his  own  caravan,  the 
companion  of  an  Arab  merchant,  who  disappeared  in 
a  cmysterious  manner.  Four  Moors,  with  a  retaining 
fee  of  one  hundred  ducats,  were  sent  in  quest  of  him, 
but  came  back  re  infecta.  "And  'tis  uncertain,"  adds 
Le  Blanc,  whether  he  was  swallowed  up  in  the  sands, 
or  met  his  death  by  any  other  misfortune  ;  as  it  often 
happens,  by  the  relation  of  a  merchant  then  in  our 
company,  who  told  us,  that  two  years  before,  travers- 
ing the  same  journey,  a  comrade  of  his,  going  a  little 
aside  from  the  company,  saw  three  men,  who  called 
him  by  his  name  ;  and  one  of  them,  to  his  thinking, 
favored  very  much  his  companion ;  and  as  he  was 
about  to  follow  them,  his  real  companion  calling  him 
to  come  back  to  his  company,  he  found  himself  de- 
ceived by  the  others,  and  thus  was  saved.  And  all 
travellers  in  these  parts  hold,  that  in  the  deserts  are 
many  such  phantasms  seen,  that  strive  to  seduce  the 
traveller."  Thus  far  it  is  the  traveller's  own  fault, 
warned  as  he  is  continually  by  the  extreme  anxiety  of 
the  Arab  leaders,  or  guides,  with  respect  to  all  who 
stray  to  any  distance,  if  he  is  duped  or  enticed  by  these 
pseudo  men ;  though  in  the  case  of  Lapland  dogs, 
who  ought  to  have  a  surer  instinct  of  detection  for 
counterfeits,  we  know  from  Sir  Capel  de  Broke  and 
others  that  they  are  continually  wiled  away  by  the 
wolves  who  roam  about  the  nightly  encampments  of 
trav(;llers.     But  there  is  a  secondary  disaster,  accord- 


MODERN  SUf ERSTITION. 


575 


ing  to  the  Arab  superstition,  awaiting  those  whose  eyes 
Rre  once  opened  to  the  discernment  of  these  phantoms. 
To  see  them,  or  to  hear  them,  even  where  the  travel- 
ler is  careful  to  refuse  their  lures,  entails  the  certainty 
of  death  in  no  long  time.    This  is  another  form  of  that 
universal  faith  which  made  it  impossible  for  any  man 
to  survive  a  bodily  commerce,  by  whatever  sense,  with 
a  spiritual  being.    We  find  it  in  the  Old  Testamenti 
where  the  expression,''  I  have  seen  God,  and  shall  die," 
means  simply  a  supernatural  being  ;  since  no  Hebrew 
believed  it  possible  for  a  nature  purely  human  to  sustain 
for  a  moment  the  sight  of  the  infinite  Being.    We  find 
the  same  faith  amongst  ourselves,  in  case  of  doppeU 
ganger  becoming  apparent  to  the  sight  of  those  whom 
they  counterfeit,  and  in  many  other  varieties.  We 
modern  Europeans,  of  course,  laugh  at  these  supersti- 
tions ;  though,  as  Laplace  remarks,  [Essai  sur  les 
Prohahilites,)  any  case,  however  apparently  incredible, 
if  it  is  a  recurrent  case,  is  as  much  entitled  to  a  fair 
valuation  as  if  it  had  been  more  probable  beforehand. 
This  being  premised,  we  who  connect  superstition  with 
the  personal  result  are  more  impressed  by  the  disaster 
which  happened  to  Lord  Lindsay  than  his  lordship, 
who  either  failed  to  notice  the  nexus  between  the  events, 
or  possibly  declined  to  put  the  case  too  forward  in  his 
reader's  eye,  from  the  solemnity  of  the  circumstances 
and  tho  private  interest  to  himself  and  his  own  family 
of  the  subsequent  event.     The  case  was  this :  Mr. 
William  Wardlaw  Ramsay,  the  companion  (and  we 
relieve  relative)  of  Lord  Lindsay,  a  man  whose  honor- 
able character  and  whose  intellectual  accomplishments 
speak  for  themselves  in  the  posthumous  memorabilia  of 


576 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


his  travels  published  by  Lord  L.,  had  seen  an  array 
of  ol)jects  in  the  desert,  which  facts  immediately  suc- 
ceeding demonstrated  to  have  been  a  mere  ocular 
lusus^  or  (according  to  Arab  notions)  phantoms.  Dur- 
mg  the  absence  from  home  of  an  Arab  sheik,  who 
had  been  hired  as  conductor  of  Lord  Lindsay's  party, 
a  hostile  tribe  (bearing  the  name  of  Tellaheens)  had 
assaulted  and  pillaged  his  tents.  Report  of  this  had 
reached  the  English  travelling  party :  it  was  known 
that  the  Tellaheens  were  still  in  motion,  and  a  hostile 
rencounter  was  looked  for  for  some  days.  At  length, 
in  crossing  the  well-known  valley  of  the  Wady  Araha, 
that  most  ancient  channel  of  communication  between 
the  Red  Sea  and  Judea,  &;c.,  Mr.  Ramsay  saw,  to  his 
own  entire  conviction,  a  party  of  horse  moving  amongst 
some  sand  hills.  Afterwards  it  became  certain,  from 
accurate  information,  that  this  must  have  been  a  delu- 
sion. It  was  established  that  no  horseman  could  have 
been  in  that  neighborhood  at  that  time.  Lord  Lindsay 
records  the  case  as  an  illustration  of  "  that  spiritualized 
tone  the  imagination  naturally  assumes  in  scenes  pre- 
senting so  little  sympathy  with  the  ordinary  feelings 
of  humanity  ; "  and  he  reports  the  case  in  these  pointed 
terms  :  Mr.  Ramsay,  a  man  of  remarkably  strong 
sight  and  by  no  means  disposed  to  superstitious  credu- 
lity, distinctly  saw  a  party  of  horse  moving  among  the 
sand  hills  ;  and  I  do  not  believe  he  was  ever  able  to 
divest  himself  of  that  impression."  No ;  and,  ac- 
cording to  Arab  interpretation,  very  naturally  so  ;  for, 
according  to  their  faith,  he  really  had  seen  the  horse- 
men —  phantom  horsemen  certainly,  but  still  objects  of 
sigh^    The  sequel  remains  to  be  told.    By  the  Arabiai) 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


577 


hypothesis,  Mr.  Ramsay  had  but  a  short  time  to  live  — 
he  was  under  a  secret  summons  to  the  next  world ; 
and  accordingly,  in  a  few  weeks  after  this,  whilst 
Lord  Lindsay  had  gone  to  visit  Palmyra,  Mr.  Ramsay 
died  at  Damascus. 

This  was  a  case  exactly  corresponding  to  the  pagan 
nympholepsis  —  he  had  seen  the  beings  whom  it  is  not 
lawful  to  see  and  live.  Another  case  of  Eastern  super- 
stition, not  less  determined  and  not  less  remarkably 
fulfilled,  occurred  some  years  before  to  Dr.  Madden, 
who  travelled  pretty  much  in  the  same  route  as  Lord 
Lindsay.  The  doctor,  as  a  phrenologist,  had  been 
struck  with  the  very  singular  conformation  of  a  skull 
which  he  saw  amongst  many  others  on  an  altar  in 
some  Syrian  convent.  He  offered  a  considerable  sum 
in  gold  for  it ;  but  it  was  by  repute  the  skull  of  a  saint ; 
and  the  monk  with  whom  Dr.  M.  attempted  to  negotiate 
not  only  refused  his  offers,  but  protested  that  even  for 
the  doctor's  sake,  apart  from  the  interests  of  the  con- 
vent, he  could  not  venture  on  such  a  transfer ;  for  that, 
by  the  tradition  attached  to  it,  the  skull  would  endanger 
any  vessel  carrying  it  from  the  Syrian  shore.  The 
vessel  might  escape  ;  but  it  would  never  succeed  in 
reaching. any  but  a  Syrian  harbor.  After  this,  for  the 
credit  of  our  country,  which  stands  so  high  in  the 
East,  and  should  be  so  punctiliously  tended  by  all 
Englishmen,  we  are  sorry  to  record  that  Dr.  Madden 
(though  otherwise  a  man  of  scrupulous  honor)  yielded 
to  the  temptation  of  substituting  for  the  saint's  skull 
another  less  remarkable  from  his  own  collection. 
With  this  saintly  relic  he  embarked  on  board  a  Gre- 
cian ship  ;  was  alternately  pursued  and  met  by  storms 
37 


578 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


the  most  violent ;  larboard  and  starboard,  on  every 
quarter,  he  was  buffeted  ;  the  wind  blew  from  every 
point  of  the  compass  ;  the  doctor  honestly  confesses 
that  he  often  wished  this  baleful  skull  back  in  safety  on 
the  quiet  altar  from  which  he  took  it  ;  and  finally,  after 
many  days  of  anxiety,  he  was  too  happy  in  finding  him- 
self again  restored  to  some  Oriental  port,  from  which 
he  secretly  vowed  never  again  to  sail  with  a  saint's 
skull,  or  with  any  skull,  howeVer  remarkable  phrenolo- 
gically,  not  purchased  in  an  open  market. 

Thus  we  have  pursued,  through  many  of  its  most 
memorable  sections,  the  spirit  of  the  miraculous  as  it 
m.oulded  and  gathered  itself  in  the  superstitions  of 
paganism ;  and  we  have  shown  that  in  the  modern 
superstitions  of  Christianity,  or  of  Mahometanism, 
(often  enough  borrowed  from  Christian  sources,)  there 
is  a  pretty  regular  correspondence.  Speaking  with  a 
reference  to  the  strictly  popular  belief,  it  cannot  be 
pretended  for  a  moment  that  miraculous  agencies  are 
slumbering  in  modern  ages.  For  one  superstition  of 
that  nature  which  the  pagans  had,  we  can  produce 
twenty.  And  if,  from  the  collation  of  numbers,  we 
should  pass  to  that  of  quality,  it  is  a  matter  of  noto- 
riety, that,  from  the  very  philosophy  of  paganism 
and  its  slight  root  in  the  terrors  or  profounder  mys- 
teries of  spiritual  nature,  no  comparison  could  be 
sustained  for  a  moment  between  the  true  religion  and 
any  mode  whatever  of  the  false.  Ghosts  we  have 
purposely  omitted,  because  that  idea  is  so  peculiarly 
Christian  as  to  reject  all  counterparts  or  affinities 
from  other  modes  of  the  supernatural.  The  Christian 
ghost  is  too  awful  a  presence,  and  with  too  large  a 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


579 


substratum  of  the  real,  the  impassioned,  the  human, 
for  our  present  purposes.  We  deal  chiefly  with  the 
wilder  and  more  aerial  forms  of  superstition  ;  not  so 
far  off  from  fleshly  nature  as  the  purely  allegoric  — 
not  so  near  as  the  penal,  the  purgatorial,  the  peni- 
tential. In  this  middle  class,  Gabriel's  hounds," 
the  "  phantom  ship,"  the  gloomy  legends  of  the  char- 
coal burners  in  the  German  forests,  and  the  local  or 
epichorial  superstitions  from  every  district  of  Europe, 
come  forward  by  thousands,  attesting  the  high  activity 
of  the  miraculous  and  the  hyperphysical  instincts, 
even  in  this  generation,  wheresoever  the  voice  of  the 
people  makes  itself  heard. 

But  in  pagan  times,  it  will  be  objected,  the  popular 
superstitions  blended  themselves  with  the  highest  polit- 
ical functions,  gave  a  sanction  to  national  councils,  and 
oftentimes  gave  their  starting  point  to  the  very  primary 
movements  of  the  state.  Prophecies,  omens,  miracles, 
all  worked  concurrently  with  senates  or  princes  ;  where- 
as in  our  days,  says  Charles  Lamb,  the  witch  who  takes 
her  pleasure  with  the  moon,  and  summons  Beelzebub  to 
her  Sabbaths,  nevertheless  trembles  before  the  beadle 
and  hides  herself  from  the  overseer.  Now,  as  to  the 
witch,  even  the  horrid  Canidia  of  Horace,  or  the  more 
dreadful  Erichtho  of  Lucan,  seems  hardly  to  have 
been  much  respected  in  any  era.  But,  for  the  other 
modes  of  the  supernatural,  they  have  entered  into 
more  frequent  combinations  with  state  functions  and 
state  movements  in  our  modern  ages  than  in  the 
tlassical  age  of  paganism.  Look  at  prophecies,  for 
example  :  the  E-omans  had  a  few  obscure  oracles 
afloat,  and  they  had  the  sibylline  books  under  the 


580 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


State  seal.  These  books,  in  fact,  had  been  kept  so 
long  that,  like  Port  wine  superannuated,  they  had  lost 
their  flavor  and  body.^^  On  the  other  hand,  look  at 
France,  Henry,  the  historian,  speaking  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  describes  it  as  a  national  infirmity  of  the  Eng- 
lish to  be  prophecy  ridden.  Perhaps  there  never  was 
any  foundation  for  this  as  an  exclwsive  remark  ,  but 
assuredly  not  in  the  next  century.  There  had  been 
with  us  British,  from  the  twelfth  century,  Thomas  of 
Ercildoune  in  the  north,  and  many  monkish  local 
prophets  for  every  part  of  the  island  ,  but  latterly  Eng- 
land had  no  terrific  prophet,  unless,  indeed,  Nixon  of 
the  Vale  Royal,  in  Cheshire,  who  uttered  his  dark  ora- 
cles sometimes  with  a  merely  Cestrian,  sometimes  with 
a  national,  reference  ;  whereas  in  France,  throughout 
the  sixteenth  century,  every  principal  event  was  fore- 
told  successively  with  an  accuracy  that  still  shocks 
and  confounds  us.  Francis  I.,  who  opens  the  century, 
(and  by  many  is  held  to  open  the  book  of  modern  his- 
tory, as  distinguished  from  the  middle  or  feudal  his- 
tory,) had  the  battle  of  Pavia  foreshown  to  him,  not  by 
name,  but  in  its  results,  —  by  his  own  Spanish  captiv- 
ity,—  by  the  exchange  for  his  own  children  upon  a 
frontier  river  of  Spain, —  finally,  by  his  own  disgrace- 
ful death,  through  an  infamous  disease  conveyed  to  him 
under  a  deadly  circuit  of  revenge.  This  king's  son, 
Henry  II.,  read  some  years  before  the  event  a  descrip- 
tion of  that  tournament,  on  the  marriage  of  the  Scot- 
tish queen  with  his  eldest  son,  Francis  II.,  which  proved 
fatal  to  himself  through  the  awkwardness  of  the  Compte 
de  Montgomery  and  his  own  obstinacy.  After  this,  and 
we  believe  a  little  after  the  brief  reign  of  Francis  II. 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION, 


581 


arose  Nostradamus,  the  great  prophet  of  the  age.  All 
the  children  of  Henry  II.  and  of  Catharine  de  Medici, 
one  after  the  other,  died  in  circumstances  of  suffering 
and  horror ;  and  Nostradamus  pursued  the  whole  with 
ominous  allusions.  Charles  IX.,  though  the  authorizer 
of  the  Bartholomew  massacre,  was  the  least  guilty  of 
his  party,  and  the  only  one  who  manifested  a  dreadful 
remorse.  Henry  III.,  the  last  of  the  brothers,  died,  as 
the  reader  will  remember,  by  assassination.  And  all 
these  tragic  successions  of  events  are  still  to  be  read, 
niore  or  less  dimly  prefigured,  in  verses  of  which  we 
will  not  here  discuss  the  dates.  Sufiice  it  that  many 
authentic  historians  attest  the  good  faith  of  the  proph- 
ets ;  and  finally,  with  respect  to  the  first  of  the  Bour- 
bon dynasty,  Henry  IV.,  who  succeeded  upon  the 
assassination  of  his  brother-in-law,  we  have  the  per- 
emptory assurance  of  Sully  and  other  Protestants, 
countersigned  by  writers  both  historical  and  contro- 
versial, that  not  only  was  he  prepared  by  many  warn- 
ings for  his  own  tragical  death  ;  not  only  was  the  day, 
the  hour,  prefixed  ;  not  only  was  an  almanac  sent  to 
him,  in  which  the  bloody  summer's  day  of  16 10  was 
pointed  out  to  his  attention  in  bloody  colors,  —  but  the 
mere  record  of  the  king's  last  afternoon  shows  beyond 
a  doubt  the  extent  and  the  punctual  limitation  of  his 
anxieties.  In  fact,  it  is  to  this  attitude  of  listening  ex- 
pectation in  the  king,  and  breathless  waiting  for  the 
\)low,  that  Schiller  alludes  in  that  fine  speech  of  Wal- 
enstein  to  his  sister  where  he  notices  the  funeral  knells 
ihat  sounded  continually  in  Henry's  ears  ;  and,  above 
all,  his  prophetic  instinct  that  caught  the  sound  from  a 
far  distance  of  his  murderer's  motions,  and  could  dis- 


582 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


tinguish,  amidst  all  the  tumult  of  a  mighty  capital, 
those  stealthy  steps 

"  which  even  then  were  seeking  him 

Throughout  the  streets  of  Paris." 

We  profess  not  to  admire  Henry  IV.  of  France, 
whose  secret  character  we  shall,  on  some  other  occa- 
sion, attempt  to  expose  ;  but  his  resignation  to  the 
appointments  of  Heaven  —  in  dismissing  his  guards, 
as  feeling  that  against  a  danger  so  domestic  and  so 
mysterious  all  fleshly  arms  were  vain  —  has  always 
struck  us  as  the  most  like  magnanimity  of  any  thing 
in  his  very  theatrical  life.^ 

Parsing  to  our  own  country  and  to  the  times  imme- 
diately in  succession,  we  fall  upon  some  striking  proph- 
ecies, not  verbal,  but  symbolic,  if  we  turn  from  the 
broad  highway  of  public  histories  to  the  by-paths  of 
private  memories.  Either  Clarendon  it  is,  in  his  Life, 
(not  his  public  history,)  or  else  Laud,  who  mentions 
an  anecdote  connected  with  the  coronation  of  Charles 
L  (the  son-in-law  of  the  murdered  Bourbon)  which 
threw  a  gloom  upon  the  spirits  of  the  royal  friends, 
already  saddened  by  the  dreadful  pestilence  which  in- 
augurated the  reign  of  this  ill-fated  prince,  levying  a 
tribute  of  one  life  in  sixteen  from  the  population  of  the 
English  metropolis.  At  the  coronation  of  Charles  it 
was  discovered  that  all  London  would  not  furnish  the 
quantity  of  purple  velvet  required  for  the  royal  robes 
and  the  furniture  of  the  throne.  What  was  to  be  done  ? 
Decorum  required  that  the  furniture  should  be  all  en 
mite.  Nearer  than  Genoa  no  considerable  addition 
^ould  be  expected.    That  would  impose  a  delay  of 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


583 


one  hundred  and  fifty  days.  Upon  mature  considera- 
tion, and  chiefly  of  the  many  private  interests  that 
would  suffer  amongst  the  muhitudes  whom  such  a  so- 
lemnity had  called  up  from  the  country,  it  was  resolved 
to  robe  the  king  in  white  velvet.  But  this,  as  it  after- 
wards occurred,  was  the  color  in  which  victims  were 
arrayed.  And  thus,  it  was  alleged,  did  the  king's 
council  establish  an  augury  of  evil.  Three  other  ill 
omens,  of  some  celebrity,  occurred  to  Charles  I.  ;  viz., 
on  occasion  of  creating  his  son  Charles  a  knight  of  the 
Bath  at  Oxford  some  years  after,  and  at  the  bar  of 
that  tribunal  which  sat  in  judgment  upon  him. 

The  reign  of  his  second  son,  James  II.,  the  next 
reign  that  could  be  considered  an  unfortunate  reign, 
was  inaugurated  by  the  same  evil  omens.  The  day 
selected  for  the  coronation  (in  1685)  was  a  day  mem- 
orable for  England.  It  was  St.  George's  day,  the  23d 
of  April,  and  entitled,  even  on  a  separate  account,  to 
be  held  a  sacred  day,  as  the  birthday  of  Shakspeare  in 
1564  and  his  deathday  in  1616.  The  king  saved  a 
sum  of  sixty  thousand  pounds  by  cutting  off  the  ordina- 
ry cavalcade  from  the  Tower  of  London  to  Westmin- 
ster. Even  this  was  imprudent.  It  is  well  known  that, 
amongst  the  lowest  class  of  the  English,  there  is  an 
obstinate  prejudice  (though  unsanctioned  by  law)  with 
respect  to  the  obligation  imposed  by  the  ceremony  of 
coronation.  So  long  as  this  ceremony  is  delayed  or 
mutilated  they  fancy  that  their  obedience  is  a  matter 
of  mere  prudence,  liable  to  be  enforced  by  arms,  but 
not  consecrated  either  by  law  or  by  religion.  The 
change  made  by  James  was,  therefore,  highly  im- 
piudent :  shorn  of  its  antique  traditionary  usages,  the 


384 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


yoke  of  conscience  was  lightened  at  a  moment  when 
it  required  a  double  ratification.  Neither  was  it  called 
for  on  motives  of  economy  ;  for  James  was  unusually 
rich.  This  voluntary  arrangement  was,  therefore,  a 
bad  beginning  ;  but  the  accidental  omens  were  worse. 
They  are  thus  reported  by  Blennerhassett,  {History  of 
England  to  the  End  of  George  7.,  vol.  iv.  p.  1760, 
printed  at  Newcastle  upon  Tyne  ;  1751.)  "  The  crown, 
being  too  little  for  the  king's  head,  was  often  in  a  tot- 
tering condition  and  like  to  fall  off."  Even  this  was 
observed  attentively  by  spectators  of  the  most  opposite 
feelings.  But  there  was  another  simultaneous  omen, 
which  affected  the  Protestant  enthusiasts,  and  the  super- 
stitious, whether  Catholic  or  Protestant,  still  more  alarm- 
ingly.. "  The  same  day  the  king's  arms,  pompously 
painted  in  the  great  altar  window  of  a  London  church, 
suddenly  fell  down  without  apparent  cause  and  broke 
to  pieces,  whilst  the  rest  of  the  window  remained  stand- 
ing.  Blennerhassett  mutters  the  dark  terrors  which 
possessed  himself  and  others."  "  These,"  says  he, 
"  were  reckoned  ill  omens  to  the  king." 

In  France,  as  the  dreadful  criminality  of  the  French 
sovereigns  through  the  seventeenth  century  began  to  tell 
powerfully  and  reproduce  itself  in  the  miseries  and 
tumults  of  the  French  populace  through  the  eighteenth 
century,  it  is  interesting  to  note  the  omens  which  un- 
folded themselves  at  intervals.  A  volume  might  be 
written  upon  them.  The  French  Bourbons  renewed 
tne  picture  of  that  fatal  house  which  in  Thebes  offered 
to  the  Grecian  observers  the  spectacle  of  dire  auguries, 
emerging  from  darkness  through  three  generations,  d 
plusieurs  reprises.    Every  body  knows  .the  fatal  pol- 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


585 


utioii  of  ilie  marriage  pomps  on  the  reception  of  Marie 
Antoinette  in  Paris  :  the  numbers  who  perished  are 
still  spoken  of  obscurely  as  to  the  amount,  and  with 
shuddering  awe  for  the  unparalleled  horrors  standing 
in  the  background  of  the  fatal  reign  —  horrors 

That,  hushed  in  grim  repose,  await  their  evening  prey." 

But  in  the  life  of  Goethe  is  mentioned  a  still  more  por- 
tentous (though  more  shadowy)  omen  in  the  pictorial 
decorations  of  the  arras  which  adorned  the  pavilion  on 
the  French  frontier.  The  first  objects  which  met  the 
A-Ustrian  archduchess,  on  being  hailed  as  dauphiness, 
was  a  succession  of  the  most  tragic  groups  from  the 
most  awful  section  of  the  Grecian  theatre.  The  next 
alliance  of  the  same  kind  between  the  same  great  em- 
pires, in  the  persons  of  Napoleon  and  the  Archduchess 
Marie  Louisa,  was  overshadowed  by  the  same  unhappy 
omens,  and,  as  we  all  remember,  with  the  same  un- 
happy results,  within  a  brief  period  of  five  years. 

Or,  if  we  should  resort  to  the  fixed  and  monumental 
rather  than  to  these  auguries  of  great  nations,  —  such, 
for  instance,  as  were  imbodied  in  those  palladia^  or 
protesting  talismans,  which  capital  cities,  whether  pa- 
gan or  Christian,  glorified  through  a  period  of  twenty- 
five  hundred  years,  —  we  shall  find  a  long  succession  of 
^hese  enchanted  pledges,  from  the  earliest  precede-nt 
of  Troy  (whose  palladium  was  undoubtedly  a  talisman) 
down  to  that  equally  memorable,  and  bearing  the  same 
name,  at  western  Eome.  We  may  pass,  by  a  vast 
transition  of  two  and  a  half  millennia,  to  that  great 
talisman  of  Constantinople,  the  triple  serpent,  (having. 


586 


MODERN  SUPEESTITION. 


perhaps,  an  original  reference  to  the  Mosaic  serpent  of 
the  wilderness,  which  healed  the  infected  by  the  simple 
act  of  looking  upon  it,  as  the  symbol  of  the  Redeemer, 
held  aloft  upon  the  cross  for  the  deliverance  from 
moral  contagion.)  This  great  consecrated  talisman, 
venerated  equally  by  Christian,  by  pagan,  and  by 
Mahometan,  was  struck  on  the  head  by  Mahomet 
II.,  on  that  same  day.  May  29th  of  1453,  in  which 
he  mastered  by  storm  this  glorious  ?ity,  the  bulwark 
of  Eastern  Christendom,  and  the  immediate  rival  of  his 
own  European  throne  at  Adrianople.  But  mark  the 
superfetation  of  omens  —  omen  supervening  upon 
omen,  augury  ingrafted  upon  augury.  The  hour  was 
a  sad  one  for  Christianity.  Just  seven  hundred  and 
twenty  years  before,  the  western  horn  of  Islam  had 
been  rebutted  in  France  by  the  Germans,  chiefly  under 
Charles  Martel  ;  but  now  it  seemed  as  though  another 
horn,  even  more  vigorous,  was  preparing  to  assault 
Christendom  and  its  hopes  from  the  Eastern  quarter. 
At  this  epoch,  in  the  very  hour  of  triumph,  when  the 
last  of  the  Csesars  had  glorified  his  station  and  sealed 
his  testimony  by  martyrdom,  the  fanatical  sultan, 
riding  to  his  stirrups  in  blood,  and  wielding  that  iron 
mace  which  had  been  his  sole  weapon,  as  well  as  cog- 
nizance, through  the  battle,  advanced  to  the  column, 
round  which  the  triple  serpent  reared  spirally  upwards. 
He  smote  the  brazen  talisman;  he  shattered  one  head  ; 
he  left  it  mutilated,  as  the  record  of  his  great  revolu- 
tion ;  but  crush  it,  destroy  it,  he  did  not.  As  a  sym- 
bol prefiguring  the  fortunes  of  Mahometanism,  his  peo- 
ple noticed  that,  in  the  critical  hour  of  fate  which 
stamped  the  sultan's  acts  with  efficacy  through  ages, 


MODERN  SUPERSTITION. 


587 


he  had  been  prompted  by  his  secret  genius  only  to 
"  scotch  the  snake,"  not  to  crush  it.  Afterwards  the 
fatal  hour  was  gone  by  ;  and  this  imperfect  augury  has 
since  concurred  traditionally  with  the  Mahometan 
prophecies  about  the  Adrianople  gate  of  Constanti- 
nople to  depress  the  ultimate  hopes  of  Islam  in  the 
midst  of  all  its  insolence.  The  very  haughtiest  of  the 
Mussulmans  believe  that  the  gate  is  already  in  exist- 
ence through  which  the  red  giaours  (the  Russi)  shall 
pass  to  the  conquest  of  Stamboul,  and  that  every 
where,  in  Europe  at  least,  the  hat  of  Frangistan  is 
destined  to  surmount  the  turban.  The  crescent  must 
go  down  before  the  cross. 


SORTILEGE  ON  BEHALF  OF  THE  GLAS- 
GOW ATHENiEUM. 


Suddenly,  about  the  middle  of  February,  I  re- 
ceived a  request  for  some  contribution  of  my  own 
proper  writing  to  a  meditated  Album  of  the  Glasgow 
Athenaeum.  What  was  to  be  done  ?  The  1 3th  of  the 
month  had  already  dawned  before  the  request  reached 
me  ;  '  return  of  post '  was  the  sharp  limitation  notified 
within  which  my  communication  must  revolve  ;  whilst 
the  request  itself  was  dated  Feb.  10  :  so  that  already 
three  'returns  of  post'  had  finished  their  brief  career 
on  earth.  I  am  not  one  of  those  people  who,  in  respect 
to  bread,  insist  on  the  discretionary  allowance  of 
Paris  ;  but,  in  respect  to  time,  I  do.  Positively,  for 
all  efforts  of  thought  I  must  have  time  d  discretion. 
In  this  case,  now,  ail  discretion  was  out  of  the  ques- 
tion ;  a  mounted  jockey,  in  the  melee  of  a  Newmarket 
start,  might  as  well  demand  time  for  meditation  on  the 
philosophy  of  racing.  There  was  clearly  no  resource 
available  but  one ;  and  it  was  this  :  —  In  my  study  I 
have  a  bath,  large  enough  to  swim  in,  provided  the 
swimmer,  not  being  an  ambitious  man,  is  content  with 
;^oing  a-head  to  the  extent  of  six  inches  at  the  utmost. 
This  bath,  having  been  superseded  (as  regards  its 
original  purpose)  by  another  mode  of  bathing,  has 
yielded  a  secondary  service  to  me  as  a  reservoir  for  my 


590  SORTILEGE   ON  BEHALF   OF  THE 

MSS.  Filled  to  the  brim  it  is  by  papers  of  all  sorts 
and  sizes.  Every  paper  written  by  me,  to  me,  for  me, 
of  or  concerning  me,  and,  finally,  against  me,  is  to  be 
found,  after  an  impossible  search,  in  this  capacious 
repertory.  Those  papers,  by  the  way,  that  come  under 
the  last  (or  hostile)  subdivision,  are  chiefly  composed 
by  shoemakers  and  tailors  —  an  affectionate  class  of 
men,  who  stick  by  one  to  the  last  like  pitch-plasters. 
One  admires  this  fidelity ;  but  it  shows  itself  too  often 
in  waspishness,  and  all  the  little  nervous  irritabilities 
of  attachment  too  ardent.  They  are  wretched  if  they 
do  not  continually  hear  what  one  is  '  about,'  what  one 
is  *up  to,'  and  which  way  one  is  going  to  travel.  Me, 
because  I  am  a  political  economist,  they  plague  for  my 
private  opinions  on  the  currency,  especially  on  that 
part  of  it  which  consists  in  bills  at  two  years  after 
date  ;  and  they  always  want  an  answer  by  return  of 
post.  What  the  deuce  I  one  can't  answer  ereri/body 
by  return  of  post.  Now,  from  this  reservoir  I  resolved 
to  draw  some  paper  for  the  use  of  the  Athenaeum.  It 
was  my  fixed  determination  that  this  Institution  should 
receive  full  justice,  so  far  as  human  precautions  could 
secure  it.  Four  dips  into  the  bath  I  decreed  that  the 
Athenseum  should  have  ;  whereas  an  individual  man, 
however  hyperbolically  illustrious,  could  have  had  but 
one.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Athenaeum  jmist  really 
content  itself  with  what  fortune  might  send,  and  not 
murmur  at  me  as  if  I  had  been  playing  with  loaded 
dice,  To  cut  off  all  pretence  for  this  allegation,  I 
requested  the  presence  of  three  young  ladies,  haters 
Df  everything  unfair,  as  female  attorneys,  to  watch  the 
proceedings  on  behalf  of  the  Athenaeum,  to  see  that 
the  dipping  went  on  correctly,  and  also  to  advise  the 


GLASGOW  ATHENAEUM. 


591 


court  in  case  of  any  difficulties  arising.  At  6  P.  M. 
all  was  reported  right  for  starting  in  my  study.  The 
bath  had  been  brilliantly  illuminated  from  above,  so 
that  no  tricks  could  be  played  in  that  quarter ;  and  the 
young  man  who  was  to  execute  the  dips  had  finished 
dressing  in  a  new  potato  sack,  with  holes  cut  through 
the  bottom  for  his  legs.  Now,  as  the  sack  was  tied 
with  distressing  tightness  about  his  throat,  leaving 
only  a  loop-hole  for  his  right  arm  to  play  freely,  it  is 
clear  that,  however  sincerely  fraudulent  in  his  inten- 
tions, and  in  possible  collusion  with  myself,  he  could 
not  assist  me  by  secreting  any  papers  about  his  person, 
or  by  any  other  knavery  that  we  might  wish  to  perpe- 
trate. The  young  ladies  having  taken  their  seats  in 
stations  admirably  chosen  for  overlooking  the  move- 
ments of  the  young  man  and  myself,  the  proceedings 
opened.  The  inaugural  step  was  made  in  a  neat 
speech  from  myself,  complaining  that  I  was  the  object 
of  unjust  suspicions,  and  endeavoring  to  re-establish 
my  character  for  absolute  purity  of  intentions ;  but,  I 
regret  to  say,  ineffectually.  This  angered  me,  and  I 
declared  with  some  warmth,  that  in  the  bath,  but 
whereabouts  I  could  not  guess,  there  lay  a  particular 
paper  which  I  valued  as  equal  to  the  half  of  my  king- 
dom ;  '  but  for  all  that,'  I  went  on,  '  if  our  hon.  friend 
in  the  potato  sack  should  chance  to  haul  up  this  very 
paper,  I  am  resolved  to  stand  by  the  event,  yes,  in  that 
case,  to  the  half  of  my  kingdom  I  will  express  my  in- 
terest in  the  Institution.  Should  even  that  prize  be 
drawn,  out  of  this  house  it  shall  pack  off  to  Glasgow 
this  very  night.'  Upon  this,  the  leader  of  tlie  attor- 
neys, whom,  out  of  honor  to  Shakspeare,  I  may  as 
wqW  call  Portia,  chilled  my  enthusiasm  disagreeably  by 


592  SORTILEGE  ON  BEHALF  OF  THE 

saying  — '  There  was  no  occasion  for  any  extra  zeal  on 
my  part  in  such  an  event,  since,  as  to  packing  out  of 
this  house  to  Glasgow,  she  and  her  learned  sisters 
would  take  good  care  that  it  did ; '  — in  fiact,  I  was  to 
have  no  merit  whatever  I  did.  Upon  this,  by  way  of 
driving  away  the  melancholy  caused  by  the  obstinate 
prejudice  of  the  attorneys,  I  called  for  a  glass  of  wine, 
and,  turning  to  the  west,  I  drank  the  health  of  the 
Athenaeum,  under  the  allegoric  idea  of  a  young  lady 
about  to  come  of  age  and  enter  upon  the  enjoyment 
of  her  estates.  '  Here's  to  your  prosperity,  my  dear 
lass,'  I  said  ;  '  you're  very  young  —  but  that's  a  fault 
which,  according  to  the  old  Greek  adage,  is  mending 
every  day  ;  and  I'm  sure  you'll  always  continue  as 
amiable  as  you  are  now  towards  strangers  in  distress 
for  books  and  journals.  Never  grow  churlish,  my 
dear,  as  some  of  your  sex  are '  (saying  which,  I  looked 
savagely  at  Portia).  And  then,  I  made  the  signal  to 
the  young  man  for  getting  to  work  —  Portia's  eyes,  as 
1  noticed  privately,  brightening  like  a  hawk's.  '  Pre- 
pare to  dip  ! '  I  called  aloud  ;  and  soon  after  —  '  Dip  !  ' 
At  the  '  prepare^^  Potato-sack  went  on  his  right  knee 
(his  face  being  at  right  angles  to  the  bath) ;  at  the 
'  Dip ! '  he  plunged  his  right  arm  into  the  billowy 
ocean  of  papers.  For  one  minute  he  worked  amongst 
them  as  if  he  had  been  pulling  an  oar;  and  then,  at 
the  peremptory  order  '  Haul  up  ! '  he  raised  aloft  in 
air,  like  Brutus  refulgent  from  the  stroke  of  Caesar, 
his  booty.  It  was  handed,  .of  course,  to  the  attor- 
neys, who  shjwed  a  little  female  curiosity  at  first,  for 
it  was  a  letter  with  the  seal  as  yet  unbroken,  and 
might  prove  to  be  some  old  love-letter  of  my  writing, 
recently  sent  back  to  me  by  the  Dead-Letter  Office.- 


GLASGOW  ATHENjEUM:. 


593 


It  still  .ooked  fresh  and  blooming.  So,  if  there  was 
tio  prize  for  Glasgow,  there  might  still  be  an  interest- 
ing secret  for  the  benefit  of  the  attorneys.  What  it 
was,  and  what  each  successive  haul  netted,  I  will  regis- 
ter under  the  corresponding  numbers. 

No.  1.  —  This  was  a  dinner  invitation  for  the  15th  of 
February,  which  I  had  neglected  to  open.  It  was,  as 
bill-brokers  say,  '  coming  to  maturity,'  but  luckily  not 
past  due  (in  which  case  you  have  but  a  poor  remedy), 
for,  though  twenty  days  after  date,  it  had  still  two 
days  to  ran  before  it  could  be  presented  for  payment. 
A  debate  arose  with  the  attorneys  —  Whether  this 
might  not  do  for  the  Album,  in  default  of  any  better 
haul  ?  I  argued,  for  the  affirmative,  —  that,  although 
a  dinner  invitation  cannot  in  reason  be  looked  to  for 
very  showy  writing,  its  motto  being  Esse  quam  videri 
(which  is  good  Latin  for  —  To  eatF^  rather  than  make 
believe  to  eat,  as  at  ball  suppers  or  Barmecide  ban- 
quets), yet,  put  the  case  that  I  should  send  this  invita- 
tion to  the  Athenaeum,  accompanied  with  a  power-of- 
attorney  to  eat  the  dinner  in  my  stead  —  might  not 
that  solid  bonus  as  an  enclosure  weigh  down  the  levity 
of  the  letter  considered  as  a  contiibution  to  the  Album, 
and  take  off  the  edge  of  the  Athenaeum's  displeasure? 
Portia  argued  contra  —  that  such  a  thing  was  impossi- 
ble ;  because  the  Afhenaeum  had  two  thousand  mouths, 
and  would  therefore  require  two  thousand  dinners  ;  — 
an  argument  which  I  admitted  to  be  showy,  but, 
legally  speaking,  hardly  tenable :  because  the  Athe- 
naeum had  power  to  appoint  a  plenipotentiary  —  some 
man  of  immense  calibre  —  to  eat  the  dinner,  as  repre- 
Bentati^.e  of  the  collective  two  thousand.  Portia 
parried  this  objection  by  replying,  that  if  the  invita- 
38 


591  SORTILEGE   ON   BEHALF   OF  THE 


tion  had  been  to  a  ball  there  might  be  something  in 
what  I  said ;  but  as  to  a  mere  dinner,  and  full  fifty 
miles  to  travel  for  it  from  Glasgow,  the  plenipoten- 
tiary (whatever  might  be  his  calibre)  would  decline  to 
work  so  hard  for  such  a  trifle.  'Trifle  ! '  I  replied  — 
'  But,  with  submission,  a  dinner  twenty-two  days  after 
date  of  invitation  is  not  likely  to  prove  a  trifle.  This, 
however  is^  always  the  way  in  which  young  ladies, 
whether  attorneys  or  not,  treat  the  subject  of  dinner. 
And  as  to  the  fifty  miles,  the  plenipotentiary  could  go 
in  an  hour.'  '  How  ? '  said  Portia,  sternly.  '  Per 
rail,'  I  replied  with  equal  sternness.  What  there  was 
to  laugh  at,  I  don't  see ;  but  at  this  hot  skirmish  be- 
tween me  and  Portia  concerning  that  rather  visionary 
person  the  plenipotentiary,  and  what  he  might  choose 
to  do  in  certain  remote  contingencies,  and  especially 
when  the  gross  reality  of  '  per  rail '  came  into  collision 
with  his  aerial  essence,  Potato-sack  began  to  laugh  so 
immoderately,  that  I  was  obliged  to  pull  him  up  by 
giving  the  word  rather  imperiously  — '  Prepare  to 
dip  I '  Before  he  could  obey,  I  was  myself  pulled  up 
by  Portia,  with  a  triumph  in  her  eye  that  alarmed  me. 
She  and  her  sister  attorneys  had  been  examining  thq 
dinner  invitation  — '  and,'  said  Portia  maliciously  to 
me,  'it's  quite  correct  —  as  you  observe  there  are  two 
days  good  to  the  dinner  hour  on  the  15th;  "Prepare 
to  dine  "  is  the  signal  that  should  be  flying  at  this 
moment,  and  in  two  days  more  "  Dine  "  —  only,  by 
misfortune,  the  letter  is  in  the  wrong  year  —  it  is  four 
years  old  ! '  Oh  !  fancy  the  horror  of  this  ;  since, 
besides  the  mortification  from  Portia's  victory,  I  had 
perhaps  narrowly  escaped  an  indictment  from  the 
plenipotentiary  for  sending  him  what  might  noto  be 


GLASGOW  ATHEN^UxM. 


595 


considered  u  swindle.  I  hurried  to  cover  my  confu- 
sion, by  issuing  the  two  orders  '  Prepare  to  dip  ! '  and 
^Dip!^  almost  in  the  same  breath.  No.  1,  after  all 
the  waste  of  legal  learning  upon  it,  had  suddenly  burst 
like  an  air-bubble ;  and  the  greater  stress  of  expecta- 
tion, therefore,  had  now  settled  on  No.  2.  With  con- 
siderable trepidation  of  voice,  I  gave  the  final  order  — 
'Haul  up  ! ' 

No.  2.  —  It  is  disagreeable  to  mention  that  this  haul 
brought  up  —  'a  dun.'  Disgust  was  written  upon 
every  countenance  ;  and  I  fear  that  suspicion  began  to 
thicken  upon  myself  —  as  having  possibly  (from  my 
personal  experience  in  these  waters)  indicated'  to  our 
young  friend  where  to  dredge  for  duns  with  most 
chance  of  success.  But  I  protest  fervently  my  inno- 
cence. It  is  true  that  I  had  myself  long  remarked 
that  part  of  the  channel  to  be  dangerously  infested 
with  duns.  In  searching  for  literary  or  philosophic 
papers,  it  would  often  happen  for  an  hour  together 
that  I  brought  up  little  else  than  variegated  specimens 
of  the  dun.  And  one  vast  bank  there  was,  which  I 
called  the  Goodwin  Sands,  because  nothing  within  the 
memory  of  man  was  ever  known  to  be  hauled  up  from 
it  except  eternal  specimens  of  the  dun  —  some  gray 
with  antiquity,  some  of  a  neutral  tint,  some  green  and 
lively.  With  grief  it  was  that  I  had  seen  our  dipper 
shoaling  his  water  towards  that  dangerous  neighbor- 
hood. But  what  could  I  do  ?  If  I  had  warned  him 
off,  Portia  would  have  been  sure  to  fancy  that  there 
was  some  great  oyster-bed  or  pearl-fishery  in  that 
region  ;  and  all  I  should  have  effected  by  my  honesty 
would  have  been  a  general  conviction  of  my  treachery. 
I  therefore  became  as  anxious  as  everybody  else  foT 


596  SORTILEGE   ON  BEHALF  OP  THE 

No.  3,  which  might  set  all  to  rights  —  mighty  but 
slight  were  my  hopes  that  it  would,  when  I  saw  in 
what  direction  the  dipper's  arm  was  working.  Ex- 
actly below  that  very  spot  where  he  had  dipped,  lay, 
as  stationary  as  if  he  had  been  anchored,  a  huge  and 
ferocious  dun  of  great  antiquity.  Age  had  not  at  all 
softened  the  atrocious  expression  of  his  countenance, 
but  rather  aided  it  by  endowing  him  with  a  tawny 
hue.  The  size  of  this  monster  was  enormous,  nearly 
two  square  feet ;  and  I  fancied  at  times  that,  in  spite 
of  his  extreme  old  age,  he  had  not  done  growing.  I 
knew  him  but  too  well  ;  because  whenever  I  happened 
to  search  in  that  region  of  the  bath,  let  me  be  seeking 
what  I  would,  and  let  me  miss  what  I  might,  always  I 
was  sure  to  haul  up  him  whom  I  never  wanted  to  see 
again.  Sometimes  I  even  found  him  basking  on  the 
very  summit  of  the  papers ;  and  I  conceived  an  idea, 
which  may  be  a  mere  fancy,  that  he  came  up  for  air  in 
particular  states  of  the  atmosphere.  At  present  he 
was  not  basking  on  the  surface :  better  for  the  Athenae- 
um if  he  had :  for  then  the  young  man  would  have 
been  cautious.  Not  being  above,  he  was  certainly 
below,  and  underneath  the  very  centre  of  the  dipper's 
plunge.  Unable  to  control  my  feelings,  I  cried  out  — 
'  Bear  away  to  the  right ! '  But  Portia  protested  with 
energy  against  this  intermeddling  of  mine,  as  perfidy 
too  obvious.  '  Well",'  I  said,  '  have  it  your  own  way  : 
you'll  see  what  will  happen.' 

No.  3.  —  This,  it  is  needless  to  say,  turned  out  the 
horrid  old  shark,  as  I  had  long  christened  him :  I  knew 
bis  vast  proportions,  and  his  bilious  aspect,  the  mo- 
ment that  the  hauling  up  commenced,  which  in  his 
case  occupied  some  time.    Port*.a  was  the  more  angry, 


GLASGOW  ATHEN^UM. 


597 


be'cauB3  she  had  thrown  away  her  right  to  express  any 
anger  by  neutralizing  my  judicious  interference.  She 
grew  even  more  angry,  because  I,  though  sorry  for  the 
Athenaeum,  really  could  not  help  laughing  when  I 
saw  the  truculent  old  wretch  expanding  his  huge 
dimensions  —  all  umbered  by  time  and  ill-temper  — 
under  the  eyes  of  the  wondering  young  ladies ;  so 
mighty  was  the  contrast  between  this  sallow  behemoth 
and  a  rose-colored  little  billet  of  their  own.  By  the 
way,  No.  2  had  been  a  specimen  of  the  dulcet  dun, 
breathing  only  zephyrs  of  request  and  persuasion ;  but 
this  No.  3  was  a  specimen  of  the  polar  opposite  —  the 
dun  horrific  and  Gorgonian  —  blowing  great  guns  of 
menace.  As  ideal  specimens  in  their  several  classes, 
might  they  not  have  a  value  for  the  museum  of  the 
Athenaeum,  if  it  has  one,  or  even  for  the  Album  ? 
This  was  my  suggestion,  but  overruled,  like  everything 
else  that  I  proposed ;  and  on  the  ground  that  Glasgow 
had  too  vast  a  conservatory  of  duns,  native  and  indi- 
genous, to  need  any  exotic  specimens.  This  settled, 
we  hurried  to  the  next  dip,  which,  being  by  contract 
the  last,  made  us  all  nervous. 

No.  4.  —  This,  alas  !  turned  out  a  lecture  addressed 
to  myself  by  an  ultra-moral  friend  ;  a  lecture  on  pro- 
crastination ;  and  not  badly  written.  I  feared  that 
something  of  the  sort  was  coming  ;  for,  at  the  moment 
if  dipping,  1  called  out  to  the  dipper  —  '  Starboard 
your  helm !  you're  going  smack  upon  the  Goodwins  : 
in  thirty  seconds  youTl  founder.'  Upon  this,  in  an 
agony  of  fright,  the  dipper  forged  off,  but  evidently 
quite  unaware  that  vast  spurs  stretched  off  from  the 
Goodwins  —  slioals  and  sand-banks — -where  it  wag 
mere  destruction  to  sail  without  a  special  knowledge 


598 


SORTILEGE  ON  BEHALF   OF  THE 


of  the  soundings.  He  had  run  upon  an  ethical  sand- 
bank. '  Yet,  after  all,  since  this  is  to  be  the  last  dip,' 
said  Portia,  '  if  the  lecture  is  well  written,  might  it 
not  be  acceptable  to  the  AthenjBum  ? '  '  Possibly,'  1 
replied  ;  '  but  it  is  too  personal,  besides  being  founded 
in  error  from  first  to  last.  I  could  not  allow  myself 
to  be  advertised  in  a  book  as  a  procrastinator  on  prin- 
ciple, unless  the  Athenaeum  would  add  a  postscript 
under  its  official  seal,  expressing  entire  disbelief  of  the 
accusation;  which  I  have  private  reasons  for  thinking 
that  the  Athenaeum  may  decline  to  do.' 

'  Well,  then,'  said  Portia,  '  as  you  wilfully  rob  the 
Athenaeum  of  No.  4,  which  by  contract  is  the  un- 
doubted property  of  that  body,  in  fee  simple  and  not 
in  fee  conditional,'  (mark  Portia's  learning  as  an  at- 
torney,) '  then  you  are  bound  to  give  us  a  5th  dip  ; 
particularly  as  you've  been  so  treacherous  all  along.' 
Tears  rushed  to  my  eyes  at  this  most  unjust  assump- 
tion. In  agonizing  tones  I  cried  out,  '  Potato-sack  ! 
my  friend  Potato-sack  I  will  you  quietly  listen  to  this 
charge  upon  me,  that  am  as  innocent  as  the  child  un- 
born r  If  it  is  a  crime  in  me  to  know,  and  in  you  7ioi 
to  know,  where  the  Goodwins  lie,  why  then,  let  you 
and  me  sheer  off  to  the  other  side  of  the  room,  and 
let  Portia  try  if  she  can  do  better.  1  allow  her  motion 
for  a  fresh  trial.  I  grant  a  5th  dip  :  and  the  more 
readily,  because  it  is  an  old  saying  —  that  there  is 
luck  in  odd  numbers  :  numero  dues  impare  gaudet ;  — 
only  I  must  request  of  Portio  to  be  the  dipper  on  this 
final  occasion.'  All  the  three  attorneys  blushed  a 
rosy  red  on  this  unexpected  summons.  It  was  one 
thing  to^ciiticize,  but  quite  another  thing  to  undertake 
the  porformance  :  and  the  fair  ^ttorneys  trembled  for 


GLASGOW  ATHEN^UM, 


599 


iheii  prof(!Ssional  reputation.  Secretly,  however,  1 
whispered  to  Potato-sack,  '  You'll  see  now,  such  is 
female  address,  that  whatever  sort  of  monster  they 
haul  up,  they'll  swear  it's  a  great  prize,  and  contrive 
to  extract  some  use  from  it  that  may  seem  to  justify 
this  application  for  a  new  trial.' 

No.  5.  — Awful  and  thrilling  were  the  doubts,  fears, 
expectations  of  us  all,  when  Portia  '  prepared  to  dip/ 
and  secondly  '  dipped.'  She  shifted  her  hand,  and 
'  ploitered '  amongst  the  papers  for  full  five  minutes, 
I  winked  at  this  in  consideration  of  past  misfortunes ; 
but,  strictly  speaking,  she  had  no  right  to  '  ploiter '  for 
more  than  one  minute.  She  contended  that  she  knew, 
by  intuition,  the  sort  of  paper  upon  which  '  duns ' 
were  written ;  and  whatever  else  might  come  up,  she 
was  resolved  it  should  not  be  a  dun.  '  Don't  be  too 
sure,'  I  said ;  and,  at  last,  when  she  seemed  to  have 
settled  her  choice,  I  called  out  the  usual  word  of  com- 
mand, 'Haul  up/ 

'  What  is  it  ? '  we  said  ;  '  what's  the  prize  ? '  we  de- 
manded, all  rushing  up  to  Portia.  Guess,  reader  ;  — 
it  was  a  sheet  of  blank  paper . 

I,  for  my  pai't,  was  afraid  either  to  laugh  or  to  cry. 
I  really  felt  for  Portia,  and,  at  the  same  time,  for  the 
Athenaeum.  Yet  I  had  a  monstrous  desire  to  laugh 
horribly.  But,  bless  you,  reader  !  there  was  no  call 
for  pity  to  Portia.  With  the  utmost  coolness  she 
said,  '  Oh !  here  is  ca7^te  blanche  for  receiving  your 
latest  thoughts.  This  is  the  paper  on  which  you  are 
to  write  an  essay  for  the  x\thena?um ;  and  thus  we  are 
providentially  enabled  to  assure  our  client  the  Athe- 
naeum of  something  expressly  manufactured  for  the 
occasion,  and  not  an  old  wreck  from  the  Goodwins, 


600  SORTILEGE   ON  BEHALF   OF  THE 

Fortune  loves  the  Athenaeum ;  and  her  four  blanks  at 
starting  were  only  meant  to  tease  that  Institution,  and 
to  enhance  the  value  of  her  final  favor.'  '  Ah,  in- 
deed !'  I  said  in  an  under  tone,  '  meant  to  tease  I  there 
are  other  ladies  who  understand  that  little  science  be- 
side Fortune  ! '  However,  there  is  no  disobeying  the 
commands  of  Portia ;  so  I  sate  down  to  write  a  paper 
on  Astrology.  But,  before  beginning,  I  looked  at 
Potato-sack,  saying  only,  '  You  see  ;  I  told  you  what 
would  happen.' 

ASTROLOGY. 

As  my  contribution  to  their  Album,  I  will  beg  the 
Athenaeum  to  accept  a  single  thought  on  this  much- 
injured  subject.  Astrology  I  greatly  respect ;  but  it 
is  singular  that  my  respect  for  the  science  arose  out  of 
my  contempt  for  its  professors,  —  not  exactly  as  a 
direct  logical  consequence,  but  as  a  casual  suggestion 
from  that  contempt.  I  believe  in  astrology,  but  not 
in  astrologers  ;  as  to  them  I  am  an  incorrigible  infidel. 
First,  let  me  state  the  occasion  upon  which  my 
astrological  thought  arose  ;  and  then,  secondly,  the 
thought  itself. 

When  about  seventeen  years  old,  I  was  w^andering 
as  a  pedestrian  tourist  in  North  Wales.  For  some 
little  time,  the  centre  of  my  ramblings  (upon  which 
I  still  revolved  from  all  my  excursions,  whether  ellip- 
tical, circular,  or  zig-zag)  was  Llangollen  in  Denbigh- 
shire, or  else  Rhuabon,  not  more  than  a  few  miles 
distant.  One  morning  I  was  told  by  a  young  married 
woman,  at  whose  cottage  I  had  received  some  kind 


GLASGOW  ATHENjEUM. 


601 


hospitalities,  that  an  astrologer  lived  in  the  neighbor- 
hood. '  l^at  might  be  his  name  ? '  Very  good  Eng- 
lish it  was  that  my  young  hostess  had  hitherto  spoken ; 
and  yet,  in  this  instance,  she  chose  to  answer  me  in 
W elsh.  Mochinahante^  was  her  brief  reply.  I  dare 
say  that  my  spelling  of  the  word  will  not  stand  Welsh 
criticism;  but  what  can  you  expect  from  a  man's  first 
attempt  at  Welsh  orthography  ?  I  am  sure  that  my 
written  word  reflects  the  vocal  word  which  I  heard  — 
provided  you  pronounce  the  ch  as  a  Celtic  guttural  ; 
and  I  can  sw^ear  to  three  letters  out  of  the  twelve,  viz. 
the  first,  the  tenth,  and  the  eleventh,  as  rigorously  cor- 
rect. Pretty  well,  I  think,  that,  for  a  mere  beginner 
—  only  seventy-five  per  cent,  by  possibility  wrong  ! 
But  what  did  Mochinahante  mean  ?  For  a  man  might 
as  well  be  anonymous,  or  call  himself  X  Y  Z,  as  ofiei 
one  his  visiting  card  indorsed  with  a  name  so  frightful 
to  look  at  —  so  shocking  to  utter  —  so  agonizing  to 
spell  —  as  Mochinahante.  And  that  it  had  a  trans- 
latable meaning  —  that  it  was  not  a  proper  name  but 
an  appellative,  in  fact  some  playful  sobriquet,  I  felt 
certain,  *from  observing  the  young  woman  to  smile 
^v^hilst  she  uttered  it.  My  next  question  drew  from 
her  —  that  this  Pagan-looking  monster  of  a  name 
meant  Pig-in- the- dingle.  But  really,  now,  between 
the  original  monster  and  this  English  interpretation, 
there  was  very  little  to  choose  ;  in  fact  the  interpreta- 
tion, as  often  happens,  strikes  one  as  the  harder  to 
understand  of  the  two.  '  To  be  sure  it  does,'  says  a 
lady  sitting  at  my  elbow,  and  tormented  by  a  passion 
so  totally  unfeminine  as  curiosity  —  '  to  be  sure  —  very 
much  harder  ;  for  Mochina  —  what- do-you- call-it  ? 
might,  you  know,  mean  something  or  other,  for  any- 


602 


SORTILEGK   ON   BEHALF   01  THE 


tiling  that  you  or  I  could  say  to  the  contrary  ;  but  as 
to  Pig- in- the- dingle —  what  dreadful  nonsense!  what 
impossible  description  of  au  astrologer  !  A  man  that 
—  let  me  see  —  does  something  or  other  about  the 
stars  :  how  can  he  be  described  as  a  pig  ?  pig  in  a7iy 
sense,  you  know  —  pig  in  any  place  ?  But  Pig-in-a- 
dingle  !  —  why,  if  he's  a  pig  at  all,  he  must  be  Pig- 
on-a-steeple,  or  Pig-on-the-top-of-a-hill,  that  he  may 
rise  above  the  mists  and  vapors.  Now  I  insist,  my 
dear  creature,  on  your  explaining  all  this  riddle  on  the 
spot.  You  know  it  —  you  came  to  the  end  of  the 
mystery  ;  but  none  of  us  that  are  sitting  here  can 
guess  at  the  meaning  ;  we  shall  all  be  ill,  if  you  keep 
us  waiting  —  I've  a  headach  beginning  already  —  so 
say  the  thing  at  once,  and  put  us  out  of  torment  ! ' 

What's  to  be  done  ?  I  must  explain  the  thing  to 
the  Athenaeum  ;  and  if  I  stop  to  premise  an  oral  ex- 
planation for  the  lady's  separate  use,  there  will  be  no 
time  to  save  the  Glasgow  post,  which  waits  for  no 
man,  and  is  deaf  even  to  female  outcries  By  way  of 
compromise,  therefore,  I  request  of  the  lady  that  she 
will  follow  my  pen  with  her  radiant  eyes,  by  which 
means  she  will  obtain  the  earliest  intelligence,  and  the 
speediest  relief  to  her  headach.  1,  on  my  part,  will 
not  loiter,  but  will  make  my  answer  as  near  to  a  tele- 
graphic answer,  in  point  of  speed,  as  a  rigid  metallic 

pen  will  allow.  I  divide  this  answer  into  .  two 

heads  :  the  first  concerning  '  in  the  dingle,^  the  second 
concerning  'pig.'  My  philosophic  researches,  and  a 
visit  to  the  astrologer,  ascertained  a  profound  reason 
tor  describing  him  as  in-the-dingle ;  viz.  because  he 
was  in  a  dingle.  He  was  the  sole  occupant  of  a  little 
cove  amongst  the  hills  —  the  sole  householder  ;  and 


GLASGOW  ATHEX^UM. 


603 


so  absolutely  such,  tliat  if  ever  any  treason  slio\ild  be 
batched  in  the  dingle,  clear  it  was  to  my  mind  that 
Mocliinaliante  would  be  found  at  the  bottom  of  it ;  if 
ever  war  should  be  levied  in  this  dingle,  Mochinahante 
must  be  the  sole  belligerent ;  and  if  a  forced  contribu- 
tion were  ever  imposed  upon  this  dingle,  Mochinahante 
(poor  man !)  must  pay  it  all  out  of  his  own  pocket. 
The  lady  interrupts  me  at  this  point  to  say  —  '  Well, 
I  understand  all  that  —  that's  all  very  clear.  But 
what  I  want  to  know  about  is  —  Pig*  Come  to  Pig. 
Why  Pig  ?  How  Pig  ?  In  what  sense  Pig  ?  You 
can't  have  any  profound  reason,  you  know,  for  that.' 

Yes  I  have  ;  a  very  profound  reason ;  and  satisfac- 
tory to  the  most  sceptical  of  philosophers,  viz.  that  he 
was  a  Pig.  I  was  presented  by  my  fair  hostess  to  the 
great  interpreter  of  the  stars,  in  person  ;  for  I  was 
anxious  to  make  the  acquaintance  of  an  astrologer, 
and  especially  of  one  who,  whilst  owning  to  so  rarQ  a 
profession,  owned  also  to  the  soft  impeachment  of  so 
very  significant  a  name.  -Having  myself  enjoyed  so 
favorable  an  opportunity  for  investigating  the  reason- 
ableness of  that  name,  Mochinahante,  as  applied  to  the 
Denbighshire  astrologer,  I  venture  to  pronounce  it 
unimpeachable.  About  his  dress  there  was  a  forlorn- 
ness,  and  an  ancient  tarnish  or  oerugo,  which  went  far 
to  justify  the  name  ;  and  upon  his  face  there  sate  that 
lugubrious  rust  (or  what  medallists  technically  call 
patina)  which  bears  so  costly  a  value  when  it  is  found 
on  the  coined  face  of  a  Syro-Macedonian  prince  long 
since  compounded  with  dust,  but,  alas  !  bears  no  value 
at  all  if  found  upon  the  flesh-and-blood  face  of  a  living 
philosopher.  Speaking  humanly,  one  would  have  in- 
sinuated that  the  star-gazer  wanted  much  washing  and 


G04  SORTILEGE  ON   BEHALF   OF  THE 

Rcouring  ;  but,  astrologically  speaking,  perhaps  he 
would  have  been  spoiled  by  earthly  waters  for  his 
celestial  vigils. 

Mocliinahante  was  civil  enough ;  a  pig  is  not  neces- 
sarily rude  ;  and,  after  seating  me  in  his  chair  of  state, 
he  prepared  for  his  learned  labors  by  cross-examina- 
tions as  to  the  day  and  hour  of  my  birth.  The  day  I 
knew  to  a  certainty  ;  and  even  about  the  hour  I  could 
tell  quite  as  much  as  ought  in  reason  to  be  expected 
from  one  who  certainly  had  not  been  studying  a  chro- 
nometer when  that  event  occurred.  These  points  set- 
tled, the  astrologer  withdrew  into  an  adjoining  room, 
for  the  purpose  (as  he  assured  me)  of  scientifically  con- 
structing my  horoscope  ;  but  unless  the  drawing  of 
corks  is  a  part  of  that  process,  I  should  myself  incline 
to  think  that  the  great  man,  instead  of  minding  my 
interests  amongst  the  stars  and  investigating  my  horo- 
scope, had  been  seeking  consolation  for  himself  in 
bottled  porter.  Within  half-an-hour  he  returned ; 
looking  more  lugubrious  than  ever ;  more  grim ; 
more  grimy  (if  grime  yields  any  such  adjective)  ;  a 
little  more  rusty  ;  rather  more  patinous,  if  numisma- 
tists will  lend  me  that  word ;  and  a  great  dea\  more  in 
want  of  scouring.  He  had  a  paper  of  diagrams  in  his 
hand,  which  of  course  contained  some  short-hand 
memoranda  upon  my  horoscope  ;  but,  from  its  smoki- 
ness,  a  malicious  visitor  might  have  argued  a  possibility 
that  it  had  served  for  more  customers  than  myself.  Un- 
der his  arm  he  carried  a  folio  book,  which  (he  said)  was 
a  manuscript  of  unspeakable  antiquity.  This  he  was 
jealous  of  my  seeing  ;  and  before  he  would  open  it,  as 
if  I  and  the  book  had  been  two  prisoners  at  the  bar 
Buspected  of  meditating  some  collusive  mischief  (such 


GLASGOW  ATHEN^UM. 


605 


as  tying  a  cracker  to  the  judge's  wig),  he  separated  ua 
as  widely  from  each  other  as  the  dimensions  of  the 
room  allowed.  These  solemnities  finished,  we  were  all 
ready  —  I,  and  the  folio  volume,  and  Pig-in-the-dingle 
—  for  our  several  parts  in  the  play.  Mochinahante 
began  :  —  He  opened  the  pleadings  in  a  deprecatory 
tone,  protesting,  almost  with  tears,  that  if  anything 
should  turn  out  amiss  in  the  forthcoming  revelations, 
it  was  much  against  his  will  ;  that  he  was  power- 
less, and  could  not  justly  be  held  responsible  for 
any  part  of  the  disagreeable  message  which  it  might 
be  his  unhappiness  to  deliver.  I  hastened  to  assure 
him  that  I  was  incapable  of  such  injustice  ;  that  1 
should  hold  the  stars  responsible  for  the  whole  ;  by 
nature,  that  I  was  very  forgiving ;  that  any  little  mal- 
ice, which  I  might  harbor  for  a  year  or  so,  should  all 
be  reserved  for  the  use  of  the  particular  constellations 
concerned  in  the  plot  against  myself;  and,  lastly,  that 
I  was  now  quite  ready  to  stand  the  worst  of  their 
thunders.  Pig  was  pleased  with  this  reasonableness  ; 
he  saw  that  he  had  to  deal  with  a  philosopher  ;  and, 
in  a  more  cheerful  tone,  he  now  explained  that  my 
case  was  msystically  contained  in  the  diagrams  ;  these 
smoke-dried  documents  submitted,  as  it  were,  a  series 
of  questions  to  the  book  ;  which  book  it  was  —  a  book 
of  unspeakable  antiquity  —  that  gave  the  inflexible 
answers,  like  the  gloomy  oracle  that  it  was.  But  1 
was  not  to  be  angry  with  the  book,  any  more  than 
with  himself,  since  • '  Of  course  not,'  I  replied,  in- 
terrupting him,  '  the  book  did  but  utter  the  sounds 
which  were  predetermined  by  the  white  and  black 
keys  struck  in  the  smoky  diagrams  ;  and  I  cculd 
ao  more  be  angry  with  the  book  for  speaking  what 


306 


SORTILEGE   ON   BEHALF   OF  IHE 


it  conscientiously  believed  to  be  the  truth  than  with 
a  decanter  of  port  wine,  or  a  bottle  of  porter,  foi 
declining  to  yield  more  than  one  or  two  wine-glasses 
of  the  precious  liquor  at  the  moment  when  I  was  look- 
ing for  a  dozen,  under  a  transient  forgetfulness,  inci- 
dent to  the  greatest  minds,  that  I  myself,  ten  minutes 
before,  had  nearly  drunk  up  the  whole/  This  com- 
parison, though  to  a  critic  wide  awake  it  might  have 
seemed  slightly  personal,  met  with  the  entire  approba- 
tion of  Pig-in- the- dingle,  A  better  frame  of  mind 
for  receiving  disastrous  news,  he  evidently  conceived, 
could  not  exist  or  be  fancied  by  the  mind  of  man 
than  existed  at  that  moment  in  myself.  He  was  in  a 
state  of  intense  pathos  from  the  bottled  porter.  I  was 
in  a  state  of  intense  excitement  (pathos  combined  with 
^horror)  at  the  prospect  of  a  dreadful  lecture  on  my 
future  life,  now  ready  to  be  thundered  into  my  ears 
from  that  huge  folio  of  unspeakable  antiquity,  piompt- 
ed  by  those  wretched  smoke-dried  diagrams.  I  be- 
lieve we  were  in  magnetical  rapport.  Think  of  that, 
reader  !  —  Pig  and  I  in  magnetical  rapport !  Both 
making  passes  at  each  other !  What  in  the  world 
would  have  become  of  us  if  suddenly  we  should  have 
taken  to  somnambulizing  ?  Pig  would  have  abandoned 
his  dingle  to  me  ;  and  I  should  have  dismissed  Pig  to 
that  life  of  wandering  which  must  have  betrayed  the 
unscoured  patinous  condition  of  the  astrologer  to  the 
astonished  eyes  of  Cambria :  — 

'  Stout  Glos'ter  stood  aghast  [or  inight  have  stood]  in  speechless 
trance. 

To  arms!  cried  Mortimer  [or  at  least  might  have  cried],  and 
couch 'd  his  quivering  lance.' 

But  Pig  was  a  greater  man  than  he  seemed.  He 


GLASGOW  ATHEN^UM. 


607 


yielded  neither  to  magnetism  nor  to  bottled  porter  ; 
but  commenced  reading  from  the  black  book  in  the 
most  awful  tone  of  voice,  and,  generally  speaking, 
most  correctly.  Certainly  he  made  one  dreadful  mis- 
take ;  he  started  from  the  very  middle  of  a  sentence, 
instead  of  the  beginning ;  but  then  that  had  a  truly 
lyrical  effect,  and  also  it  was  excused  by  the  bottled 
porter.  The  words  of  the  prophetic  denunciation.^ 
from  which  he  started,  were  these  — '  also  he  [that 
was  myself,  you  understand]  shall  have  red  hair.' 
'  There  goes  a  bounce,'  I  said  in  an  under  tone  ;  '  the 
stars  it  seems,  can  tell  falsehoods  as  well  as  other 
people.'  '  Also,'  for  Pig  went  on  without  stopping, 
*he  shall  have  seven-and-twqnty-children.'  Too  hor- 
ror-struck I  was  by  this  news  to  utter  one  word  of 
protest  against  it.  '  Also,'  Pig  yelled  out  at  the  top 
of  his  voice,  'he  shall  desert  them.'  Anger  restored 
my  voice,  and  I  cried  out,  '  That's  not  only  a  lie  in 
the  stars,  but  a  libel  ;  and,  if  an  action  lay  against  a 
constellation,  I  should  recover  damages.'  Vain  it 
would  be  to  trouble  the  reader  with  all  the  monstrous 
prophecies  that  Pig  read  against  me.  He  read  with  a 
steady  Pythian  fury.  Dreadful  was  his  voice  :  dread- 
ful were  the  starry  charges  against  myself —  things 
that  I  loas  to  do,  things  that  I  must  do  :  dreadful  was 
the  wrath  with  which  secretly  I  denounced  all  partici- 
pation in  the  acts  which  these  wicked  stars  laid  to  my 
charge.  But  this  infirmity  of  good  nature  besets  me, 
that,  if  a  man  shows  trust  and  absolute  faith  in  any 
agent  or  agency  whatexer,  heart  there  is  not  in  me  to 
resist  him,  or  to  expose  his  folly.  Pig  trusted  —  oh 
how  profoundly! — in  his  black  book  of  unspeakable 
mtiquity.    It  would  have  killed  him  on  the  spot  to 


608  SORTILEGE  ON  BEHALF  OF  THE 

prove  that  the  black  book  was  a  hoax,  and  tliat  he 
himself  was  another.  Consequently,  I  submitted  in 
silence  to  pass  for  the  monster  that  Pig,  under  coer- 
cion of  the  stars,  had  pronounced  me,  rather  than  part 
in  anger  from  the  solitary  man,  who  after  all  was  not 
to  blame,  acting  only  in  a  ministerial  capacity,  and 
reading  only  what  the  stars  obliged  him  to  read.  I 
rose  without  saying  one  word,  advanced  to  the  table, 
and  paid  my  fees  ;  for  it  is  a  disagreeable  fact  to 
record,  that  astrologers  grant  no  credit,  nor  even  dis- 
count upon  prompt  payment.  I  shook  hands  with 
Mochinahante ;  we  exchanged  kind  farewells  —  he 
smiling  benignly  upon  me,  in  total  forgetfulness  that 
he  had  just  dismissed  me  to  a  life  of  storms  and 
crimes  ;  I,  in  return,  as  the  very  best  benediction  that 
I  could  think  of,  saying  secretly,  '  Oh  Pig,  may  the 
heavens  rain  their  choicest  soap-suds  upon  thee  ! ' 

Emerging  into  the  open  air,  I  told  my  fair  hostess 
of  the  red  hair  which  the  purblind  astrologer  had 
obtained  for  me  from  the  stars,  and  which,  with  their 
permission,  I  would  make  over  to  Mochinahante  for  a 
reversionary  wig  in  his  days  of  approaching  baldness. 
But  I  said  not  one  word  upon  that  too  bountiful 
allowance  of  children  with  which  Moch.  had  endowed 
me.  I  retreated  by  nervous  anticipation  from  that 
inextinguishable  laughter  which,  I  was  too  certain, 
would  follow  upon  her  part ;  and  yet,  when  wo 
reached  the  outlet  of  the  dingle,  and  turned  round  to 
take  a  parting  look  of  the  astrological  dwelling,  I 
myself  was  overtaken  by  fits  of  laughter ;  for  sud- 
denly I  figured  in  vision  my  own  future  return  to  thia 
mountain  recess,  with  the  young  legion  of  twenty- 
aeven  children.    '  /  desert  them,  the  darlings !  '  J 


GLASGOW  ATHEN^UM. 


609 


exclaimed,  '  far  from  it !  Backed  by  this  filial  army, 
I  shall  feel  myself  equal  to  the  task  of  taking  ven- 
geance on  the  stars  for  the  affronts  they  have  put  upon 
me  through  Pig  their  servant.  It  will  be  like  the 
return  of  the  Heracleidae  to  the  Peloponnesus.  The 
sacred  legion  will  storm  the  "  dingle,"  whilst  I  storm 
Pig :  the  rising  generation  will  take  military  posses- 
sion of  'inahante,'^  whilst  I  deal  with  "  Moch'^  (which 
I  presume  to  be  the  part  in  the  long  word  answering 
to  Pig).'  My  hostess  laughed  in  sympathy  with  my 
laughter ;  but  I  was  cautious  of  letting  her  have  a 
look  into  my  vision  of  the  sacred  legion.  We  quitted 
the  dingle  for  ever  ;  and  so  ended  my  first  visit,  being 
also  my  last,  to  an  astrologer. 

This,  reader,  was  the  true  general  occasion  of  my 
one  thought  upon  astrology  ;  and,  before  I  mention  it, 
I  may  add  that  the  immediate  impulse  drawing  my 
mind  in  any  such  direction  was  this  :  —  On  walking  to 
the  table  where  the  astrologer  sat,  in  order  to  pay  my 
fees,  naturally  I  came  nearer  to  the  folio  book  than 
astrological  prudence  would  generally  have  allowed. 
But  Pig's  attention  was  diverted  for  the  moment  to 
the  silver  coins  laid  before  him;  these  he  reviewed 
with  the  care  reasonable  in  one  so  poor,  and  in  a  state 
of  the  coinage  so  neglected  as  it  then  was.  By  this  mo- 
ment of  avarice  in  Pig,  I  profited  so  far  as  to  look  over 
the  astrologer's  person,  sitting  and  bending  forward  full 
upon  the  book.  It  was  spread  open,  and  at  a  glance  I 
Baw  that  it  was  no  MS.  but  a  printed  book,  printed  in 
olack-letter  types.  The  month  of  August  stood  as  a 
rubric  at  the  head  of  the  broad  margin  ;  and  below  it 
stoc  d  some  days  of  that  month  in  orderly  succession. 
So  tlien,  Pig,'  said  I  in  my  thoughts,  '  it  seems  that 
39 


610  SORTILEGE   ON  BEHALF   OF  THE 

any  person  whatever,  born  on  any  particular  day  and 
hour  of  August,  is  to  have  the  same  exact  fate  as  my- 
self. But  a  king  and  a  beggar  may  chance  thus  far  to 
agree.  And  be  you  assured,  Pig,  that  all  the  infinite 
variety  of  cases  lying  between  these  two  termini  differ 
from  each  other  in  fortunes  and  incidents  of  life  as 
much,  though  not  so  notoriously,  as  king  and  beggar.' 

Hence  arose  a  confirmation  of  my  contempt  for 
astrology.  It  seemed  as  if  necessarily  false  —  false  by 
an  d  priori  principle,  viz.  that  the  possible  differences 
in  human  fortunes,  which  are  infinite,  cannot  be 
measured  by  the  possible  differences  in  the  particular 
moments  of  birth,  which  are  too  strikingly  finite.  It 
strengthened  me  in  this  way  of  thinking,  that  subse- 
quently I  found  the  very  same  objection  in  Macrobius. 
Macrobius  may  have  stolen  the  idea ;  but  certainly  not 
from  me  —  as  certainly  I  did  not  steal  it  from  him ;  so 
that  here  is  a  concurrence  of  two  people  independently, 
one  of  them  a  great  philosopher,  in  the  very  same 
annihilating  objection. 

Now  comes  my  one  thought.  Both  of  us  were 
wrong,  Macrobius  and  myself.  Even  the  great  phi- 
losopher is  obliged  to  confess  it.  The  objection  truly 
valued  is  —  to  astrologers,  not  to  astrology.  No  two 
events  ever  did  coincide  in  point  of  time.  Every 
event  has,  and  must  have,  a  certain  duration ;  this 
you  may  call  its  breadth ;  and  the  true  locus  of  the 
event  in  time  is  the  central  point  of  that  breadth, 
which  never  was  or  will  be  the  same  for  any  two 
separate  events,  though  grossly  held  to  be  contempo- 
raneous. It  is  the  mere  imperfection  of  our  human 
means  for  chasing  the  infinite  subdivisibilities  of  time 
which  causes  us  to  regard  two  events  as  even  by  possi- 


GLASGOW  ATHENjEUM. 


611 


Dility  concurring  in  their  central  moments.  This  im- 
perfection is  crushing  to  the  pretensions  of  astrologers  ; 
but  astrology  laughs  at  it  in  the  heavens ;  and  astrol- 
ogy, armed  with  celestial  chronometers,  is  true  ! 

Suffer  me  to  illustrate  the  case  a  little  :  —  It  is  rare 
that  a  metaphysical  difficulty  can  be  made  as  clear  as  a 
pikestaff.  This  can.  Suppose  two  events  to  occur  in 
the  same  quarter  of  a  minute  —  that  is,  in  the  same 
fifteen  seconds  ;  then,  if  they  started  precisely  together, 
and  ended  precisely  together,  they  would  not  only  have 
the  same  breadth,  but  this  breadth  would  accurately 
coincide  in  all  its  parts  or  fluxions;  consequently,  the 
central  moment,  viz.,  the  8th,  would  coincide  rigorously 
with  the  centre  of  each  event.  But,  suppose  that  one 
of  the  two  events,  A  for  instance,  commenced  a  single 
second  before  B  the  other,  then,  as  we  are  still  suppos- 
ing them  to  have  the  same  breadth  or  extension,  A 
will  have  ended  in  the  second  before  B  ends ;  and, 
consequently,  the  centres  will  be  different,  for  the  8th 
second  of  A  will  be  the  7th  of  B.  The  disks  of  the 
two  events  will  overlap  —  A  will  overlap  B  at  the 
beginning ;  B  will  overlap  A  at  the  end.  Now,  go  on 
to  assume  that,  in  a  particular  case,  this  overlapping 
does  not  take  place,  but  that  the  two  events  eclipse 
each  other,  lying  as  truly  surface  to  surface  as  two 
sovereigns  in  a  tight  rouleau  of  sovereigns,  or  one 
dessert-spoon  nestling  in  the  bosom  of  another ;  in 
that  case,  the  8th  or  central  second  will  be  the  centre 
for  both.  But  even  here  a  question  will  arise  as  to 
the  degree  of  rigor  in  the  coincidence ;  for  divide  that 
8th  second  into  a  thousand  parts  or  sub-moments,  and 
perhaps  the  centre  of  A  will  be  found  to  hit  the  450tb 
Bub- moment,  whilst  that  of  B  may  hit  the  600th.  Oj 


612 


SORTILEGE  ON  BEHALF   OF  THE 


suppose,  again,  even  this  trial  surmounted:  the  two 
harmonious  creatures,  A  and  B,  running  neck  and 
neck  together,  have  both  hit  simultaneously  the  true 
centre  of  the  thousand  sub-moments  which  lies  half- 
way between  the  500th  and  the  501st.    All  is  right 
so  far  —  'all  right  behind; '  but  go  on,  if  you  please; 
subdivide  this  last  centre,  which  we  will  call  X,  into 
a  thousand  lesser  fractions.    Take,  in  fact,  a  railway 
express- rrain  of  decimal  fractions,  and  give  chase  to  A 
and  B ;  my  word  for  it  that  you  will  come  up  with 
them  in  some  stage  or  other  of  the  journey,  and  arrest 
them  in  the  very  act  of  separating  their  centres  — 
which  is  a  dreadful  crime  in  the  eye  of  astrology ;  for, 
it  is  utterly  impossible  that  the  initial  moment,  or  sub' 
moment,  or  suh-sub-movciQixt  of  A  and  B  should  abso- 
lutely coincide.    Such  a  thing  as  a  perfect  start  was 
never  heard  of  at  Doncaster.    Now,  this  severe  accu- 
racy is  not  wanted  on  earth.    Archimedes,  it  is  well 
known,  never  saw  a  perfect  circle,  nor  even,  with  his 
leave,  a  decent  circle ;  for,  doubtless,  the  reader  knows 
the  following  fact,  viz.,  that,  if  you  take  the  most  per- 
fect Vandyking  ever  cut  out  of  paper  or  silk,  by  the 
most  delicate  of  female  fingers,  with  the  most  exquisite 
t)f  Salisbury  scissors,  upon  viewing  it  through  a  mi- 
croscope you  will  find  the  edges  frightfully  ragged; 
but,  if  you  apply  the  same  microscope  to  one  of  God's 
Vandyking  on  the  corolla  or  calyx  of  a  flower,  you 
will  find  it  as  truly  cut  and  as  smooth  as  a  moonbeam. 
We  on  earth,  I  repeat,  need  no  such  rigorous  truth. 
For  instance,  you  and  I,  my  reader,  want  little  perhaps 
with  circles,  except  now  and  then  to  bore  one  with  an 
augre  in  a  ship's  bottom,  when  we  wish  to  sink  her 
an 4  to  cheat  the  underwriters;  or,  by  way  of  variety 


GLASGOW  ATHEN^UM.  613 


to  cut  one  with  a  centre-bit  through  shop-shutters,  in 
order  to  rob  a  jeweller;  —  so  loe  don't  care  much 
whether  the  circumference  is  ragged  or  not.  But  that 
won't  do  for  a  constellation!  The  st?ixs  7ie7it  en  dent 
vas  la  raillerie  on  the  subject  of  geometry.  The  pen- 
dulum of  the  starry  heavens  oscillates  truly ;  and  if 
the  Greenwich  time  of  the  Empyreum  can't  be  repeated 
upon  earth,  without  an  error,  a  horoscope  is  as  much  a 
chimera  as  the  perpetual  motion,  or  as  an  agreeable 
income-tax.  In  fact,  in  casting  a  nativity,  to  swerve 
from  the  true  centre  by  the  trillionth  of  a  centillionth 
is  as  fatal  as  to  leave  room  for  a  coach  and  six  to  turn 
between  your  pistol  shot  and  the  bull's  eye.  If  you 
haven't  done  the  tiick,  no  matter  how  near  you've 
come  to  it.  And  to  overlook  this,  is  as  absurd  as  was 
the  answer  of  that  Lieutenant  M.,  who,  being  asked 
whether  he  had  any  connection  with  another  officer  of 
the  same  name,  replied  —  '  Oh  yes  !  a  very  close  one.' 
'  But  in  what  way  r '  '  Why,  you  see,  I'm  in  the  50th 
regiment  of  foot,  and  he's  in  the  49th  : '  walking,  in 
fact,  just  behind  him !  Yet,  for  all  this,  horoscopes 
may  be  calculated  very  truly  by  the  stars  amongst 
themselves ;  and  my  conviction  is  —  that  they  are. 
They  are  perhaps  even  printed  hieroglyphically,  and 
published  as  regularly  as  a  nautical  almanac;  only, 
they  cannot  be  re-published  upon  earth  by  any  mode 
of  piracy  yet  discovered  amongst  sublunary  book- 
sellers. Astrology,  in  fact,  is  a  very  profound,  or  at 
least  a  very  lofty  science  ;  but  astrologers  are  hum- 
bugs. 

I  have  finished,  and  I  am  vain  of  my  work  ;  for  I 
have  accomplished  three  considerable  things  :  —  J 
Hiave  floored  Macrobius ;  I  have  cured  a  lady  of  her 


614  SORTILEGE   ON  BEHALF,  ETC. 

headache ;  and  lastly,  which  is  best  of  all,  I  have  ex- 
pressed my  sincere  interest  in  the  prosperity  of  the 
Glasgow  Atheneeum. 

But  the  Glasgow  post  is  mounting,  and  this  paper 
will  be  lost ;  a  fact  which,  amongst  all  the  dangers 
besetting  me  in  this  life,  the  wretched  Pig  forgot  to 
warn  me  of. 


NOTES. 


Note  1.    Page  77. 

"  The  twelve  tribes,^' —  It  is  a  beautiful  circumstance  in  the 
symbology  of  the  Jewish  ritual,  where  all  is  symbolic  and  all 
fiignificant,  where  all  in  Milton's  language  *  was  meant  myste- 
riously,' that  the  ten  tribes  were  not  blotted  out  from  the  breast- 
plate after  their  revolt  ;  no,  nor  after  their  idolatrous  lapse, 
nor  after  their  captivity,  nor  after  their  supposed  utter  disper- 
sion. Their  names  still  burned  in  the  breastplate,  though  their 
earthly  place  knew  them  no  more. 

Note  2.    Page  118. 

"  Especially  the  death  of  Mariamne,"  —  There  is  a  remarkable 
proof  extant  of  the  veneration  attached  in  Jewish  imagination  to 
the  memory  of  this  lady  as  a  Maccabee.  Long  after  her  death, 
a  pretender  (or  alleged  pretender)  to  the  name  and  rights  of 
Alexander,  one  of  her  two  murdered  sons,  appeared  at  Rome, 
and  instantly  drew  to  himself  the  enthusiastic  support  of  all  the 
Jews  throughout  Italy. 

Note  3.    Page  127. 

"  That  could  not  have  been  otherwise  obtained." —  One  thing 
s  entirely  overlooked.  Neither  in  Syria,  nor  any  part  of  Asia 
Minor,  of  Achaia,  &c.,  could  the  Apostles  have  called  a  general 
meeting  of  the  people  without  instant  liability  to  arrest  as  public 
disturbers  But  the  character  of  physicians  furnished  a  privi- 
leged case,  which  operated  as  a  summons,  instant,  certain,  safe, 
uniformly  intelligible  to  others,  and  without  eifort  of  their  own 


616 


NOTES. 


Note  4.    Page  128. 

"  As  the  heart  of  Judea,'' —  It  was  an  old  belief  amongst  the 
Jews,  upon  their  ideas  of  cosmography,  that  Judea  was  the 
central  region  of  the  earth,  and  that  Jerusalem  was  the 
omphalos,  or  navel  of  Judea  —  an  idea  which  the  Greeks 
Applied  to  Delphi. 

Note  5.    Page  130. 

Chrysotn  children,**  —  Tell  a  child  of  three  years  old  to  pro- 
ftounce  the  word  helm  ;  nine  times  out  of  ten  it  will  say  helom 
from  the  imperfection  of  its  organs.  By  this  mode  of  corruption 
same  the  word  chrysom.,  from  the  baptismal  chrism  of  the  early 
Christians.  In  England,  if  a  child  dies  within  the  first  month 
Df  its  life,  it  is  called  a  chrysom  child ;  whence  the  title  in  the 
/jondon  bills  of  mortality.  In  such  a  case,  it  was  the  beautiful 
custom  amongst  our  ancestors,  perhaps  still  is  so  amongst  those 
who  have  the  good  feeling  to  appreciate  these  time-honored 
usages,  to  bury  the  innocent  creature  in  its  baptismal  robe  ;  to 
which  the  northern  Spaniards  add,  as  another  symbol  of  purity, 
on  the  lid  of  the  little  coffin,  — 

*  A  happy  garland  of  the  pure  white  rose' 

How  profoundly  this  mysterious  chrism  influenced  the  imagina- 
tions of  our  forefathers,  is  shown  by  the  multiplied  ricochets 
through  which  it  impressed  itself  upon  the  vocabulary  of  the 
case  ;  the  oil,  the  act  of  anointing,  the  little  infant  anointed,  the 
white  rob3  in  which  it  was  dressed,  —  all  and  each  severally 
bore  the  name  of  the  chrysom, 

NoTjj  6.    Page  151. 

"  Amaranthine  : "  —  This  word,  familiar  even  to  non-Grecian 
readers  through  the  flower  amaranth,  and  its  use  amongst  poets, 
IS  derived  from  a,  not  (equivalent  to  our  tin),  and  maraino,  to 
wither  or  decay. 


NOTES. 


617 


Note  7.    Page  152. 

^'Chained  down  their  Gods":  —  Many  of  the  Greek  states, 
though  it  lias  not  been  sufficiently  inquired  which  states  and  in 
what  age,  had  a  notion  that  in  war-time  the  tutelary  deities  of 
the  place,  the  epichorial  gods,  were  liable,  to  bribery,  by  secret 
offers  of  temples  more  splendid,  altars  better  served,  &c.  from 
the  enemy  ;  so  that  a  standing  danger  existed,* lest  these  gods 
should  desert  to  the  hostile  camp  ;  and  especially,  because,  not 
knowing  the  rate  of  the  hostile  biddings,  the  indigenous  worship- 
pers had  no  guide  to  regulate  their  own  counterbiddings.  In  this 
embarrassment,  the  prudent  course,  as  most  people  believed,  was 
to  chain  the  divine  idols  by  the  leg,  with  golden  fetters. 

Note  8.    Page  153. 

"  The  Far  revs."  —  There  is,  but  by  whom  written  I  really  for- 
get, a  separate  memoir  of  this  family,  and  published  as  a  separate 
volume.  In  the  county  histories  (such  as  Chauncy's,  &c.)  will 
also  be  found  sketches  of  their  history.  But  the  most  popular 
form  in  which  their  memorials  have  been  retraced  is  a  biography 
of  Nicholas  Farrer,  introduced  into  one  of  the  volumes,  I  cannot 
say  which,  of  the  Ecclesiastical  Biography  —  an  interesting  com- 
pilation, drawn  up  by  the  late  Dr.  Christopher  Wordsworth,  a 
brother  of  the  great  poet. 

Note  9.    Page  154. 

For  proof,  look  only  at  two  coins  of  our  British  Empire  —  first, 
at  our  current  rupee  throughout  Hindostan.  When  a  child,  I 
was  presented  by  Bengal  relatives  with  a  rouleau  of  rupees  by 
way  of  playthings  :  anything  so  rude  in  workmanship,  so  truly 
Hunnish,  and  worthy  of  Attila,  I  have  not  seen  on  this  earth  of 
ours.  And  yet,  secondly,  our  own  English  floriyi,  though  less 
brutally  inartificial,  is  even  more  offensive  to  good  taste,  because 
ess  unpretending  as  a  work  of  display.  Oh,  that  dreadful 
fv^oman,  with  that  di-eadful  bust !  —  the  big  woman,  and  the  big 
bust !  —  whom  and  which  to  encircle  in  "  a  chaste  salute  "  would 
tequire  a  man  with  arms  fourteen  feet  long ! 


618 


NOTES. 


Note  10.  Page  155. 

When  a  murderer  is  thoroughly  diseased  by  vanity  one  loses 
all  confidence  in  him.  Cellini  went  upon  the  plan  of  claiming  all 
eminent  murders,  suitable  in  point  of  time  and  place,  that  no- 
body else  claimed  ;  just  as  many  a  short  poem  in  the  Greek 
Anthologies,  marked  adespoton  (or,  without  an  owner),  was 
sported  by  one  pretender  after  another  as  his  own.  Even  simple 
homicides  he  would  not  think  it  below  him  to  challenge  as  hia 
own.  Two  princes,  at  the  very  least,  a  Bourbon  and  a  Nassau, 
pretended  to  have  shot ;  it  might  be  so,  but  nobody  ever  came 
forward  to  corroborate  his  statement. 

Note  11.    Page  156. 

In  youth  I  saw  fi-equently  cliefs  d'wuire  of  bookbinding  from 
the  studios  of  some  London  artists  (Hering,  Lewis,  &c  ),  and  of 
several  Germans  —  especially  Kaltoeber,  Staggcmeier,  and  others 
(names  forgotten  by  reason  of  prickliness  and  thorniness).  But 
read  the  account  of  Mr.  Farrer's  Bible,  and  you  see  how  far  he, 
in  1635,  must  have  outshone  them. 

Note  12.  Page  156. 

This  was  the  earliest  attempt  at  a  Polyglot  Bible,  and  had  ita 
name  from  the  town  of  Complutum,  which  is,  I  think,  Alcala  de 
Henarez,  The  Henarez  is  a  little  river.  Some  readers  will 
thank  me  for  mentioning  that  the  accent  is  on  the  first  syllable 
of  Complutum,  the  u  in  the  penultimate  being  short ;  not  Com- 
plutum  but  Complutum. 

Note  13.   Page  157 

Was  it  not  Bishop  Halifax  who  apologized  for  Butler  in  this 
instance  ?  If  Butler  were  in  deep  sincerity  a  Protestant,  no 
ipology  was  sufficient. 

Note  14.    Page  161. 

Joseph  Ady  was  a  useful  public  servant,  although  in  some  de- 
gree a  disreputable  servant ;  and  through  half  a  generation  (say 


NOTES. 


619 


sixteen  or  seventeen  years,  in  these  days)  a  purveyor  of  fun  and 
hilarity  to  the  great  nation  of  newspaper-readers.  His  line  of 
business  was  this :  Naturally,  in  the  case  of  a  funded  debt  so 
vast  as  ours  in  Great  Britain,  it  must  happen  that  very  numerous 
lodgments  of  sums  not  large  enough  to  attract  attention,  are 
dropping  into  the  list  of  dividends  with  no  apparent  claimant 
every  fortnight.  Death  is  always  at  work  in  removing  the  bar- 
riers between  ourselves  —  whoever  this  ourselves  may  happen  to 
be  —  and  claims  upon  the  national  debt  that  have  lost  (perhaps 
long  ago)  their  original  owners.  The  reader,  for  instance,  or 
myself,  at  this  very  moment,  may  unconsciously  have  succeeded 
to  some  lapsed  claim,  between  which  and  us  five  years  ago  there 
may  have  stood  thirty  or  forty  claimants  with  a  nearer  title.  In 
a  nation  so  adventurous  and  given  to  travelling  as  ours,  deaths 
abroad  by  fire  and  water,  by  contagious  disease,  and  by  the  dag- 
ger or  secret  poison  of  the  assassin  (to  which  of  all  nations  ours 
is  most  exposed,  from  inveterate  habits  of  generous,  unsuspecting 
confidence),  annually  clear  ofi^  a  large  body  of  obscure  claimants, 
whose  claims  (as  being  not  conspicuous  from  their  small  amount) 
are  silently  as  snow-flakes  gathering  into  a  vast  fund  (if  I  recol- 
lect, forty  millions  sterling)  of  similar  noiseless  accumulations. 
When  you  read  the  periodical  list  published  by  authority  of  the 
countless  articles  (often  valuable)  left  by  the  owners  in  public 
carriages,  out  of  pure  forgetfulness,  to  the  mercy  of  chance,  or 
of  needy  public  servants,  it  is  not  possible  that  you  should  be 
surprised  if  some  enterprising  countryman,  ten  thousand  miles 
from  home,  should  forget  in  his  last  moments  some  deposit  of 
one,  two,  or  three  hundred  pounds  in  the  British  Funds.  In 
such  a  case,  it  would  be  a  desirable  thing  for  the  reader  and  my- 
self that  some  person  practised  in  such  researches  should  take 
charge  of  our  interests,  watch  the  future  fortunes  of  the  unad- 
vertised  claim,  and  note  the  steps  by  which  sometimes  it  comes 
nearer  and  nearer  to  our  own  door.  Now,  such  a  vicarious 
watchman  was  Joseph  Ady.  In  discharge  of  his  self-assumed 
duties,  he  addressed  letters  to  all  the  world.  He  communicated 
the  outline  of  the  case  ;  but  naturally  stipulated  for  a  retaining 
fee  (not  much,  usually  twenty  shillings),  as  the  honorarmm  for 
services  past  and  coming.  Out  of  five  thousand  addressees,  if 
nine-tenths  declined  to  take  any  notice  of  his  letters,  the  remain- 
ing tenth  secured  to  him  £500  annually.   Gradually  he  extended 


620 


NOTES, 


his  correspondence  to  the  Continent.  And  general  .merriment 
attended  his  continual  skirmishes  with  police-offices.  But  this 
lucrative  trade  was  at  last  ungenerously  stifled  by  a  new  section 
in  the  Post-office  Bill,  which  made  the  loriter  of  letters  that  were 
refused  liable  for  the  postage.  That  legislative  blow  extin- 
guished simultaneously  Adyism  and  Ady. 

Note  15.  Page  162. 

"  U?ipleasafitries*'  —  this  is  a  new  word,  launched  a  very  few 
years  back  in  some  commercial  towrie.  It  is  generally  used  — 
not  in  any  sense  that  the  reader  would  collect  from  its  antipole, 
ifleasantry,  but  in  a  sense  that  he  may  abstract  from  the  context 
in  the  sentence  above. 

Note  16.    Page  164. 

This  block  is,  I  believe,  a  monoUtli.  Even  to  obtain  in  an  ac-  ' 
cessible  situation,  and  still  more  to  remove  into  its  present  site, 
such  a  granite  mass  insusceptible  of  partition,  was  a  triumph  of 
mechanic  art;  and  consequently  superadds  to  the  attraction  of 
the  statue  (an  equestrian  statue  of  Peter  the  Great  —  founder  at 
once  of  the  city  and  the  possibility  of  the  city  in  that  situation)  — 
a  scenical  record  of  engineering  power.  So  far,  and  considered 
as  a  conquest  over  difficulties,  the  entire  mnss  must  be  very 
striking.  But  two  objections  must  interfere  with  the  spectator's 
pleasure.  If,  as  I  have  been  told,  the  monolith  is  itself  the  basis 
of  the  statue,  in  that  case  what  is  ordinarily  viewed  as  a  hors- 
d'ceuvre,  no  more  belonging  to  the  statue  than  the  terrace,  street, 
square,  or  public  hall  in  which  it  may  happen  to  be  placed,  sud- 
denly enters  into  the  artistes  work  as  an  essential  and  irremovable 
member,  or  integrant  feature  of  his  workmanship.  Secondly, 
this  granite  monolith,  being  chiselled  into  the  mimic  semblance 
of  an  ascending  precipice,  or  section  of  a  precipice,  unavoidably 
throws  the  horse  into  an  unnatural  action ;  not  perhaps  into  an 
unnatural  or  false  attitude;  for  the  attitude  may  be  true  to  the 
purpose ;  but  that  purpose  is  itself  both  false  and  ungraceful, 
unless  for  an  ibex  or  an  Alpine  chamois.  A  horse  is  easily 
trained  to  ascend  a  flight  of  stairs ;  and  with  no  training  at  all, 
at  the  request  of  Mr.  Pitt,  a  little  horse  of  the  Shetland  breed 
.vas  trotted  up-stairs  into  the  front  drawing-room  at  the  London 


NOTES. 


621 


mansion  of  the  penultimate  Duke  of  Gordon.  That  was  more 
than  fifty  years  ago  ;  for  Pitt  has  been  dead  now  [viz.,  November, 
1857]  for  nearly  fifty-two  years.  But  within  the  recent  knowl- 
edge of  us  all,  a  full-sized  horse  carried  his  rider  in  a  flying  leap 
over  a  splendid  dinner  table  —  glass,  china,  tureens,  decanters, 
and  blazing  wax-lights  —  ambling  gently  down-stairs  on  taking 
his  leave,  and  winning  a  heavy  wager.  Such  feats  are  accounted 
noble  and  brilliant  amongst  the  pnnces  and  sirdars  round  the 
throne  of  Persia.  But  with  us  of  the  western  world  they  are 
reputed  more  becoming  to  a  Eranconi  or  an  Astley  than  to  a 
Czar  of  all  the  Russias,  who  speaks  as  God's  vicegerent  to  three 
hundred  nations  and  languages  But  even  a  flying  leap  is  better 
than  a  scramhling,  —  and  up-hill  over  the  asperities  of  a  granite 
rock  neither  horse  nor  man  is  able  to  do  more  than  scramble,  — 
and  this  is  undignified  for  the  Czar ;  is  perilous  and  more  un- 
natural than  running  up-stairs  for  the  horse ;  and  to  the  poor 
spectator  (unless  paid  for  spectating)  is  sympathetically  painful. 

Note  17.    Page  168. 

It  may  seem  strange  to  insinuate  against  the  Aglaophamus 
any  objection,  great  or  small,  as  regards  its  erudition  —  that 
being  the  main  organ  of  its  strength.  But  precisely  here  lay  the 
power  of  Lobeck,  and  here  his  weakness  ;  all  his  strength,  and 
his  most  obvious  defect.  Of  this  he  was  sensible  himself.  At  the 
very  period  of  composing  the  Aglaophamus,  he  found  reason  to 
complain  that  his  situation  denied  him  access  to  great  libraries  : 
and  this,  perhaps,  is  felt  by  the  reader  most  in  the  part  relating 
to  the  Eleusinian  mysteries,  least  in  that  relating  to  the  Orphic. 
Previously,  however,  Lobeck  had  used  his  opportunities  w^ell. 
And  the  true  pr  lise  of  his  reading  is,  not  so  much  that  it  was 
unusually  extensive,  as  that  it  was  unusually  systematic,  and 
connected  itself  in  all  its  parts  by  unity  of  jDurpose.  At  the 
same  time  it  is  a  remark  of  considerable  interest,  that  the  stu- 
dent must  not  look  in  Lobeck,  for  luminous  logic,  or  for  sim- 
plicity of  arrangement,  which  are  qualifications  for  good  writing, 
unknown  to  the  gueat  scholars  of  modern  Germany,  to  Nie- 
balir  altogether,  and  in  the  next  degree  unknown  to  Ottfried 
MueKer,  and  to  Lobeck.  Their  defects  in  this  respect  are  so 
Cl.igrant,  as  to  argue  some  capital  vice  in  the  academic  training 


622 


NOTES. 


of  Germany.  Elsewhere  througliout  the  world  no  such  mon- 
strous result  appears  of  chaotic  arrangement  from  profouml 
research.  As  regards  philosophy,  and  its  direct  application  to 
the  enigmas  of  these  Grecian  mysteries,  it  is  no  blame  to  Lobeck 
that  none  must  be  looked  for  in  him,  unless  he  had  made  some 
pretence  to  it,  which  I  am  not  aware  that  he  did.  Yet  in  one 
instance  he  ought  to  have  made  such  a  pretence  :  mere  good 
sense  should  have  opened  his  eyes  to  one  elementary  blunder  of 
Warburton's.  I  tax  W.,  I  tax  all  who  ever  countenanced  W.,  I 
tax  all  who  have  ever  opposed  W.,  I  tax  Lobeck  as  bringing  up 
the  rear  of  these  opponents,  one  and  all  with  the  inexcusable 
blindness  of  torpor  in  using  their  natural  eyesight.  So  much  of 
philosophy  as  resides  in  the  mere  natural  faculty  of  reflectiveness, 
would  have  exposed  [pure  sloth  it  was  in  the  exercise  of  this 
faculty  which  concealed]  the  blunder  of  W.  in  confounding  a 
doctrinal  religion,  [such  as  Judaism,  Christianity,  Islamism,] 
with  a  Pagan  religion,  which  last  has  a  cult  us  or  ceremonial 
worship,  but  is  essentially  insusceptible  of  any  dogma  or  opinion. 
Paganism  had  no  creed,  no  faith^  no  doctrine,  little  or  great, 
shallow  or  deep,  false  or  true.  Consequently  the  doctrine  of  a 
future  state  did  not  (because  it  could  not)  belong  to  Paganism. 
Having  no  doctrines  of  any  sort,  Grecian  idolatry  could  not  have 
this.  All  other  arguments  against  W.  were  a  posteriori  from 
facts  of  archaeology  :  this  was  a  priori  from  the  essential  princi- 
ple of  an  idolatrous  religion.  All  other  arguments  proved  the 
Warburtonian  crotchet  to  be  a  ftxlsehood  :  this  proves  it  to  be  an 
impossibility.  Other  arguments  contradict  it :  this  leaves  it  in 
self-contradiction.  And  one  ih'ng  let  me  warn  the  reader  to 
beware  of.  In  the  Oriental  forms  of  Paganism,  such  as  Budd- 
hism, Brahminism,  &c.,  some  vestiges  of  opinion  seem  at  times  to 
intermingle  themselves  with  the  facts  of  the  mythology  :  all 
which,  however,  are  only  an  aftergrowth  of  sectarian  feuds,  or 
philosophic  dreamsj  that  having  survived  opposition,  and  the 
memory  of  their  own  origin,  have  finally  confounded  themselves 
with  the  religion  itself  as  parts  in  its  original  texture.  But  in 
Greece  there  never  was  any  such  confusion,  even  as  a  natural 
process  of  error.  The  schools  of  philosophy  always  keeping  them 
selves  alive,  naturally  always  vindicated  their  own  claims  against 
any  incipient  encroachments  of  the  national  religion. 


NOTES. 


623 


Note  18.  Page  178. 
"  Wicked  Will  Whiston,"  —  In  this  age,  when  Swift  is  so  little 
read,  it  may  be  requisite  to  explain  that  Swift  it  was  who  fas- 
tened this  epithet  of  wicked  to  Will  Whiston  ;  and  the  humor  of 
it  lay  in  the  very  incongruity  of  the  epithet  ;  for  Whiston,  thus 
sketched  as  a  profligate,  was  worn  to  the  bone  by  the  anxieties 
of  scrupulousness  :  he  was  anything  but  wicked,  being  pedantic, 
crazy,  and  fantastical  in  virtue  after  a  fashion  of  his  own.  He 
ruined  his  wife  and  family,  he  ruined  himself  and  all  that  trusted 
in  him,  by  crotchets  that  he  never  could  explain  to  any  rational 
man  ;  and  by  one  thing  that  he  never  explained  to  himself,  which 
a  hundred  years  after  I  explained  very  clearly,  viz.  that  all  his 
heresies  in  religion,  all  his  crazes  in  ecclesiastical  antiquities,  in 
casuistical  morals,  and  even  as  to  the  discovery  of  the  longitude, 
had  their  rise,  not  (as  his  friends  thought)  in  too  much  con- 
scientiousness and  too  much  learning,  but  in  too  little  rhubarb 
and  magnesia.  In  his  autobiography  he  has  described  his  own 
craziness  of  stomach  in  a  way  to  move  the  gravest  reader's 
laughter,  and  the  sternest  reader's  pity.  Everybody,  in  fact, 
that  knew  his  case  and  history,  stared  at  him,  derided  him,  pitied 
him,  and,  in  some  degree,  respected  him.  For  he  was  a  man  of 
eternal  self-sacrifice,  and  that  is  always  venerable  ;  he  was  a  man 
of  primitive  unworldly  sincerity,  and  that  is  always  lovely  ;  yet 
both  the  one  and  the  other  were  associated  with  so  many  oddities 
and  absurdities,  as  compelled  the  most  equitable  judge  at  times 
to  join  in  the  general  laughter.  He  and  Humphrey  Ditton,  who 
both  held  official  stations  as  mathematicians,  and  were  both 
honored  with  the  acquaintance  of  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  had  both 
been  candidates  for  the  Parliamentary  prize  as  discoverers  of  the 
longitude,  and,  naturally,  both  were  found  wrong  ;  Tshich  fur 
nishes  the  immediate  theme  for  Swift's  savage  ridicule 

The  longitude  mist  on 

By  wicked  Will  Wiston  ; 

And  not  better  hit  on 

By  good  Master  Ditton. 


624 


NOTES. 


Note  19.    Pape  178. 

"  Fo  adorn  the  Sparta  : —  This  is  an  old  proverbial  form  of 
expression  amongst  the  ancients :  when  any  man  had  assigned 
to  him  for  culture  or  for  embellishment  a  barren,  a  repulsive,  or 
an  ungenial  field  of  labor,  liis  friends  would  often  cheer  him  up 
by  saying,  "  Spartam,  quam  nactus  es,  exorna  ; "  i.  e., That 
Sparta  (or  homely  province)  which  you  have  obtained  as  your 
allotment,  improve  and  make  the  best  of." 

Note  20.    Page  184. 

''Officers:'* — I  t^ike  advantage  of  this  accidental  notice  di- 
rected to  the  class  which  amongst  ourselves  bears  the  designa- 
tion of  officers,  for  the  purpose  of  calling  attention  to  this  most 
singular  and  inexplicable  fact  —  that  the  Romans,  by  whom 
more  than  by  any  other  people  was  developed  the  whole  economy 
of  war,  consequently  the  whole  corresponding  nomenclature,  had 
no  term  expressing  the  distinction  of  officers.  If  you  were  a 
captain^  they  called  you  a  centurion  ;  if  a  colonel,  trihunus ;  and 
if  a  private  —  i.  e.,  a  common  soldier,  or  soldier  in  the  ranks, 
whic  h  logically  stands  in  contra  position  to  the  term  officer  — 
they  called  you  miles  gregarius.  But  if,  in  speaking  of  you  or 
me,  they  wished  to  say  that  either  of  us  was  a  bad  officer,  though 
of  what  rank  they  could  not  say,  by  Mercury  they  had  no  word 
for  conveying  their  meaning.  The  thing  officer  was  as  well 
known  at  Rome  as  coals  at  Newcastle ;  but  not  the  word,  or  the 
idea  as  abstract^  from  all  varieties  of  rank.  Docs  not  this  go 
far  to  prove  that  there  were  blockheads  in  those  days  1  As  again 
the  continuity  of  succession  in  that  great  race  (viz.,  blockheads) 
seems  implied  in  the  possibility  that  to  my  unworthy  self  should 
be  left  the  very  first  indication  of  this  unaccountable  lacuna  in 
the  Roman  vocabulary. 

Note  21.  Page  186. 

The  Romans  themselves  saw  a  monstrosity  in  this  practice 
which  did  not  really  exist  in  the  metaphysical  necessity.  It  was, 
and  it  was  not,  monstrous.  In  reality  it  was  rational,  or  mon- 
strous, according  to  theoretic  construction.  Generally  speaking, 
It  was  but  a  variety  of  that  divinity  which  in  Christendom  all  of 


NOTES. 


US  30  long  ascribed  to  kings.  We  English  always  laughed  at  the 
French  with  their  grand  monarque.  The  iVmericans  of  the  Uni- 
ted States  have  always  laughed  at  us  English,  and  the  sanctity 
with  which  our  constitution  invests  the  Sovereign.  We  English, 
French,  and  Americans,  have  all  alike  laughed  at  the  Romans 
apon  this  matter  of  apotlieosis.  And  when  brought  before  ug 
under  the  idea  of  Seneca's  apocolocuntosis^  this  practice  has 
seemed  too  monstrous  for  human  gravity.  And  yet  again,  we 
English,  French,  Americans,  and  Romans,  should  all  have  united 
in  scorn  for  the  deep  Phrygian,  Persian,  or  Asiatic  servility  to 
kings.  We  of  European  blood  have  all  looked  to  the  constitu-" 
tional  idea,  not  the  individual  person  of  the  sovereign.  The 
Asiatics,  though  they  also  still  feebly  were  groping  after  the 
same  deep  idea,  sought  it  in  such  a  sensual  body  of  externals, 
that  none  but  a  few  philosophers  could  keep  their  grasp  on  the 
original  problem.  How  profound  an  idea  is  the  sanctity  of  the 
English  sovereign's  constitutional  person,  which  idea  first  i^ade 
possible  the  responsibility  of  the  sovereign's  ministers.  They 
coiiid  be  responsible,  only  if  the  sovereign  were  not  ;  let  them  be 
acjountable,  and  the  king  might  be  inviolable.  Now  really  in 
its  secret  metaphysics  the  Roman  apotheosis  meant  little  more. 
Only  the  accountability  lay  not  in  Caesar's  ministers,  but  in  tho 
personal  and  transitory  Caesar,  as  distinguished  from  th3  eternal 
Imperator. 

Note  22.    Page  186. 

"  Great  Augustan  :  "  —  The  house  of  Augustus  individually,  it 
will  be  objected,  was  not  great :  the  Octavian  house  was  petty; 
but  it  was  elevated  by  its  matrinioDial  alliance  with  the  Julian 
house,  and  otherwise. 

Note  23.    Page  187. 

^'Herod's  own  Household:'''  —  Viz.,  the  murder  of  his  wife 
Mariamne,  to  whom  (as  representing  the  Asmonean  house)  he 
was  indebted  for  his  regal  rank ;  next,  the  murder  of  her  youthful 
brother,  who  stood  nearest  to  the  crown  upon  her  death ;  lastly, 
the  murder  of  the  two  most  distinguished  amongst  his  own  sons. 
All  which  domestic  carnage  naturally  ])rovoked  the  cutting  re- 
\nark  ascribed  to  Augustus  Caesar  (himself  bloody  enough,  as 
40 


626 


NOT£S. 


controller  of  his  female  household),  thaf  it  was  far  better  to  be 
Diimberod  amougst  Herod's  swine,  than  amongst  his  kinsfolk  ; 
seeing  that  his  swine  were  protected  by  the  Mosaic  law  against 
the  butcher's  knife ;  whereas  his  kinsfolk  enjoyed  no  such  im- 
munity. 

Note  24.   Page  191. 

"  Nympholepsy :  ''  —  The  English  reader  will  here  be  reminded 
of  Lord  Byron's  exquisite  line  — 

"  The  nympholepsy  of  some  fond  despair." 

Note  25.  Page  192. 

There  is  a  chorus  of  that  title,  powerfully  conceived,  in  Dr 
Mendelssohn's  Oratorio  of  St.  Paul. 

Note  26.    Page  195 

**  Traditions :  "  —  By  this  term,  as  distinguished  from  prcph- 
ecies,  I  mean  to  indicate  those  special  characteristics  of  the  ex- 
pected Messiah,  current  everywhere  amongst  the  populace  of 
Judea,  which  had  been  sent  down  through  possibly  sixty  gen- 
erations from  Abraham,  but  were  not  expressly  noticed  in,  the 
Prophets.  There  were  apparently  many  of  these  ;  and  it  is  cer- 
tain that  some  of  them  were  regarded  with  reverence  by  Christ, 
and  deliberately  fulfilled  by  him. 

Note  27.    Page  465. 

"  Visible  f'*  —  Accordingly,  some  five-and-thirty  years  ago  I 
attempted  to  show  that  Milton's  famous  expression  in  the  "  Par- 
adise Lost,"  ^'  No  light,  but  rather  darkness  visible/^  was  not  (as 
critics  imagined)  a  gigantic  audacity,  but  a  simple  trait  of  de- 
scription, faithful  to  the  literal  realities  of  a  phenomenon  (sullen 
light  intermingh;d  with  massy  darkness)  which  Milton  had  no- 
ticed with  closer  attention  than  the  mob  of  careless  observers. 
Equivalent  to  this  is  Milton's  own  expression,  Teach  light  to 
zoanterfeit  a  glooniy'  in  "  II  Penseroso." 

Note  28.    Page  469. 

Relation  of  Xenia:""  —  A  citizen  of  Pome,  if  likely  to 
travel,  established  correspondents  all  over  the  Mediterranean ; 
of  course,  therefore,  at  so  splendid  a  city  as  Corinth.  After 


NOTES. 


627 


.hat,  the  Corinthian  correspondent,  when  drawn  by  business  of 
any  kind  to  Rome,  went  thither  without  anxiety  —  relying  upon 
his  privilege  :  and  upon  producing  his  tessera^  or  ticket  of  iden- 
tification, lie  was  immediately  admitted  to  all  the  rights  of  hos- 
pitality ;  foremost  amongst  which  ranked  the  advantage  of  good 
counsel  against  the  risk  of  collision  with  the  laws  or  usages  of 
a  strange  city;  and  the  further  advantage  of  powerful  aid  in 
the  case  of  having  already  incurred  that  risk.  Inversely,  the 
Roman  enjoyed  a  parity  of  protection  and  hospitable  entertairf- 
ment  on  going  to  Corinth.  And  not  nnfrequently  this  recipro- 
cal tie  descended  through  several  generations.  The  distant 
households  drew  upon  each  other  at  sight. 

Note  29.   Page  472. 

"  Lampoons : "  —  Too  literally  lampoons  ;  for,  as  those  meant 
personal  invectives  affixed  to  lamp-posts,  where  they  could  be 
read  by  everybody,  so  Gregory  of  Nazianzum  himself  entitled 
each  of  several  successive  libels  on  the  Emperor  Julian  by  the 
name  of  stylites,  or  libel  affixed  to  a  pillar  of  a  public  portico. 

Note  30.    Page  476. 

[The  passage  following,  as  far  as  line  three,  page  489,  was 
omitted  by  De  Quincey,  when  reprinting  this  paper  in  the  latest 
Edinburgh  edition.] 

Note  31.    Page  491. 

[Mr.  De  Quincey's  reference  we  presume  is  to  his  paper  on 
Greece  under  the  Romans,"  published  in  volume  vii.  of  this 
series.] 

Note  32.  Page  495. 
Fluetus  decumanus:'^ — Connected  with  this  term,  once  so 
well  understood,  but  now  (like  all  things  human)  hurrying  into 
oblivion,  there  was  amongst  the  ancients  a  fanciful  superstition  ; 
or,  until  it  proved  such,  let  us  call  it  courteously  a  popular 
*.reed,  that  wanted  the  seal  and  imprimatur  of  science.  Has  the 
reader  himself  any  creed  whatsoever,  or  even  opinion,  as  to 
v:aves  ?  Stars,  we  all  know,  are  of  many  colors,  and  of  many 
sizes  —  crimson,  green,  azure  orange,  and  (I  believe,  but  am 
not  certain)  violet.  As  to  size,  they  range  all  the  way  from 
Jiose  grandees  up  and  down  the  sky,  apparently  plenipoteu 


C28 


NOTES. 


tiaries  of  the  heavens,  or  (in  the  Titanic  language  of  ^schy- 
lus)  Xa/jLirpoi  Avua(rai  —  blazing  potentates  —  all  the  way  down  to 
such  as  count  only  amongst  the  secrets  of  the  telescope  :  tele- 
scopic stars,  as  imperfectly  revealed  to  the  children  of  man  as 
those  children  are  revealed  to  them.  The  graduation  of  stars 
runs  down  a  Jacob's  ladder.  Can  there  be  any  parallel  gradua- 
tion amongst  the  billows  of  old  Ocean?  The  ancients  —  and  per- 
haps it  furnishes  not  the  least  conspicuous  amongst  the  many 
evidences  attesting  their  defect  of  power  to  observe  accurately 
enough  to  meet  the  purposes  of  natural  philosophy — fancied 
that  there  was ;  and  supposing  them  for  the  moment  right  as  to 
the  main  principle  —  viz.,  of  a  secret  law  moulding  the  waves 
in  obedience  to  some  geometric  pressure,  and  expressing  itself  in 
some  recurrent  relation  to  arithemetic  intervals,  they  must  yet 
have  been  negligent  in  excess  not  to  have  investigated  the  re- 
lations of  the  vulgar  waves — those,  I  mean,  which  apparently 
escaped  the  control  of  the  ocean  looms.  What  the  ancients 
held  was  simply  this  —  that  every  tenth  wave  was  conspicu- 
oush^  larger  than  the  other  nine.  But  in  what  respect  larger  1 
In  height  was  it,  or  generally  in  bulk  ?  Did  the  favored  wave 
distribute  its  superiority  of  size  through  the  three  dimensions 
of  space  (consequently  the  three  dimensions  of  that  which  fills 
space) — an  arrangement  which  would  greatly  disturb  the  ap- 
parent (though  not  the  real)  advantage  on  the  scale  of  com- 
parison between  the  tenth  wave  and  the  other  nine  ?  Or  did 
this  privile^^ed  tenth  wave  accumulate  its  entire  advantage  upon 
the  one  dimension  of  altitude  ?  Next,  as  to  the  nine  subordi- 
Date  waves,  defrauded  of  their  fair  proportions  by  unjust  nover- 
cal nature,  were  they  all  equally  defrauded,  or  was  a  bias  to- 
wards favoritism  manifested  here  also  ?  And,  if  unequally  en- 
dowed, did  this  inequality  proceed  graduatim  and  continuously, 
or  discontinuously  ?  And,  if  continuously,  how  did  the  scale 
move  upwards  ?  Was  it  by  a  geometrical  progression  through 
a  series  of  multiples,  or  arithmetically  through  a  series  of  con- 
stant increments?  And  the  tenth  wave  —  a  thing  which  I  was 
nearly  forgetting  to  demand  —  being  always  superior  in  the 
scale,  was  it  always  equally  superior  ?  And  if  not,  if  the  superi- 
ority were  liable  to  disturbances,  did  these  disturbances  follow 
any  known  law  ?  or  was  this  law  suspected  of  Isaning  towards 
the   well-known   Cambridge  problem  —  Given  the  captain's 


NOTES. 


629 


name,  and  the  price  of  his  knee-buckles,  to  determine  the  lati- 
tude of  the  ship. 

This  question  about  the  tenth  wave,  together  with  others  sent 
down  to  us  from  elder  days  —  such,  in  particular,  as  that  which 
respects  the  venom  of  the  toad — had  interested  equally  myself, 
the  poorest  of  naturalists,  and  the  late  Professor  Wilson,  among 
the  very  best.  We  both  admired,  in  the  highest  degree,  the  im- 
passioned eloquence  of  Sir  Thomas  Brown  in  those  works  which 
allowed  of  eloquence,  as  in  his  "  Religio  Medici,"  and  his 
"  Urn-Burial ; but  in  his  works  of  pure  erndition,  he,  the  cor- 
rector of  traditional  follies  (as  in  his  "  Vulgar  Errors"),  some- 
times needs  correction  himself.  We  had,  in  Westmoreland, 
learned  experimentally  that  Shakspeare  is  right,  in  describing 
the  toad  as  venomous.  Venomous  it  is,  to  the  small  extent  of 
diluted  nitric  acid  in  burning  and  discoloring  the  skin,  when 
irritated  —  or  more  probably  when  greatly  alarmed.  Several 
brute  creatures,  cats  in  particular,  when  driven  into  a  frenzy  of 
fear,  have  been  supposed  to  fall  into  a  self-generated  hydro- 
phobia, with  full  power  to  inflict  it.  But  grieved  should  we 
have  been,  if  we  had  imagined  that  the  full  e.'-tablishment  of  this 
persecution-born  venom  would  ever  suggest  an  argument  of  pal- 
liation to  the  cruel  persecutors  of  this  most  inoffensive  creature. 
Aggressive  tendencies  it  has  none :  not  offended,  it  will  never 
offend.  But  the  decuman  ivave  was  a  more  elaborate  case.  We 
had  heard  little  else  than  scoffs  at  the  Greek  races  who  had 
countenanced  such  a  belief.  Grcecia  mendax,  in  the  brief  exsib 
ilation  from  the  stage  by  the  stern  Boman  of  all  Greek  testi 
mony  whatsoever,  had  been  the  answer  of  the  incredulous.  Yet 
this  reference  had  the  effect  of  suggesting  a  question  favorable  to 
the  ancients:  might  not  the  phenomenon,  in  Hibernian  phrase^ 
be  "  thrue  for  them?''  The  tides  in  the  Mediterranean  are,  ] 
believe,  everywhere  in  an  under-key  as  compared  with  those  oi 
our  angry  Atlantic  ;  in  the  Euripus,  or  narrow  frith  between 
Euboea  (Negropont)  and  the  mainland,  there  are,  by  report 
none  at  all.  And  having  confessedly  one  great  difference,  whj 
not  another  ? 

Professor  Wilson,  therefore,  and  myself  had  imposed  it  upon 
purselves  as  a  duty  to  investigate  this  problem.  Of  all  com- 
panions  that  a  man  could  have  had,  with  the  world  stretched 
jut  before  him  to  choose  from,  in  any  chase  after  a  natural 


630 


KOTES. 


j-henotneiion,  for  any  purpose,  whether  of  skeptical  inqnirv  ut 
of  verification,  none  was  equal  to  Professor  Wilson.  He  had 
nsed  his  youthful  (I  may  say  schoolboy)  opportunities  indefati- 
gably  ;  he  had  won  all  his  knowledge,  so  varied  and  so  accu- 
rate, by  direct  experience,  troubling  himself  little  about  books,* 
which  in  his  earlier  days,  had  as  yet  benefited  by  no  reform 
(though  even  thou  on  the  brink  of  it).  Professor  Wilson  has 
himself  most  powerfully  discriminated  (see  Christopher  in  his 
Aviary,"  Cant,  i.)  the  two  orders  of  naturalists:  those  self- 
formed,  among  the  fields  and  forests,  on  the  one  hand — on  the 
other,  the  dry,  s^apless  students  of  books  in  a  closet  or  a  mu- 
seum. To  the  former  class  belonged  preeminently  White  of 
Selborne,  Waterton,  Audubon,  Charles  Bonaparte,  and  those 

*  I  ouglit  in  all  gratitude  to  make  an  emphatic  exception  for 
"  Bewick's  Quadrupeds,"  a  book  to  which  myself,  in  common 
v>-i{h  my  brothers  and  sisters,  had  been  more  deeply  indebted 
than  to  any  score  of  books  beside  in  that  department  of  knowl- 
edge. But,  after  all,  it  was  the  matchless  vignettes  of  Bewiek 
himself — 

And  the  skill  which  he  learn'd  on  the  banks  of  the  Tyne 

that  give  such  golden  value  to  this  book;  for  the  printed  text, 
though  I  daresiiy  respectable,  did  not  leave  a  profound  impres- 
sion upon  anyone  of  us.  The  "Birds,"  in  which  some  of  the 
vignettes  stniek  me  as  even  more  beautiful,  came  to  us,  how. 
ever,  at  a  less  impressible  period.  And  the  "Fables''  we 
never  hi  ard  of  wliilst  children.  Our  experience  of  this  delightful 
ariis:  on  whom  rest  the  benedictions  of  childhood  forever,  was 
gathered  in  the  years  1794  (when  Robespierre  might  have 
figured  for  the  Boyal  Tiger  of  Bengal),  1795,  and  1796.  Since 
then,  two  entire  generations  of  the  human  race,  with  its  annual 
harvests  of  children,  have  pursued  their  flight  over  the  disk  of 
Time.  I  have  elsewhere  mentioned  "  Gulliver  as  one  of  those 
books  which  command  a  mixed  audience  where  children  and 
grown-up  men  are  seen  jostling  each  other;  to  this  list  must  be 
added  "  Bunvan,"  the  "  Arabian  Nights,"  "  Bobinson  Cru- 
soe," and  "  Bewick  Publi.>hers,  it  seems  to  me,  should  pay 
gome  regard  to  this  fact  in  the  ch  vracteiisiic  embellishments,  &c., 
idapted  separately  to  the  two  different  audiences. 


NOTES. 


631 


whom  Professor  Wilson  himself  indicated  as  "the  two  Wilsons," 
meaning,  probably,  his  own  younger  brother,  James  Wilson,  and 
the  American  Wil.-on.  But  we  ought  now  to  speak  of  "  the 
three  Wilsons;"  for  the  Professor  himself,  in  so  far  as  his 
other  studies  had  left  him  time  to  pursue  ihis  science,  was  the 
most  vivid,  iife-like,  and  realizing  describer  of  brute  animals, 
especially  birds  and  lishes.  He  was  not  the  measurer  of  propor- 
tions in  fins  and  beaks,  but  the  circumstantiator  of  habits  and 
variable  resources  under  variable  difficulties. 

Perhaps,  in  earlier  days,  Swammerdam  should  be  added  to 
this  meritorious  catalogue.  Of  Idm  it  was  said,  that,  for  every 
one  year  passed  in  human  society,  he  had  passed  three  in  a 
ditch  amongst  frogs.  At  the  time  I  speak  of,  our  own  inquiries 
concerned  a  sublimer  object  But,  sublime  as  it  might  be, 
that  formed  no  attraction  to  the  feelings  —  morbid,  it  may  be 
thought,  but  pathetically  morbid  —  of  Professor  Wilson.  The 
year  of  which  I  speak  was  (to  the  best  of  my  recollection)  1826. 
Consequently,  I  had  already  known  him  most  intimately  for 
seventeen  years ;  and  year  by  year,  as  regards  the  latter  seven, 
there  had  been  growing  u])on  him  a  deadly  recoil  of  feeling  from 
the  seashore  —  as  presenting  that  ])eculiar  gathering  of  sights 
and  sounds  which  more  than  any  other  awoke  phantom  resur- 
rections to  his  own  mind  of  his  youthful  gifts  and  physical  en- 
ergies, now  annually  decaying.    We  made  two  separate  visits,  if 


*  Not  so  sublime,  however,  as  at  first  it  may  be  fancied. 
Charles  Lamb  explained  th.e  cause  of  this  Avhen  accounting  for 
some  person's  disappointment  on  his  lirst  introduction  to  the 
sea.  This  person  had  vaguely  prefigured  the  case  to  himselt",  as 
though  the  total  ol)ject  would  present  itself  in  all  its  tumultu- 
ous extent.  Not  that,  upon  a  mouicnt's  reflection,  he  could 
have  expected  such  a  spectacle  ;  but  irreflectively  he  had  allowed 
himself  to  anticipate,  if  not  such  a  spectacle,  yet  an  impression 
answerable  in  giandeur  to  such  a  spectacle.  Meantime,  all  that 
he  saw,  or  should  reasonably  have  hoped  to  see,  was  a  beggarly 
section,  a  fraction  of  the  whole  concern ;  and  even  for  that  frac- 
tion, the  very  station  of  dry  land,  from  which  he  viewed  it,  re- 
minded him  that  the  ocean  was  anything  but  boundless.  The 
ocean  pretended  to  hem  in  mighty  continents;  but  the  naked 
truth  was — that  they  liemmed  in  him. 


G32 


NOTES. 


not  tliree,  to  the  seashore  (i.  e,,  the  shore  of  the  Frith  near 
Edinburgh),  one  perhaps  in  the' year  already  mentioned,  and  a 
second  some  seven  years  hiter.    One  or  other  of  the.>e  was  to  no 
greater  distance  than  the  sands  of  Portobello  ;  but  on  that  oc 
casion,  unfortunately,  we  met  the  Yeomanry  (of  Mid- Lothian,  I 
think),  who  with  some  difficulty  executed  a  charge  on  the  xevy 
insufficient  area  of  sand  exposed  at  Portobef.o     This  accident 
did  not  improve  the  spirits  of  Professor  Wilson,  who  was  rc 
minded  too  keenly  of  the  years  1806  and  1810,  when  he  had 
himself  figured  most  conspicuously  in  the  ranks,  first  of  the  Ox 
ford,  subsequently  of  tlie  Kendal  Volunteers  —  on  both  occa 
sions  in  the  light  company  ;  for  his  powers  as  an  athlete  turned 
altogether  upon  agility,  not  u[.on  strength.    No  man  was  a  bet- 
ter judge  upon  questions  of  bodily  prowess ;  and  no  man,  at 
least  no  ge  ntleman,  was  better  acquainted  with  the  records  of 
the  Fancy,  as  delivered  by  Mr.  Fierce  Egan,  an  amateur  of 
first-rate  ability.    As  to  mere  strength,  though  always  disposed 
to  speak  disparagingly  of  his  own  powers,  he  was  right,  I  be- 
lieve, in  undervaluing  his  own  pretensions  to  the  power  of  hard 
hitting.    What  had  been  sometimes  said  of  Spring,  though 
champion  of  England  for  some  years,  he  has  often  assured  me 
was  true  of  himself — viz.,  that  "  he  could  not  make  a  dint  in  a 
pound  of  butter."  But  in  agility,  as  manifested  in  running,  leap- 
ing, and  dancing,  he  was  the  Pelides  of  his  time.    One  striking 
proof  of  his  supreme  excellence  as  a  leaper  is  implied  in  this  an- 
ecdote: When  he  was  about  twenty  (Anno  1805),  he  had  started 
from  Oxford  at  midnight  for  Moulsey  Hurst  (fifty  miles  distant, 
I  believe),  where  some  great  event  was  to  come  off.    After  this 
was  decided,  Wilson,  at  the  request  of  several  friends  on  the 
ground,  favored  the  amateurs  with  a  specimen  of  his  leaping. 
The  crack  leaper  of  the  day  —  I  rather  think  Richmond,  a  black 
—  witnessed  this  performance ;  and,  upon  hearing  the  circum- 
stances under  which  it  had  been  executed — viz.,  the  severe  pe- 
destrian effort,  and  the  night's  want  of  sleep  —  declined  to  un- 
dertake a  contest  upon  any  terms.    That  advantage  upon  which 
Lady  Hester  Stanhope  idly  nursed  a  secret  vanity,  as  peculiar 
to  herself  and  the  Bedouins  —  viz.,  an  instep  so  highly  arched 
*liat  a  rat  might  have  run  under  her  foot  —  formed  one  in  the 
system  of  muscular  machinery  by  wliich  nature  had  equipped 
him  for  unapproachable  excellence  in  one  mode  of  gymnastics. 


NOTES. 


633 


Barely  to  see  liiin  even  walk  round  a  table  was  a  pure  delight 
to  an  eye  at  all  learned  in  the  fluencies  of  motion.  Burke's  ex- 
pression upon  the  visionary  grace  of  Marie  Antoinette  —  that 
she  hardly  seemed  to  touch  the  earth  —  was  realized,  and  be- 
came suddenly  apprehensible  to  the  sense,  in  him.  And  throngb 
this  same  structure  of  foot  it  was,  and  the  extraordinary  strength 
of  his  tendon  AchiUis,  that  he  danced  with  ease  and  elegance  so 
perfect.    Yet  he  had  never  received  one  hour's  instruction. 

I  fear  that  this  preliminary  account  of  my  partner  in  the  re- 
search may  prove  disproportioned ;  for  the  total  result  was 
small  and  purely  negative.  In  the  latter  trial  we  waited  and 
watched  from  an  early  stage  of  a  spring  tide  ;  but  the  answer 
was  none.  We  began  by  watching  for  a  wave  that  should  seem 
conspicuoulsy  larger  than  its  fellows,  and  then  counted  on- 
wards to  the  tenth,  the  twentieth,  the  thirtieth,  and  so  on  to  the 
one  hundredth  dated  from  that.  But  we  never  could  detect  any 
overruling  principle  involving  itself  in  the  successive  swells ;  and 
the  wind  continually  disturbed  any  tendency  that  we  had  fan- 
cied to  a  recurrent  law.  Southey's  brother,  Tom,  a  lieutenant 
in  the  navy,  whom  I  had  once  asked  for  his  opinion  upon  the 
question,  laughed,  and  said  that  such  a  notion  must  have  come 
from  the  log  of  the  ship  Argo.  Thus  raising  the  Professor,  who 
really  had  a  good  deal  of  nautical  skill,  and  my  ignorant  self, 
that  had  none  at  all,  to  the  rank  of  Argonauts.  We,  however, 
fancying  that  the  phenomenon  might  possibly  belong  to  tideless 
waters,  subsequently  tried  the  English  lakes,  some  of  which 
throw  up  very  respectable  waves  when  they  rise  into  angry 
moods.  The  Cumberland  lakes  of  Bassenthwaite  and  Derwent- 
. water  fell  to  my  share;  Windermere,  Coniston,  and  Ulles- 
water,  to  Professor  Wilson.  But  the  issue  of  all  was  emptiness 
and  aerial  mockeries  ;  as  if  the  lady  of  tlie  secret  depths  —  Un- 
dina,  or  some  Grecian  Naiad, 

"  Or  Lady  of  the  Lake,* 
Sole-sitting  by  the  shores  of  old  romance  —  " 


*  Lady  of  the  Lake  :  — Such  was  the  earliest  expression  of 
Wordsworth's  heavenly  image  —  perhaps  the  loveliest  that 
poetry  can  show.  By  altering  the  word  lake  to  mere,  he  greatly 
deteriorated  the  effect :  as  he  partly  perceived  himself.  Why 


634 


NOTES. 


had  been  plavinj^  Avith  our  credulity.  False,  however,  as  it  may 
be,  this  image  of  the  tenth  wave  furnished  the  ancients  with  a 
strong  rhetorical  expression  for  any  possible  excess  in  any  mode 
of  evil.  A  fiery  heat  of  ])6rsecution,  a  threatening  advance  of 
exterminating  war,  a  sudden  and  simultaneous  rush  of  calami- 
ties [as  upon  Athens  in  the  Peloponnesian  War),  was  termed  a 
fiuetus  decumanus  of  evil.  Perhaps  I  have  too  lightly  yielded  to 
the  temptation  of  connecting  a  personal  interest  with  my  imper- 
fect report  of  an  attempt  to  investigate  the  thing,  or  attempt  at 
least  to  ascertain  whether  the  supposed  thing  "  had  any  real 
root  except  in  the  fanciful  creeds  of  Pagan  naturalists.  Now 
let  us  retreat  from  this  digression  into  the  high-road  of  the  dis- 
cussion upon  Oracles. 

Note  33.    Page  504. 

What  loas  this  situation  1  Early  in  the  eighth  century  after 
Clirist  (let  us  say  a.  d.  707),  Poderick  the  Goth,  King  of  Spain, 
taking  an  infamous  advantage  from  his  regal  power,  was  said 
to  have  violated  the  person  of  Count  Julian's  daughter  —  by 
some  historians  called  Cava.  Her  father,  as  the  deadliest  mode 
of  vengeance  open  to  him,  had  called  in  the  Mahometan  inva- 
ders of  the  Barbary  coasts.  Roderick,  by  a  deep  prophetic  in- 
stinct, read  in  vision-  the  desolation  which  his  own  perfidious 
atrocit}^  had  let  loose  upon  Spain,  his  country,  and  Christianity, 
his  faith,  through  eight  hundred  years;  descended  into  hell  by 
means  of  despair,  reascended  by  penitence  to  earth,  fought  one 
mighty  battle  for  the  Cross,  was  beaten,  and  immediately  van- 


then  had  he  done  it  ?  Simply  because  amongst  the  dramatic 
writers  of  Shakspeare's  era  the  phrase  Lady  of  the  Lake  had 
received  a  slang  meaning,  like  Bona  roba,  and  other  disre])utable 
deieignations  for  that  frail  sisterhood.  But  this  meaning  (nevci 
at  any  time  popularly  diflfu>ed)  had  vanished  for  two  entire  cen- 
turies. So  weak  was  William  Wordsworth's  reason  for  this,  as 
for  many  another  tamperino^  with  his  own  text.  His  first 
thoughts  were  almost  invariably  best.  Indeed  it  is  very  notice- 
able that  William  Wordsworth,  in  earlier  life  the  most  obstinate 
Df  recusants,  as  regarded  the  arrogant  mandates  of  criticism 
(and  in  general  rightly  so),  became,  towards  the  close  of  his  life 
\nost  injudiciously  indulgent  to  capricious  objectors. 


NOTES. 


635 


ish  (1  from  earth  —  leaving  no  traces  for  deciphering  his  rtiA^s- 
tei-ious  fate. 

Note  34.    Page  510. 

"  es  fou:" — The  merely  English  reader,  who  is  unac- 
quainted with  French,  must  not  mistake  fou  for  sot.  Sot  is  the 
word  for  fool ;  and  the  word  fou,  though  looking  too  like  that 
opprobrious  term,  denotes  a  form  of  intellectual  infirmity  — viz., 
madness  —  claiming  deeper  pity,  but  also  deeper  awe  and  re- 
spect. 

Note  35.    Page  510. 

"  First  cjround :  "  —  In  our  modern  geography,  Egypt  is  the 
first  region  of  Africa  to  those  who  enter  it  from  the  east.  But 
exactly  at  that  point  it  is  that  Grecian  geography  differs  from 
ours.  The  Greek  Libya,  as  regarded  the  Mediterranean  coast, 
coincided  with  our  Africa,  except  precisely  as  to  Egypt,  which 
(Herodotus  tells  us)  was,  or  ought  to  be,  regarded  as  a  transi- 
tional chamber  between  Asia  and  Libya. 

Note  36.   Page  511. 

At  first  sight,  the  reader  is  apt  to  wonder  why  it  was  that  in- 
solence so  undisguised  should  have  been  allowed  to  prosper. 
But  in  fact  all  religions  have  been  indulgent  to  insolence,  where 
the  known  alternative  has  been  sycophantic  timidity.  Chris- 
tianity herself  encourages  men  to  "  take  heaven  by  storm.''  In 
that  spirit  it  was  that  the  Pagan  deities,  in  the  persons  of  their 
representative  idols,  submitted  to  be  caned  and  horsewhipped 
without  open  mutiny,  and  continually  to  be  chained  up  by  one 
leg,  in  cases  where  the  gods  were  suspected  of  meditating  flight 
to  the  enemy.  Universally,  insolence  was  but  an  offence  of 
manner.  Even  that  might  have  provoked  a  shade  of  displeasure, 
were  it  not  that,  more  effectually  than  any  other  expression  of 
temper,  it  cured  the  one  unpardonable  offence  of  insincerity, 
languishing  devotion,  decay  of  burning  love  —  to  which  love,  as 
she  one  sole  pledge  of  undying  loyalty,  all  frailties  were  for- 
given. 

Note  37.   Page  515. 

[The  remainder  of  this  paper  was  added  by  De  Quincey  when 
revising  the  latest  edition  of  his  works  and  has  not  before  been 
"eprinted  in  America.] 


636 


NOTES. 


Note  38.    Page  517. 

Id  fact  so  plentiful,  that  even  the  memorials  dearest  to  their 
vanity  and  patriotism  —  viz.,  their  Battle  Trophies  —  could  no 
otherwise  be  protected  from  the  rapacity  of  domestic  robbers 
than  by  making  them  of  materials  which  would  hardly  pay  the 
cost  of  removal.  The  Greeks,  after  any  victory  of  one  little 
rascally  clan  over  another,  of  Spartans  over  Thebans,  for  in- 
stance, or  (what  is  more  gratifying  to  imagine)  of  Thebans  over 
Spartans,  used  to  do  two  things  in  the  way  of  self-glorification  : 
first,  they  chanted  a  hymn  or  pcean  (iiraiavi^ov),  which  was  their 
mode  of  singing  Te  Deum ;  secondly,  they  erected  a  trophy,  or 
memorial  of  their  victory,  on  the  ground.  But  this  trophy  one 
might  naturally  expect  to  be  framed  of  the  most  durable  ma- 
terials;  whereas,  on  the  contrary,  it  was  framed  of  the  very 
frailest;  viz.,  firewood,  at  sevcnpcnce  the  cart-load  ;  and  the  best 
final  result  that  I,  for  my  part,  can  sup])Ose  from  any  trophy 
whatsoever,  would  be  —  that  some  old  woman,  living  in  the 
neighborhood  of  the  trophy,  went  out  on  favorable  nights,  and 
selected  fuel  enough  to  warm  her  poor  old  Pagan  bones  through 
the  entire  length  of  a  Grecian  winter.  Why  the  wood  rapidly 
disappeared,  is  therefore  easy  to  understand  ;  but  not  why  it  had 
ever  been  relied  on  as  a  durable  record.  The  Greeks,  however, 
who  were  masters  in  the  arts  of  varnishing  and  gilding,  reported 
the  whole  case  in  the  following  superfine  terms  :  "It  is  right,^' 
said  they,  "  and  simply  a  necessity  of  our  human  nature,  that  we 
should  quarrel  intermittingly.  We  Grecians  are  all  brothers, 
it  is  true ;  but  still  even  brothers  must,  for  the  sake  of  health, 
have  a  monthly  allowance  of  fighting  and  kicking.  Not  at  all 
less  natural  it  is,  that  the  conquerors  in  each  particular  round 
of  our  never-ending  battle  should  triumph  gloriously,  and  crow 
like  twenty  thousand  game  cocks,  each  flapping  his  wings  on 
his  own  dunghill,  armed  with  spurs  according  to  the  Socratic 
model  left  us  by  Plato.  An  allowance,  in  short,  of  shouting  and 
jubilating  is  but  fair.  Still  all  this  should  have  a  speedy  end. 
Not  only  upon  the  prudential  maxim  —  that  he  who  is  the  kick- 
ing parry  to-day,  will  often  be  the  kicked  party  to-morrow ;  but 
?ilso  on  a  moral  motive  —  viz.,  to  forget  and  forgive.  Under 
these  suggestions,  it  becomes  right  to  raise  no  memorials  of 


NOTES. 


637 


fighting  triumphs  in  any  but  fugitive  materials ;  not  therefore 
of  brass,  not  therefore  of  marble,  which  (sa3^s  the  cunning  Greek) 
would  be  too  durable,  which  (say  I,  revising  the  Greek  dis- 
sembler) would  be  too  costly,  but  rather  of  wood  the  most  worm- 
eaten,  and  if  it  show  signs  of  dry-rot,  all  the  better.  Under  this 
limitation  our  triumph  puts  on  a  human  and  natural  shape.  It 
very  soon  decays  ;  and  typifies  our  exultation,  which  decays  con- 
currentlyAy,  very  plausible  and  sentimental.  But  this  is 
an  ex  parte  account;  purely  Grecian.  Mine  is  different.  1  ven- 
ture to  suggest  that  the  reason  for  not  using  brass  or  copper 
was,  because,  in  that  case,  long  before  the  moon  had  run  her 
circuit,  the  trophy  would  have  been  found  in  a  blacksmith's  shop 
at  Corinth  or  Athens,  sold  or  pawned,  at  the  rate  of  a  drachma 
a-head  for  a  gang  of  forty  thieves.  The  Grceculus  esuriens  of 
Juvenal's  sketch  (taken  from  the  standing-point  of  Rome)  was 
true  for  centuries  :  always  he  was  a  knave,  a  sharp  sycophantic 
knave,  that  lived  by  his  wits  ;  and  yet,  multiplying  too  fast,  al- 
ways in  the  large  majority  he  was  hungry.  Through  many  a 
generation  he  was  the  dominant  physician  of  the  earth  ;  he  left 
behind  him  a  body  of  medical  research  that  is  even  yet  worth 
studying ;  he,  if  nobody  else,  forestalled  Lord  Bacon's  philosophy, 
for  he  at  least  relied  altogether  upon  experience  and  tentative 
approaches  ;  others  he  healed  by  myriads  ;  but  himself  he  never 
succeeded  in  healing  permanently  or  widely  of  the  disease  called 
hunger.  Empty  stomachs  continued  to  form  the  reproach  of  his 
art.  For  the  truth  was,  through  centuries,  that  Greece  bred  too 
large  a  population.  Her  institutions  favored  population  too 
much,  whilst  her  agriculture  and  commerce  tended  (but  could 
not  establish  a  sufficient  tendency)  to  repress  population.  Too 
constantly,  therefore,  Greece  was  mendax,  edax,furax  (menda- 
cious, edacious,  furacious),  though  indisposed  to  criminal  ex- 
cesses. 

Note  39.    Page  522. 

In  English  we  understand  by  security  neither  more  nor  less 
than  safety ;  i.  e.,  freedom  from  danger.  But  in  Latin,  securitas. 
means  freedom  —  not  at  all  from  danger,  but  from  the  sense  of 
danger  and  its  anxieties.  A  man  is  therefore  in  Latin  often 
described  as  securus,  whilst  on  the  brink  of  destruction,  if  only 
not  conscious  of  his  danger.    Milton,  in  his  occasional  tendency 


638 


NOTES. 


to  draw  too  emphatically  upon  the  Latin  elements  in  our  lan- 
guage, has  given  to  the  word  secure  its  Roman  acceptation  ;  but 
he  has  hardly  naturalized  that  use. 

Note  40.    Page  536. 

*^  An  under  power  of  sublimity.'''^  —  Every  body  knows 
that  Homer  compared  the  Telamonian  Ajax,  in  a  moment 
of  heroic  endurance,  to  an  ass.  This,  however,  was  only 
under  a  momentary  glance  from  a  peculiar  angle  of  the 
case ;  but  the  Mahometan,  too  solemn,  and  also,  perhaps, 
too  stupid,  to  catch  the  fanciful  colors  of  things,  absolutely 
by  choice,  under  the  Bagdad  caliphate,  decorated  a  most 
favorite  hero  with  the  title  of  the  Ass  —  which  title  is  re- 
peated with  veneration  to  this  day.  The  wild  ass  is  one 
cf  the  few  animals  which  has  the  reputation  of  never 
flying  from  an  enemy. 

Note  41.   Page  537. 

"  Which  recommended  it  to  a  distinction.^^  —  It  might  be 
objected  that  the  Oriental  ass  was  often  a  superb  animal ; 
that  it  is  spoken  of  prophetically  as  such ;  and  that,  histori- 
cally, the  Syrian  ass  is  made  known  to  us  as  having  been 
used  in  the  prosperous  ages  of  Judea  for  the  riding  of 
princes.  But  this  is  no  objection.  Those  circumstances  in 
the  history  of  the  ass  were  requisite  to  establish  its  sym- 
bolic propriety  in  a  great  symbolic  pageant  of  biumph; 
whilst,  on  the  other  hand,  the  individual  animal,  there  is 
good  reason  to  think,  was  marked  by  all  the  qualities  of 
the  general  race  as  a  suffering  and  unoffending  tribe  in  the 
animal  creation.  The  asses  on  which  princes  rode  were 
of  a  separate  color,  of  a  peculiar  breed,  and  improved 
like  the  English  racer,  by  continual  care. 


NOTES. 


639 


Note  42.    Page  537. 

Mahometanism,  which  every  where  pillages  Christianity, 
cannot  but  have  its  own  face  at  times  glorified  by  its 
stolen  jewels.  This  solemn  hour  of  jubilation,  gathering 
even  the  brutal  natures  into  its  fold,  recalls  accordingly  the 
Mahometan  legend  (which  the  reader  may  remember  is 
one  of  those  incorporated  into  Southey^s  Thalaba)  of  a 
great  hour  revolving  once  in  every  year,  during  which  the 
gates  of  paradise  were  thrown  open  to  their  utmost  extent, 
and  gales  of  happiness  issued  forth  upon  the  total  family 
of  man. 

Note  43.    Page  539. 

Does  spontaneously  offer  itself. — Heber  (Bishop  ot 
Calcutta)  complains  that  this  constellation  is  not  com- 
posed of  stars  answering  his  expectation  in  point  of  mag- 
nitude ;  but  he  admits  that  the  dark  barren  space  around 
it  gives  to  this  inferior  magnitude  a  very  advantageous  re- 
lief 

Note  44.   Page  540. 

See  upon  this  subject  some  interesdng  speculations  (or  at 
least  dim  outlines  and  suggestions  or  speculations)  by  the  Ger- 
man author,  Novalis  (the  Graf  von  Hardenberg.) 

Note  45.   Page  542, 

"  The  victim  of  Obi^  —  It  seems  worthy  of  notice  that 
this  magical  fascination  is  generally  called  Obi,  and  the 
magicians  Obeah  men,  throughout  Guinea,  Negroland,  &c. ; 
whilst  the  Hebrew  or  Syriac  word  for  the  rites  of  necro- 
mancy was  Obj  or  Obh,  at  least  when  ventriloquism  was 
concerned. 


640 


NOTES. 


Note  46.   Page  549. 

As  for  example  in  that  mysterious  poem  of  Horace,  where  a 
dying  boy  points  the  fulminations  of  his  dying  words  against  the 
witch  that  presides  over  his  tortures. 

Note  47.   Page  553. 

No  worse  book  could  have  been  selected?^ — The  probable 
reason  for  making  so  unhappy  a  choice  seems  to  have  been 
that  Virgil,  in  the  middle  ages,  had  the  character  of  a  nec- 
romancer, a  diviner,  &c.  This  we  all  know  from  Dante. 
Now,  the  original  reason  for  this  strange  translation  of 
character  and  functions  we  hold  to  have  arisen  from  the 
circumstance  of  his  maternal  grandfather  having  borne 
the  name  of  Magus.  People  in  those  ages  held  that  a 
powerful  enchanter,  exerciser,  &c.,  must  have  a  magician 
amongst  his  cognati;  the  power  must  run  in  the  blood, 
which  on  the  maternal  side  could  be  undeniably  ascer- 
tained. Under  this  preconception,  they  took  Magus,  not 
for  a  proper  name,  but  for  a  professional  designation. 
Amongst  many  illustrations  of  the  magical  character  sus- 
tained by  Virgil  in  the  middle  ages,  we  may  mention  that 
a  writer  about  the  year  1200,  or  the  era  of  our  Robin  Hood, 
published  by  Montfaucon,  and  cited  by  Gibbon  in  his  last 
volume,  says  of  Virgil,  that  "  Captus  a  Romanis  invisibiliter 
exiitj  ivitque  NeapolimJ^ 

Note  48.    Page  554. 

"  Because  he  was  too  youngp —  Dr.  Doddridge  was  born 
in  the  summer  of  1702  ;  consequently  he  was  at  this  era 
of  his  life  about  twenty-seven  years  old,  and  consequently 
not  so  obviously  entitled  to  the  excuse  of  youth.  But  he 
pleaded  his  youth,  not  with  a  view  to  the  exertions  re- 
quired, but  to  the  auctoritas  and  responsibilities  of  the 
situation. 


NOTE§. 


641 


Note  49.    Page  559. 

Victrix  causa  Deis  placuit ;  sed  victa  Catoni  —  that  cause  which 
fcriumphed  approved  itself  to  the  gods ;  but,  in  retaliation,  the 
vanquished  cause  approved  itself  to  Cato.  Perhaps,  in  all 
human  experience,  in  books  or  in  colloquial  intercourse,  there 
never  was  so  grand,  so  awful  a  compliment  paid  to  an  individual 
as  this  of  Lucan's  to  Cato  ;  nor,  according  to  my  own  judgment, 
one  so  entirely  misplaced.  One  solitary  individual,  in  his  single 
person,  is  made  to  counterpoise  by  weight  of  auctontas  and 
power  of  sanction  the  entire  Pantheon.  The  Julian  cause  might 
have  seemed  the  better,  for  it  won  the  favor  of  Heaven.  But 
no.  The  Pompeian  must  have  been  the  better,  for  it  won  the 
favor  of  Cato. 

Note  50.    Page  559. 

And  in  fact  not  merely  liable  to  be  set  aside,  but  actually  set 
aside  in  1 660  by  the  Restoration.  This  reversal  was  again  par- 
tially reversed,  or  at  least  to  a  great  extent  virtually  reversed, 
by  the  Revolution  of  1688-9  :  upon  which  great  event  the  true 
judgment  too  little  perceived  by  English  historians,  is,  that,  for 
the  most  part,  it  was  a  rieaffirmation  of  the  principles  contended 
for  by  the  Long  Parliament  in  the  Parliamentary  War.  But 
this  final  verdict  Milton  did  not  live  to  see,  or  even  dimly  to 
anticipate. 

Note  51.   Page  561. 

"  The  hero  of  the  horrid  narrativeP  —  Horrid  it  certainly 
is  ;  and  one  incident  in  every  case  gives  a  demoniacal  aii 
of  coolness  to  the  hellish  atrocities  —  viz.,  the  regular  for- 
warding of  the  hheels^  or  gravediggers.  But  else  the  tale 
tends  too  much  to  monotony,  and  for  a  reason  which 
ought  to  have  checked  the  author  in  carrying  on  the  work 
to  three  volumes  —  namely,  that,  although  there  is  much 
dramatic  variety  in  the  circumstances  of  the  several  cases, 
there  is  none  in  the  catastrophes.  The  brave  man  and  the 
coward,  the  erect  spirit  fighting  to  the  last  and  the  poor 
creature  that  despairs  from  the  first,  —  all  are  confounded  in 
one  undistinguishing  end  by  sudden  strangulation.  This 
41 


642 


NOTES. 


was  the  original  defect  of  the  plan.  The  sudden  surprise 
and  the  scientific  noosing  as  with  a  Chilian  lasso  consti- 
tuted in  fact  a  main  feature  of  Thuggee;  but  still  the 
gradual  theatrical  arrangement  of  each  Thug  severally  by 
the  side  of  a  victim  must  often  have  roused  violent  sus- 
picion, and  that  in  time  to  intercept  the  suddenness  of  the 
murder.  Now,  for  the  sake  of  the  dramatic  effect,  this  in- 
terception ought  more  often  to  have  been  introduced,  else 
the  murders  are  but  so  many  blind  surprises  as  if  in  sleep. 

Note  52.   Page  565. 

Since  this  was  first  written,  Haydon  the  painter,  in  his  Auto- 
biography [1.  p.  76],  refers  to  this  ancient  superstition  in  terms 
which  I  have  reason  to  think  inaccurate:  "  She"  (his  mother) 
"  appeared  depressed  and  melancholy.  During  the  journey,  four 
magpies  rose,  chattered,  and  flew  away.  The  singular  supersti- 
tions about  the  bird  v/ere  remembered  by  us  all.  I  repeated  to 
myself  the  old  saw  —  *  One  for  sorrow,  two  for  mirth,  three  for  a 
wedding,  and  four  for  death.'  I  tried  to  deceive  my  dear  muther, 
by  declaring  that  two  were  for  death,  and  four  for  mirth  ;  but  she 
persisted  that  four  announced  death  in  Devonshire  ;  and  absurd 
as  we  felt  it  to  be,  we  could  not  shake  otf  the  superstition." 
About  three  o'clock  in  the  succeeding  night  Mrs.  Haydon  died. 
Meantime,  whatever  may  be  the  Devonshire  version  of  the  old 
saying,  I  am  assured  by  a  lady  that  the  form  current  elsewhere 
is  this :  — 

One  for  sorrow; 

Two  for  mirth; 
Three  for  a  wedding; 
And  four  for  a  birth." 
And  it  is  clear  that  the  rhyme  in  the  latter  reading  offers  some 
guarantee  for  its  superior  accuracy. 

Note  53.    Page  567. 

"  There  are  in  EnglandP  —  Especially  in  Somersetshire, 
dnd  for  twenty  miles  round  Wrington,  the  birthplace  of 
Locke.    Nobody  sinks  for  wells  without  their  advice.  We 


NOTES. 


643 


ourselves  knew  an  amiable  and  accomplished  Scottish 
family,  who,  at  an  estate  called  Belmadrothie,  in  memory 
of  a  similar  property  in  Ross-shire,  built  a  house  in  Somer- 
setshire, and  resolved  to  find  water  without  help  from  the 
jowser ;  but  after  sinking  to  a  greater  depth  than  ever  had 
been  known  before,  and  spending  nearly  two  hundred 
pounds,  they  were  finally  obliged  to  consult  the  jowser, 
who  found  water  at  once. 


Note  54.   Page  568. 

Mahmood  of  Ghizni,  which,  under  the  European  name 
of  Ghaznee,  was  so  recently  taken  in  one  hour  by  our  In- 
dian army  under  Lord  Keane.  Mahmood  was  the  first 
Mahometan  invader  of  Hindostan. 


Note  55.    Page  575. 

"  Is  as  much  entitled  to  a  fair  valuation^  under  the  laws  of 
induction^  as  if  it  had  been  more  probable  beforehand^  — 
One  of  the  cases  which  Laplace  notices  as  entitled  to  a 
grave  consideration,  but  which  would  most  assuredly  be 
treated  as  a  trivial  phenomenon,  unworthy  of  attention,  by 
commonplace  spectators,  is  when  a  run  of  success,  with 
no  apparent  cause,  takes  place  on  heads  or  tails,  (jpile  ou 
croix.)  Most  people  dismiss  such  a  case  as  pure  accident ; 
but  Laplace  insists  on  its  being  duly  valued  as  a  fact, 
however  unaccountable  as  an  effect.  So  again,  if,  in  a 
large  majority  of  experiences  like  those  of  Lord  Lindsay's 
oarty  in  the  desert,  death  should  follow,  such  a  phenome- 
non is  as  well  entitled  to  its  separate  valuation  as  any 
other. 


644 


NOTES. 


Note  56.    Page  578. 

"  Because  that  idea  is  so  peculiarly  Christian^*  —  One  rea- 
son, additional  to  the  main  one,  why  the  idea  of  a  ghost 
could  not  be  conceived  or  reproduced  by  paganism,  lies  in 
the  fourfold  resolution  of  the  human  nature  at  death  —  viz., 
I.  corpus;  2.  manes;  3.  spirit  us ;  4.  anima.  No  rever- 
sionary consciousness,  no  restitution  of  the  total  nature, 
sentient  and  active,  was  thus  possible.  Pliny  has  a  story 
which  looks  like  a  ghost  story;  but  it  is  all  moonshine  —  a 
mere  simulacrum. 

Note  57.   Page  580. 

Like  Fort  wine  superannuated^  the  sibylline  booirs  had 
lost  their  flavor  and  their  bodyP  —  There  is  an  allegoric  de- 
scription in  verse,  by  Mr.  Rogers,  of  an  icehouse,  in  which 
winter  is  described  as  a  captive,  &c.,  which  is  memorable 
on  this  account  —  that  a  brother  poet,  on  reading  the  pas- 
sage, mistook  it,  (from  not  understanding  the  allegorical 
expressions,)  either  sincerely  or  maliciously,  for  a  descrip- 
tion of  the  housedog.  Now,  this  little  anecdote  seems  to 
imbody  the  poor  sibyPs  history :  from  a  stern,  icy  sover- 
eign, with  a  petrific  mace,  she  lapsed  into  an  old,  toothless 
mastiff.  She  continued  to  snore  in  her  ancient  kennel  for 
above  a  thousand  years.  The  last  person  who  attempted 
to  stir  her  up  with  a  long  pole,  and  to  extract  from  her 
paralytic  dreaming  some  growls  or  snarls  against  Chris- 
tianity, was  Aurelian,  in  a  moment  of  public  panic.  But 
the  thing  was  past  all  tampering ;  the  poor  creature  could 
neither  be  kicked  nor  coaxed  into  vitality. 

Note  58.    Page  582. 

By  the  way,  it  seems  quite  impossible  for  the  stern  and  uncoiv 
ditional  skeptic  upon  all  modes  of  supernatural  communication 
to  reconcile  his  own  opinions  with  the  cir-cumstantial  report  of 


NOTES. 


645 


Henry^s  last  hours,  as  gathered  from  Sully  and  others.  That 
he  was  profoundly  sensible  of  the  danger  that  brooded  over  his 
person,  is  past  all  denying ;  now,  whence  was  this  sense  de- 
rived ? 

Note  59.    Page  593. 

Esse,  to  eat :  —  The  reader,  who  may  chance  to  be  no  great 
scholar  as  regards  Latin,  will  yet  perhaps  be  aware  of  this 
meaning  attached  of  old  to  the  verb  Esse,  from  a  Latin  enigma 
current  amongst  school-boys,  viz.,  Pes  est  caput,  which  at  first 
sight  seems  to  say  that  the  foot  is  the  head ;  but  in  the  true  vers 
sion  means  —  Pes  [in  its  secondary  sense,  the  same  as  Pediculu$ 
—  an  insect  not  to  be  named]  est,  eats—    xput,  the  head. 


i 


i 

I 


